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Showing posts with label Tannoy C-6. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tannoy C-6. Show all posts

Thursday, August 11, 2016

Tannoy Mercury M20 Gold Speakers

Another wonderful pair of Tannoy speakers arrived this week, the Tannoy Mercury M20 Gold speakers. These are a bit more of a consumer friendly version of the dual concentric line or the Oxford line. Offering a veneer cabinet with a dome tweeter as opposed to the horn tweeter which reveals so much more detail.





Much smaller than the Tannoy Oxford Golds, which are my main reference speaker on the tube amp and larger than the Tannoy Mercury M2, which seem to be a modern (late80's early 90's) version of these.

I personally like the esthetics of these speakers and the driver quality is pretty good for a entry level price point Tannoy speaker.

These are the original made in Scotland units and not the licensed units that API had put out in the "C" series here and here.

So how do they stack up? Great bass response from the ported enclosure with  he 8" polypropylene woofer, mid range is nice and smooth and the tweeter does a great job as any dome will do if not even better.

The speakers are not as efficient (90db) as the Oxfords (93db) and not as revealing in the total sense of the music. the sound stage is deeper with the Oxford's and more articulate, hence why the Oxford's are standard to which all other speakers are compared, especially on the tube amp.

These are speakers that other British manufactures had to compete against including numerous Mission, Celestion, B&W, KEF,  JPW and numerous others, the budget audiophile competition was tight in Britain and lucky for me these speakers are here and now and they still sound fantastic.

Tannoy recently announced that they were moving their production from Scotland to China, this will make all Tannoy speaker made in Scotland only rise in value as Chinese manufacturing is notorious for cutting corners and speakers will be made to the lowest common denominator, I know, I have had Mainland Chinese refuse to buy audio gear from me regardless of the brand name if it was made in China, they know.

If you are a budding audiophile just getting into stereo or a die hard high end tube amp guy, Tannoy's are one of the best if not the best (15" Tannoy Gold's) speakers to obtain.

Thursday, November 26, 2015

Tannoy C-10 Speakers

Another set of speakers showed up this week, Canadian made Tannoy C-10, manufactured under license by API, the same makers of Energy, Mirage, Sound Dynamics, ESM, Image, DB Plus, and probably a few more.





These Tannoy's use a 10 inch woofer pair up with a Vifa dome tweeter, the crossover is a simple first cross on the woofer and a second cross to the tweeter. This pair needed a new 6.8uf Solen cap installed as no signal was getting through to the tweeter. New foam surrounds were also installed as the old set had sen their day.

This is my second pair of Canadian made Tannoy's, I had a pair of Tannoy C-6's a few years back.

I am impressed with this Tannoy offering from API, the bottom end is full and with any Vifa tweeter the upper mid range and high end is crisp and clean.

At 92db sensitivity these Tannoy's run well with a tube amp and sound right at home with the rest of my speaker collection. They are non fatiguing with a great open sound stage. the imaging, although not as precise ad the Tannoy Oxford Gold's is pretty good, API really do make good consumer orientated speakers.