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Review 3 of 3
Price Paid:
$190.00
from Free Shop, Dogana, S Summary:
I purchased The Tannoy Fusion 2 after an afternoon of listening at Free Shop, S. Marino, a Magazine with a little but nice HIFI room and very kind personnel who make you listen every equipment they 've got.
I compared Tannoy Fusion 2 with many other speakers: Indiana Line Arbour 530, Klipsch RB 25 ed RB15, KEF IQ1 e Cresta 10, Boston VR1, PolkAudio monitor 50, Chario Silouette 100 Tower, Sonus Faber Concertino, JBL Northridge E60.
When I decide to compare/buy a pair of speaker I generally use 2 self written CD compilations, which contain a selection of very well recorded material spacing from Rock to Classical music, throught Jazz. Here is the list:
CD n° 1:
1) Antonella Vitale – The Island (Audio Records): Love for sale.
2) Dire Straits – On every street (Vertigo): You and your friend.
3) L’Orchestra del XX secolo (Audio Records) Copland: Fanfare for the common man.
4) Debussy – Preludes Volume 1 - Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (Deutsche Grammophon): La cathedrale engloutie.
5) Stravinsky – La Sagra della Primavera (Deutsche Grammophon): Movimento 2
6) Simple Minds - Good News form The New World (Virgin): Hypnotised e Deadly Sins.
7) Joe Jackson - Body and Soul (A&M): You can’t get what you want e The verdict.
8) Poulenc – Il concerto campestre (Deutsche Grammophon).
9) Enya – A Day Without Rain (Reprise): Wild Child.
CD n° 2:
1) Loreena Mc Kennitt – The Book of Secrets (Warner Bros.): Skellig.
2) Smashing Pumpkins – Adore (Caroline): Once Upon a Time.
3) Pink Floyd – The Wall (Harvest): Hey You.
4) Mark Knopfler – Golden Heart (Warner Bros.): Rudiger e Nobody’s got the gun.
5) Dire Straits – Love Over Gold (Vertigo): Telegraph Road
6) The Beatles – Sgt Pepper’s (Apple): With a little help from my friends e Getting Better.
7) Nirvana – Never Mind (Sub Pop): In Bloom
8) Green Day – American Idiot (Reprise): Holiday e Wake up
9) Husker Du – Warehouse, Songs and Stories (Warner Bros.): She Floated Away.
10) Smashing Pumpkins – Greatest Hits (Virgin): Zero.
Well! Tannoy Fusion 2 are affordable reflex speakers, but they are very well constructed with internal reinforcement of the classic but solid MDF cabinet and a great quantity of synthetical cotton-wool to absorb spurious resonances.
The Fusion 2 sounds (IMHO) very very well and their sound is absolutely smooth, with low distortion, sufficiently controlled basses and discrete sensibility (declared 88 db/1W/1m, but I think it's a little inferior, compared with my reference speakers Cizek model one). The Fusion 2 make better if compared with all the other models I listened with the following exceptions:
1) Chario Silouette 100 have a superior mid sound and better transparence.
2) The piano of Michelangeli sounds better with the Klipsch RB 15 and RB 25; it's more clear and "transient". The Tannoy's piano is not bad, but is too much sweet, with no attack and not convincing transient reproduction.
3) Dynamic, but not precision transparency and image of sound, is superior with more sensitive speakers (JBL, Klipsch, Boston).
3) Sonus Faber Concertino are on the same level of Fusion 2, but with a slightly superior sobriety and balance on mid-bass.
Compared at home, with my reference speakers Cizek model one (Classic American Reference Speakers since 1978), the Tannoy shows a moderately reduced image of the sound and a lack of mid-high frequency, whilst the mid-bass are even too evident and the basses are present but not profound.
Tannoy sounds perfectly Pop-Rock like Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler, but also Nirvana, The Beatles, Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day, whilst Stravinsky and Poulenc need a more extended bass a larger dimension of the image to be more realistic. Also Jazz (Antonella Vitale) and Jazz-Pop (Joe Jackson) is well reproduced by Fusion 2 although the comparison with CIzek is inadmissable.
In Conclusion, these are very interesting speakers with a great value for the money. The little defects are completely counterbalanced by low price (many speakers that cost 10 fold the price you'll pay for a pair of Fusion 2 sound worse).
EQUIPMENT USED AT HOME:
1) Pioneer PL 112 D Turntable with Grado Red cartridge and Garrard 62 Turntable with Shure V 15 III cartridge
2) Pioneer DV 585 Universal SACD/DVD player
3) NAD 3130 Integrated Amplifier
4) Van Den Hul "The Name" Signal Cables
5) TNT "Triple T" Power Cables
Strengths:
Incredible value for the money, smoothness, balanced sound, warm sound, no distortion or strain, good performance with rock, pop and jazz, scarce sound variation due to positioning. Weaknesses:
Lack of mid-high, mid-bass slightly prominent, basses present but not profound Similar Products Used:
Indiana Line Arbour 530, Klipsch RB 25 ed RB15, KEF IQ1 e Cresta 10, Boston VR1, PolkAudio monitor 50, Chario Silouette 100 Tower, Sonus Faber Concertino, JBL Northridge E60, Harbeth P3, Tannoy Fusion 1, Chario 1723, Mordaunt Short MS30i.
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