A little
background - Several years ago I got interested in the Tannoy Prestige Line,
and after reading everything I could find determined that the Kensington was
the model that would best suit my needs on several levels. But there was nowhere to audition them. I was not going to spend that kind of money
blind (even used), so I decided to try the Turnberry’s first. If I liked them, maybe I would keep them, or
move up later. That’s where I am today,
and fortunately I am currently able to have both in my system for
comparison.
Everything I could find (mostly snippets)
on this subject went something like “…the AlNiCo/pepperpot models [Kensington
and above] are superior to the lower models”, or “…the higher end Prestige
models are more refined.” And often
times there were just blanket statements that the Kensingtons and above were
just ‘better.’ But otherwise there
didn’t seem to be much available on what was behind those conclusions. The consensus of professional and online
Reviews of the Turnberry seem to put it in the “great value for money speaker
to get you close to the Kensington, but not quite to that level” (my
paraphrase). So it has been of great
interest to me to find out what the differences were between these two speakers
firsthand.
BUILD
I am going
to skip most of the specs and details of these speakers, which are available
online. A few things stuck out though
that caught my attention. First, while
the Kensington’s are only about 20 lbs. (~25%) heavier than the Turnberrys (and
some of which is the driver), the overall “substantiality” of the speakers is
much greater than 20 lbs would seem to offer.
The knuckle test yields a much denser cabinet than the Turnberry. Fit n’ finish is much better. The Turnberrys have to be waxed whereas the
Kensington’s do not and the veneer/finish is nicer (both speakers are veneered
on the bottoms of the cabinets, which I thought was interesting). The grill lock on the Turnberry is a key,
whereas on the Kensington is pretty cool – it is a little knob (same that is
used in the front-side treble adjustment terminals for both speakers) that
screws in to the back of the speaker when not in use, and then when you want to
unlock the grill you just take it out of the back and screw it in to the grill
to extract it (I did not see this feature anywhere on reviews). You could misplace the keys for the
Turnberry. The jumpers for the Kensington
are of a better quality. Overall, you
can see the greater expense in most facets of the Kensington. One potential downside, the Kensingtons (being
taller, narrower, and having a higher placed and heavier driver) have a higher
center of gravity and will tip over more easily (especially on carpets, to
include spiked) – this was something that was important to me having small
kids, and that I did not consider before I purchased the Kensington’s. If you get behind them and tip them forward
about 20 degrees they start to fall.
SOUND
First test –
Kensington out of the box (not broken in).
Not a great “apples to apples” comparison but I thought it was very
interesting, since not only could I compare them before and after break in, but
get some way to measure how substantial the break in was (given the Turnberry
was a control for the experiment, having already been used for over a year). Having gone through speaker break-in before,
I expected (and got) the lack of bass, diffuse (or lack of) sound staging, and
overall constipation. I won’t go
through each track for each speaker but give some overall impressions. Both speakers treble controls were set to “level”. Tracks used: Clapton “Unplugged: Malted
Milk”, Jane Monheit Taking a Chance on Love: “In the Still of the Night”, Mel
Torme A Vintage Year: “Out of this World”, Jean Guillou (organ) “Pictures at an
Exhibition: “”Gnomus”, Jennifer Warnes
Famous Blue Raincoat: “Ballad of the Runaway Horse” and a few others. Equipment Sony Hap-1EZ feeding Luxman L-550AX,
wires Audioquest and DH Labs (nothing fancy).
Room: 21 x 13.5 x 8 feet with one short (13.5’) end half open to another
room. Position was about 3.5 feet from
the back wall and 2-4 feet from the sidewalls, with each pair having an inside
and an outside position (the pairs were staggered so each speaker was about the
same distance from its twin and the listening chair). The only adjustment I had to make was to move
the chair laterally about 1 foot when changing speakers. I would also lower my head for the Turnberrys
to try to hear both speakers at the same level referenced to the center of the
driver. Since the Luxman has A&B
speaker outputs, I was able to switch back and forth between each speaker
during music playback.
Overall the Turnberry was much more open
and had better soundstaging and bass, which I assumed was mostly attributable
to being broken in as compared to the Kensington. But, withstanding the break-in, the
Kensington seemed more natural (for example, in the Torme and Warnes the voices
seemed chestier and more nasally, respectively, with the Turnberry; the
Kensington sounded more natural (having heard these recordings many times in
different systems), and Warnes’ voice had more inner-textures noticeable). I also came away with a very convincing
difference in overall tonality. The
Turnberrys seemed drier sounding, and had a more pronounced lower-midrange. Also, the Kensingtons seemed more natural,
and tighter, or more of a piece top to bottom (of the frequency range). On the Guillou “Pictures”, the weight of the
pedal notes was about the same between the two speakers but the Turnberry had
more pitch definition. On the Monheit,
there is a part where she sings a note on the “oo” syllable very loudly and the
Turnberry had a little ringing (shoutiness?) as compared to the Kensington. I had heard people refer to the Kensington
midrange as “sweet” and I definitely started hearing it here in the portrayal
of her voice via the Kensingtons. For
the highs (I wanted to see if there was much to say about the two different
tweeters) I picked a good piano recording (Reference Recordings/Joel Fan) as
well as a Vivaldi Four Seasons (Gil Shaham/Orpheus, DG) recording that is
otherwise great but has somewhat hot treble.
There was noticeable difference between the two speakers in this area. With the piano recording on the Turnberrys
the high notes (and high frequencies) seemed slightly truncated, whereas the
Kensington again sounded more natural.
The violin on the Vivaldi was even more enlightening. This recording can be irritating with poor
electronics or speakers. With the
Turnberry the aggressive highs were less noticeable, and there was the portion
of the hot treble that was noticeable in the lower frequencies of that
range. Whereas the Kensington’s
highlighted the whole sonic picture that I was familiar with in that recording.
On the Torme a slight sibilance (‘s’ or ‘t’
words) was noticeable on the Turnberry that was absent in the Kensington.
Second Test –
1 Month Later. At this point the
Kensington’s had a good 25-30 hours (not just listening but brown noise pumped
through them at louder levels some days when I left the house). Also, for this test I set both speakers up
using the “Golden ratio” distances (available on Cardas’ website), putting the
speakers about 6’ from the front wall.
Instead of staggering the pairs, I listened to one (with all the same
tracks), moved them out and then put in the other pair and listened again. The
effect of break-in on the Kensington was very apparent, although I think they
still have a way to go. The Turnberrys
were still a bit more open than the Kensingtons but were now about equal on
bass quality and soundstaging. On the
Clapton, whereas in test one the Kensington had a more natural quality and was
more balanced top to bottom (the lower midrange on the Turnberry was
prominent), now after having broke in the Kensington emerged as an even much
more natural sounding speaker, with nothing sticking out, and having fantastic
detail. The Turnberry sounded good but
not as balanced or detailed (and still drier).
On the Torme the difference in sibilance remained the same. On the Warnes, the Bass (fiddle) notes sounded
more realistic on the Kensingtons than I ever remembered hearing them before,
so much so that it surprised me. Now the
inner textures on the Kensington were even that much more noticeable, and they
had more natural timbre. Instruments and
voices were prettier. In test one my
notes on the Torme (get this recording if you don’t have it!) said “very
natural but not as pretty as I have heard it.”
(The “prettiest” I had ever heard it (and subsequently became a favorite
recording) was when I had the Harbeth SHL5 paired with a Rowland Concerto – Magic!). On this second test I was now hearing
something very close to what I remembered. The “sweet” midrange was evident again,
especially as compared to the drier Turnberry, but it was nothing that seemed
unnatural or out of place. On Dianna
Krall’s rendition of “’S Wonderful” I happened to being playing I was surprised
to hear the cymbal work and other percussion throughout the piece much more
natural than I had recalled ever hearing it, to include in timbre but also
detail and making sense of all of it.
Bass quantity remained about the same but bass quality had improved in
the Kensington.
TUBES vs
SOLID STATE
On another
post I will compare the Luxman with my Vintage McIntosh C22/MC240 combo. For these tests it was much easier to use the
solid state equipment. But I did make
some interesting observations while playing with the tubes here and there over
the last couple months. This is a very
subjective and non-scientific conclusion, but it seemed to me that the
Turnberry’s overall worked better with the Solid State, and the McIntosh when
played through the Turnberrys did not seem to sound much different or much
better in any way (and in all cases the bass in the Luxman is far superior to
the McIntosh). But for whatever reason
the Kensingtons sounded great with each, and in some ways seemed to prefer the
tubes. Not sure how to describe it, but
perhaps a better holographic soundstage and presentation/delineation of inner
textures.
CONCLUSIONS
Obviously I
had some expectation bias going in to this (i.e., that the Kensington would
best the Turnberry), and I confirmed it with these tests. So you can take some of these conclusions
with that grain of salt.
Like most
comparisons in audio, once some kind of difference can be identified (for
better or worse) between similar components there is always the lingering
question of magnitude, which brings up the law of diminishing returns,
etc. I have extensively A-B’d CD players
in various systems and found those differences to be very slight, even between
pricier and cheaper models. If that
represented an otherwise arbitrary 1% difference in my world, then to put the
differences between these two speakers in perspective I would say it is about
15%. That does not mean the Kensingtons
are 15% better by my way of thinking, just that the magnitude of how noticeable
the differences are is somewhat significant, but not earth shaking. Overall, the Turnberry’s have a drier
tonality (I never previously used the term “Wet” in my thinking about a speaker,
but somehow it seems appropriate for the Kensington, though it’s hard to
describe what that means other than it is the opposite of dry (!), but without
any unnatural or annoying facets to it).
The Kensingtons offer slightly better detail. Right now they are rolling off right at 40 Hz
(using the Radio Shack SPL meter and Stereophile Test CD 2) at 6’ from the
front wall, so given the published measurements they may offer a bit more bass
as they break in more; but right now the two speakers are about equal in the
bass department. Both speakers are
fantastic for listening to heavy classical music without strain, but like
everything else the Kensington offered even more impressive performance on that
level too (my test on that aspect was the Telarc SACD of Vaughan Williams “Sea
Symphony”). Both are also great at low
listening levels. The Turnberrys are
still more open (less congested) at this point in the Kensington’s break
in. My conclusions are based on the
assumption that at some point the Kensingtons will at least match them in this
regard. If that wasn’t true, then I
would be very disappointed, because the Turnberrys are great in that
regard. (I’ll follow up on that point in
the future).
The
Turnberrys are great speakers and I could live with them without much
regret. The musicality of both speakers
is very high. The superior attributes of
the Kensington do offer perhaps some additional enjoyment. I have no doubt they will continue to break in
and perhaps yield some more favorable characteristics once they have fully
opened up. I would definitely recommend
either speaker to anyone and further, one or the other, based on their tastes,
budget, electronics, and room. I labeled
this as a ‘partial’ review because I was only going to compare the two against
each other and not go on about how they sound or how great they are (you can
read the available reviews for that).
But I did want to mention two pluses for prospective owners that may not
be obvious, both based on room placement.
Unlike a lot of speakers, if you can not have an ideal room set up
(getting the speakers far away from the walls), these are very easy to place
and really don’t sound bad anywhere, being front ported and having excellent
dispersion. The second aspect of
placement is that, given the dual concentric design, while not –the- sweet spot,
you can listen from any angle or anywhere in the room and they still sound
great, sometimes even having a central image while sitting well outside the
lateral edge of the pair. Lastly, while amplification is important,
these are pretty ‘unfussy’ speakers.
I’m a fan.
For me for quite a long time my destination speakers were either the
Harbeth Monitor 40s or the Tannoy Kensington.
I plan to stay here for a while.
