Dear friends,
First of all I apologize in advance for any possible forum rules violations of mine. This is my first post!
This is a strange story (maybe not so strange for people more expert than me) I would like to get Your comments about.
During the ‘strong’ phase of the pandemy one of my old AR91’s died and wanting to give myself a present in that sad situation, given the plenty of good reviews on the net, I took the risk of buying a pair of used Turnberry SEs without listening to them before.
They arrived like-new in their original packages, not even waxed, no sign of use/intrusion!
I connected to my amp and listened … terrible! A dull, boomy, muddy sound I could only slightly improve with the help of a good 5 bands parametric EQ.
I am old but my doctor says I just have a slight loss from 5 Khz. Other younger people listened to the speakers and had the same sensation. I tried different positions, rooms, amplifiers (SS, PP Tube, Class A ss) ….. no improvement!
After 2 months of readings and tests I disconnected the tweeter’s plug and paralleled the medium bass with a couple of ‘poor’ (but stylish) Grundig ‘satellites’ from the 70’s I had just restored. They have a nominal 400 to 20.000 Hz range.
The sound immediately opened, even with the limits of such drivers.
Next I connected the Tannoy’s high freq. driver with a handwired copy of the original Tannoy filter (a simple RC cell) and fed it with a 1 Khz, 1 Vpp sine signal from my generator.
I got only a very very feeble output. Same behaviour for both drivers (left and right). I also checked the Tannoy filter cap (2.2 uF film), capacity is ok, ESR near 0.
In desperation (Tannoy driver burnt?) I started paralleling the Tannoy RC cell cap with some bipolars I have, increasing the resulting value. As far as I know this should lower the cut frequency of the cell.
With 6.6 uF total capacity vs. the original 2.2 uF I mounted back the drivers in their cases.
…… The sound is, let’s say, 10 times better than before, voice is clear, highs are brilliant. Even if the general impressioni is obviously of some unbalance, I perceive the general quality of this loudspeaker. I am now starting to test different cap values to find the best compromise. My Eq will could the rest I hope.
Some of You can explain ? Burnt drivers should give, I think, more serious symptoms than low output level. The 2.2 RC cell cap seems to be the standard for Tannoy Turnberries. Both loudspeakers behave the same way. Maybe this was an experimental series of Tannoy drivers ? a market-specific configuration? what can be reasons for such a defective (for me but not only for me) behaviour ?
Thanks for Your kind suggestions and opinions
Manlio
First of all I apologize in advance for any possible forum rules violations of mine. This is my first post!
This is a strange story (maybe not so strange for people more expert than me) I would like to get Your comments about.
During the ‘strong’ phase of the pandemy one of my old AR91’s died and wanting to give myself a present in that sad situation, given the plenty of good reviews on the net, I took the risk of buying a pair of used Turnberry SEs without listening to them before.
They arrived like-new in their original packages, not even waxed, no sign of use/intrusion!
I connected to my amp and listened … terrible! A dull, boomy, muddy sound I could only slightly improve with the help of a good 5 bands parametric EQ.
I am old but my doctor says I just have a slight loss from 5 Khz. Other younger people listened to the speakers and had the same sensation. I tried different positions, rooms, amplifiers (SS, PP Tube, Class A ss) ….. no improvement!
After 2 months of readings and tests I disconnected the tweeter’s plug and paralleled the medium bass with a couple of ‘poor’ (but stylish) Grundig ‘satellites’ from the 70’s I had just restored. They have a nominal 400 to 20.000 Hz range.
The sound immediately opened, even with the limits of such drivers.
Next I connected the Tannoy’s high freq. driver with a handwired copy of the original Tannoy filter (a simple RC cell) and fed it with a 1 Khz, 1 Vpp sine signal from my generator.
I got only a very very feeble output. Same behaviour for both drivers (left and right). I also checked the Tannoy filter cap (2.2 uF film), capacity is ok, ESR near 0.
In desperation (Tannoy driver burnt?) I started paralleling the Tannoy RC cell cap with some bipolars I have, increasing the resulting value. As far as I know this should lower the cut frequency of the cell.
With 6.6 uF total capacity vs. the original 2.2 uF I mounted back the drivers in their cases.
…… The sound is, let’s say, 10 times better than before, voice is clear, highs are brilliant. Even if the general impressioni is obviously of some unbalance, I perceive the general quality of this loudspeaker. I am now starting to test different cap values to find the best compromise. My Eq will could the rest I hope.
Some of You can explain ? Burnt drivers should give, I think, more serious symptoms than low output level. The 2.2 RC cell cap seems to be the standard for Tannoy Turnberries. Both loudspeakers behave the same way. Maybe this was an experimental series of Tannoy drivers ? a market-specific configuration? what can be reasons for such a defective (for me but not only for me) behaviour ?
Thanks for Your kind suggestions and opinions
Manlio