tannoy5

Overall Rating
 4 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
have had this speaker for about 1 1/2 Yrs.
I have been looking for something to replace my Tannoy System 10 that while they are great speakers, I was getting tired to the metal tweeter in the tannoys.
Plus because the Tannoys are made for mixing, they are very in your face about bad sounding mix's.

So I could not enjoy alot of less then steller recordings.
The Tannoys only sound great with Very good recordings !
Got the Proac Studio 140 and am very happy with them.

Up to a point.

They strike a good balance of that in your face strong sound yet not crossing over the line to where it becomes overwhelming with Bad recordings.
But they still are picky about what you feed them.
So How do they sound....Very good but not perfect ...what speaker is ?

The Bass is good but not that deep as with the Tannoys. Its a smaller sound because of the
6 1/2" woofer Vs. the Tannoys 10"
So the Proac's get their Bass from the long cabinet so its a bit colored .
This coloration goes in to the mid range just a bit but its not what you think.
You hear this coloration with Cellos and lower strings. Its a nice coloration that's very musical where as the Tannoys are more like "Black and white sound" where any color be it musical or not gets in the way of the clarity of the sound
( Think of a Black and White secretary monitor Vs. a color one.)
To see the most, you need to look with black and white where as the color gets in the way of the picture. Your not going for real life picture here.. your going for seeing the most detail clearly.

So is the same with Studio Monitors .
They are void of color but will only sound good with good mixes.
But we live in the real world here and most CD suck sound wise.
I don't want a stereo where all I can enjoy is good sounding recordings I want to enjoy my music be it good mix or bad.

On to the mid range...Very good from 100 hz up
very life like vocals and horn sounds .

Treble,,here's where it gets tricky.

You see the Tannoy is a dual concentric design where the tweeter is in side of the woofer.
So you have a one point source for sound where as the Poac is a conventional design .
When you get used to a single point sound source nothing sounds correct again.

The imaging with single sound source is amazing and coherent like nothing else.
This alone would keep me for ever happy with them.

The tweeter is much smoother sounding yet at times can be a bit overbearing with recordings with too much high freq. content.
And they don't image as good as the tannoys.
( But if you never heard the tannoys then you would think they image great )

And they do just not as perfectly in focus as the tannoys

So its a sound that you have to accept.
If any thing I would want to turn down the tweeter 1 -2 db on some recordings.
I suspect the designers did this to bring out the detail in the music.
Ear Candy so to speak. to get your attention.
But the Tannoys are worse on Bad recordings.

One thing the the Proac do that the Tannoys do not is PLAY THE MUSIC better.
The micro dynamics that make music interesting
and exciting are there with the Proac's

They also work well with as little as 20 watts.
But I still like 90 watts tube better.

But over all a satisfying speaker for lots of styles of Music.
Not for Bass Heads !!
Bass sould be a bit stronger /deeper but I use a sub to fill it out.

Price Paid:  $2800.00 from gross.com.ua

Summary:
These are great speakers and very underpriced for floor speakers. Anyone who says they don't have enough bass isn't driving them hard enough. You get a decent amp on these speakers and drive them hard enough they WILL give out some nice bass.

Strengths:
Great clarity,excellent highs and lows, and an affordable price.

Weaknesses:
I personally havent found any yet.

Similar Products Used:
ProAc Studio 100
Sony SS MF-515

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