Update: replaced them with the Neumann KH 120 and JBL LSR310.
The Tannoy Gold 8 sounded a little, for lack of a better word, honky. It feels like I can hear resonance from the deep tweeter cone. Perhaps the cone is simply too long and acts as a horn. They might sound better in another room. I couldn't pinpoint the resonance on my measurements though.
Very interesting observation... From my understanding the Tannoy’s horn didn’t really have anything new... The Sceptre’s — which I still have, and really like — doesn’t have that old horn sound people sometimes refer too. They do have a particular voicing which I think may have been intentional for their intended purpose — luckily, this can be EQ’d away if one wishes regular flat dome tweeter-like sounding speakers. Sophisticated DSP with specialized FIR filters is used to eliminate transient smearing caused by time differences and reflections inevitable in such a horn design. See:
edit: found the video I was looking for:
The Presonus Sceptre unlike Fulcrum’s higher-end models uses cheaper drivers, of course — so less SPL and higher distortion — but it does achieve the same goal... which is no transient smearing using a very effective coaxial design with good directivity control.
As I have the KH120s I can tell you that they definitely sound cleaner and clearer, but the Sceptre S8’s stereo imaging and sweet spot also sound much larger. Maybe too big sometimes... for an extreme near-field setup.