Amfibius
the Tannoys I heard were all driven with Cary amplification
Hmmm - Cary makes exceptional equipment, but you do need a aweful lot of juice(amps) to drive the speakers you mentioned.
However, it sounds more like the it was the setup and surroundings that added the "color" and not the equipment.
The rooms that most dealers setup for audition purposes are no more than somewhere you can listen to music undisturbed.
The ceilings are too high, the materials on the walls are inadequate, but the biggest offense by far, which is also the easiest to remedy, is Speaker Placement.
Each Sspeaker perform differently, but retailers place them all in a similar position and more often than not, they are only 6 ft apart - WRONG!
I spent a lot of time on placement and now have what I consider a very neutral sound
My quick rules of thumb for "Normal" or "Box" speakers are:
1. For placement from sidewalls
- I use the 1/nth principal
- place the speaker (i.e. the centre of the driver) in from the side wall 1/nth the width of the room - where n is an odd number
- The distance does not have to be the same for each speaker
e.g. 1/5th for left and 1/7th for left works also
2. for placement from the back wall:
- Front ported speakers - Minimum 1 ft from the back wall
- Rear/bottom ported - minimum 3 ft from the back wall
3. For Toe in - I start by adjusting the speaker to focus the sound 3 ft behind the listening position - i.e. when seated I can just see the inside surface of both speakers (assuming they are rectangular and not one of the new shapes)
Once you have an initial setup, play with it until you get the best sound
For Electrostatics - they like to be "free Standing" so you'll need a LARGE room to get the best out of them. The best I've heard to date were a pair of Magnapan's situated in a 20ft x 14ft room along the long wall - 4 ft from the Back to the wall and 5ft in from the sides - they were about 10ft apart and they were completely transparent.
My front ported Tannoy Mercury 4's are about 14 inches from the rear wall (to the back of the speaker) an my rear ported Magnat's are 3ft from the rear wall - any closer than that and the image becomes confused and the bass starts to get muddy and loses all of that nice detail
Also the Magnat's are very sensitive to Toe-in and can also lose detail and image if not set just right.
The Tannoy's are not helped by the TV being located between them, but they perform admirably under the circumstances.
But the worst speaker I have seen for placement recently is the new Ninka from Linn.
According to the Linn Rep:
- They MUST be only 1ft from the Back wall
- No toe-in
- Between 6-7ft apart
- have nothing in between them
Even after the correct setup, I was NOT impressed by the sound. Pitty! - I've always been a huge fan of their product - up until now that is.
Regards...
