Hi all,
Have had my Tannoy Gold 8s for some time now and can share my experience with them. Replaced my old pre Music Tribe Reveal 6 passive monitors with these, that I was quite impressed of especially for the price I paid for them years ago. Hoped at least the same performance, a little bit more extended bass response and was curious about Tannoys famous dual concentric design.
Build quality and aesthetics are really good for the price. At least for studio monitors where typically performance is more important than the looks. As these are advertised and sold as studio monitors.
But now the truth - these cannot be used out of the box as monitors (and on my opinion even as HiFi speakers) . The essential of the monitor speakers should be linear response, low distortion, and no coloration of the sound. Almost any of this is not true for these speakers.
First listening impression was that lower treble range is really harsh and created quite a bit ear fatigue, the higher the SPL, the more "in the face" the higher midrange and lower treble was. I put the test CD to the player and after going trough 1/3 octave tones, it was clear that there was something weird going around 5-6 KHz region - there was really prominent peak. Also there seemed little treble response after 10 KHz.
Next day I put up measuring mic and did the same test for midrange and treble. I was correct - there was almost 12 dB peak at 6 KHz. And trebles were rolling off quite significantly after 10-12 KHz. Hmm... Interesting...
I opened the speaker, removed driver, inserted signal from frequency generator and started measuring the frequency response of the amplifiers, hoping that the reason for that peak is missing low pass filter on LF amplifier (have seen that before). But nope, as Tannoy says, there is crossover point at 1500 Hz and bot LF and HF amplifiers are correctly filtered. And LF amp was linear enough too. So I decided to measure frequency response for the HF amplifier and then found the first issue. At 6 KHz, there was +6dB correction. Okay... interesting. Sweeped until 20 KHz and all other looked fine.
So, i decided to measure tweeter response too. Connected it to another tested and true amplifier, and started measurements. What the heck - the tweeter had the same peak at 6 KHz! So that explained a bit the issue that I already heard and measured. And the second measurement claimed the issue with higher frequencies - there is quite steep roll-off past 10 KHz and 20 KHz was coming at over -10 dB. Not precisely the response that are on the graphs Tannoy advertising.
Only logical explanation is that there should be some miscommunication happened between R&D and Chinese manufacturing. It is so obvious that the driver needed -6 dB correction at 6 KHz, but the amp has +6 dB. I wrote to Music Tribe support, but they weren't quite helpful, the most adequate answer I got was "it is how the Gold 8 is voiced". Really? Monitor speaker has so specific "voicing"???
To have the sound bearable, I had to order DSP and after correcting that 6 KHz peak and pushing trebles with high shelf from 9 KHz, they sound actually quite good. Not so impressive as Reveals were, but close enough. Actually I love the low end of these speakers, they extend considerably below that 54 Hz f3 point and there is even quite audible 31.5 Hz intact. I must say that from about 40 Hz until 200 Hz the response is really good, only at 125 Hz there is some resonant peak, but oddly enough it doesn't bother me.
Another issue that bothered me a bit, but i not too much issue i real life, is the amplifier hiss. As I don't listen my music mostly at more SPL than 75 dB, then I lowered the gain of Tannoys practically to the minimum and that's it.
So long story short, I hope that my experience will help to decide if someone is looking for 8" monitors or bookshelfs and is considering these speakers. Don't get me wrong, these are quite good considering the price, but they cannot be used without quite extensive EQ beforehand.
BR
Rain
Have had my Tannoy Gold 8s for some time now and can share my experience with them. Replaced my old pre Music Tribe Reveal 6 passive monitors with these, that I was quite impressed of especially for the price I paid for them years ago. Hoped at least the same performance, a little bit more extended bass response and was curious about Tannoys famous dual concentric design.
Build quality and aesthetics are really good for the price. At least for studio monitors where typically performance is more important than the looks. As these are advertised and sold as studio monitors.
But now the truth - these cannot be used out of the box as monitors (and on my opinion even as HiFi speakers) . The essential of the monitor speakers should be linear response, low distortion, and no coloration of the sound. Almost any of this is not true for these speakers.
First listening impression was that lower treble range is really harsh and created quite a bit ear fatigue, the higher the SPL, the more "in the face" the higher midrange and lower treble was. I put the test CD to the player and after going trough 1/3 octave tones, it was clear that there was something weird going around 5-6 KHz region - there was really prominent peak. Also there seemed little treble response after 10 KHz.
Next day I put up measuring mic and did the same test for midrange and treble. I was correct - there was almost 12 dB peak at 6 KHz. And trebles were rolling off quite significantly after 10-12 KHz. Hmm... Interesting...
I opened the speaker, removed driver, inserted signal from frequency generator and started measuring the frequency response of the amplifiers, hoping that the reason for that peak is missing low pass filter on LF amplifier (have seen that before). But nope, as Tannoy says, there is crossover point at 1500 Hz and bot LF and HF amplifiers are correctly filtered. And LF amp was linear enough too. So I decided to measure frequency response for the HF amplifier and then found the first issue. At 6 KHz, there was +6dB correction. Okay... interesting. Sweeped until 20 KHz and all other looked fine.
So, i decided to measure tweeter response too. Connected it to another tested and true amplifier, and started measurements. What the heck - the tweeter had the same peak at 6 KHz! So that explained a bit the issue that I already heard and measured. And the second measurement claimed the issue with higher frequencies - there is quite steep roll-off past 10 KHz and 20 KHz was coming at over -10 dB. Not precisely the response that are on the graphs Tannoy advertising.
Only logical explanation is that there should be some miscommunication happened between R&D and Chinese manufacturing. It is so obvious that the driver needed -6 dB correction at 6 KHz, but the amp has +6 dB. I wrote to Music Tribe support, but they weren't quite helpful, the most adequate answer I got was "it is how the Gold 8 is voiced". Really? Monitor speaker has so specific "voicing"???
To have the sound bearable, I had to order DSP and after correcting that 6 KHz peak and pushing trebles with high shelf from 9 KHz, they sound actually quite good. Not so impressive as Reveals were, but close enough. Actually I love the low end of these speakers, they extend considerably below that 54 Hz f3 point and there is even quite audible 31.5 Hz intact. I must say that from about 40 Hz until 200 Hz the response is really good, only at 125 Hz there is some resonant peak, but oddly enough it doesn't bother me.
Another issue that bothered me a bit, but i not too much issue i real life, is the amplifier hiss. As I don't listen my music mostly at more SPL than 75 dB, then I lowered the gain of Tannoys practically to the minimum and that's it.
So long story short, I hope that my experience will help to decide if someone is looking for 8" monitors or bookshelfs and is considering these speakers. Don't get me wrong, these are quite good considering the price, but they cannot be used without quite extensive EQ beforehand.
BR
Rain