Those were the cheap ones then. The westminster royals are £24k.
Should I ever win the lottery and get a house with an oak paneled drawing room I would consider a pair!
I agree with that only up to a point. The B&W 802 are not the best sounding speaker, and looking at the measurements it can easily be verified what causes this. Never heard the Watts, but they have measured issues as well.
The issues are both with FR as with directivity control. In the case of the 802, that big yellow disc is too large for seamless integration with the tweeter.
It is not a tweeter but a horn diaphragm. I am presently changing the surround on a pair of K3838's I have been listening to for years, until they became surpassed by my own builds. Might be selling the pair once they are refurbished.
You can see his reasoning, but then there are temporal issues that unfortunately matter to how it sounds.
Paul Klipsch was a brilliant, educated engineer who was friendly to audio, but stubborn to the point of losing his credibility over certain issues.
I first met Paul Klipsch when he came to the hi fi store that I worked in at the time in 1965 or so. He would always take us to lunch, and we were in awe of him. He flew his own plane in those days as well. This is how I first came to love and ultimately purchase the K-horns that I used for years. On some music they could do no wrong. They were pretty good in mono too. They did best in big symphony music especially in mono. YET, there was something wrong with them, hard to know at first what it was exactly, but I used one and then two for more than a decade.
A few years later, in 1968, I first met Richard Heyser at an AES convention in Hollywood, and he and I got together with Paul Klipsch up in his hotel room to have a couple of shots of his Kentucky whiskey that he brought to the show. We were great colleagues. Both Richard and I had a mono setup with a K-horn and we thought it the most 'hi end' hi fi speaker available at the time. HOWEVER, Richard Heyser was working on time delay arrival times in loudspeakers, and he gave his first big paper on that, with Paul and I both in the audience. After the paper was given, Paul Klipsch actually got up and protested. He really did! You see, Paul was 'overeducated' in what the human ear could and could NOT do. He was taught in university and with some added research from Bell Labs and such that the ear was PHASE DEAF. Yes, it was the common belief at the time.
And like the child who could see that the emperor had no clothes, many found that this belief was mostly unfounded, but not everybody. It was then known as 'OHM's LAW OF ACOUSTICS' Yes, and who was going to argue with OHM?
For years Paul Kipsch fought against time delay being important in loudspeakers, and later, when equally good speakers in most ways were developed, but were also 'time aligned', people preferred them to a K-horn, especially for stereo reproduction. And the rest is history.
I first met Paul Klipsch when he came to the hi fi store that I worked in at the time in 1965 or so. He would always take us to lunch, and we were in awe of him. He flew his own plane in those days as well. This is how I first came to love and ultimately purchase the K-horns that I used for years. On some music they could do no wrong. They were pretty good in mono too. They did best in big symphony music especially in mono. YET, there was something wrong with them, hard to know at first what it was exactly, but I used one and then two for more than a decade.
A few years later, in 1968, I first met Richard Heyser at an AES convention in Hollywood, and he and I got together with Paul Klipsch up in his hotel room to have a couple of shots of his Kentucky whiskey that he brought to the show. We were great colleagues. Both Richard and I had a mono setup with a K-horn and we thought it the most 'hi end' hi fi speaker available at the time. HOWEVER, Richard Heyser was working on time delay arrival times in loudspeakers, and he gave his first big paper on that, with Paul and I both in the audience. After the paper was given, Paul Klipsch actually got up and protested. He really did! You see, Paul was 'overeducated' in what the human ear could and could NOT do. He was taught in university and with some added research from Bell Labs and such that the ear was PHASE DEAF. Yes, it was the common belief at the time.
And like the child who could see that the emperor had no clothes, many found that this belief was mostly unfounded, but not everybody. It was then known as 'OHM's LAW OF ACOUSTICS' Yes, and who was going to argue with OHM?
For years Paul Kipsch fought against time delay being important in loudspeakers, and later, when equally good speakers in most ways were developed, but were also 'time aligned', people preferred them to a K-horn, especially for stereo reproduction. And the rest is history.
I have a pair of 12" Tannoy's (HPD12) and they are an amazing speaker, the imaging is excellent, the dynamics are also very good, the frequency response, not so much. A very fun loudspeaker to listen to, very pleasant experience, not neutral.
Alan
Alan
Another PWK story: Paul used to say that, when cutting wires for speakers and not knowing the exact length needed, to cut the wires a little short. After all, you can always add on a piece, but if you cut them too long, what are you going to do?
All good fortune,
Chris
All good fortune,
Chris
We use several pair of the HPD 15" coaxials for reference. Not perfect,
but well worth the effort.
😎
I think you are right Bill - maybe they were more like $20k - they were huge and exceedingly retro which is perhaps why when the guy it the play button on the CD player I was quite startled. Kind of like the image of a pot bellied 65 year old putting on some running shoes and doing a sub 4 😀
But at that point the reference to Ohms law was purely an analogy, the science of acoustics was still in a formative stage certainly no laws.
This Tannoy thing is something that has completely escaped me my entire life, never saw/listened to one don't have a clue about how they sound.
Me neither. My favorite (but unaffordable) speaker is the Nearfield Acoustics Pipedreams. They got it all, for a price more than my house.
Much thanks, as always,
Chris
Much thanks, as always,
Chris
It was the Tannoy 'Westminster Royal' that I heard
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&r...A5kGSs7i2Goqf-Rm1obmDwcQ&ust=1458598919732186
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&r...A5kGSs7i2Goqf-Rm1obmDwcQ&ust=1458598919732186
Only once (hifi show) heard their classic horn models. Can't say it over excited me, but shows rarely do. Like the JBL everest range main market is Japan where they love 99dB/W speakers driven by 2W amplifiers in rooms with paper walls.
And of course they represent a Britain that only existed in fiction!
For me the usual horn poop probably.
Are you sure about that? They do look like tea and cucumber sandwiches at a cricket match.
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Scott, I am no particular fan of Tannoy, but over the years I have heard quite a few of their models, mostly low and mid priced ones. When they put their mind down to it, they can make some VERY serious speakers. What I have not heard was a Tannoy speaker which waqs barely so-so. With them, you get what you pay for, perhaps you can find that kind of sound elsewhere for less money, but you are not ripped off. Although the latest crop of small speakers may not be as exciting as the bigger models. I wouldn't neccessarily reccomend them straight off, but I'd always advise not to miss auditioning them.
Exactly what shocked you, Andrew? Using a cassette deck? Or perhaps a quality and price mismatch between the deck and the speakers?
As an owner of an open reel tape deck, one or another, 1964-1995, I scoffed at them, until I really took an interest and started to listen. I soon discovered that there are casette decks which are good enough to give open reels a run for their money, and as those were the days of the end of open reel decks, I actually bought a Sony TC-K 808 ES cassette deck. Using metal tapes, it's up to the standards of an open reel runnung at 7.5 ips.
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