Accurate at any level, image

Too good for most recordings

In searching for a new set of speakers to handle both serious listening and home theater, I decided to demo several at once. I hooked the different models to my new HKAVR7000, and proceeded to play some jazz, classical and rock. The only speaker that did justice to all was the S10's. They have great image, wonderful dynamic range and yet, when we rocked the house there was no distortion, no ear spliting only music that you could listen to for hours at any level. At 1900 for the pair they dominated the B&W's and M&K's that are both more expensive. The Martin Logan's and Vandersteins can't rock so they were eliminated. If you want a true all around speaker, you have to check these out. I liked them so much I immediately bought the center speaker S8c, that also sounds great.

Similar Products Used:

B&W 804, M&K, Martin Logan, Vanderstein

Sound, Low/mid/high-pass, Sound, Looks, Sound.

Size, Price

Woow!
At first... when I just saw these amazing speakers I was blinded, they were so beautiful, but then I said to myself "Hey Gil, checkout their sound now..." The guy at the store hook it up to a denon A1 amp (like the 5700 reciever but without tuner).

It sounded amazing, I wanted to buy it immidiately. but then I remembered that it would not sound the same with my poor Kenwood (yuck) 888d amp...

After much delibiration I decided to buy these speakers (11,800 shekels (2,750$)).
I am the happiest man on earth, even my poor kenwood is capable of pumping those watts inside these speakers! they sound so amazing even with my kenwood.
The only distortion I have managed to get from these babes was the amp's distortion (pulled it up to the max...), you can't kill em`.

I know that a speaker should sound good with every type of music. I first started with my prefered music, Inserted Red/King Crimson cd inside, and vualla, amazing! in a volume level that usually kills your tweeters - the speakers delivered the high freq` so clean I was shocked, it looks as if the speaker has no problem keeping the great sound on high volume level.
I tried my brother's ugly techno music to checkout the bass response. amazing, the music got into my whole body, my chest felt the booms as if I am inside a club.
Then I tested it with the real thing - Classical music, where all freq` must rock, and - like before, the speaker didn't dissapoint me.

If you're into home theature and good sounding music, get these babes!

Similar Products Used:

none

Magnificent sound, substantial, elegant build. Soundstage, easy-flowing reproduction, no trace of fatigue from very extended listening sessions.

Extremely tight fit for banana plugs. Otherwise, not a hint of anything to complain about.

The best speakers I have owned, by a big margin. I originally intended to buy the S8, but the S10s were available (new) at a one-off special price, for the same price as the 8s...so I snapped them up.
They are wonderful. Gorgeous top, strong mids and fine, tight bass. I have a Boston (600) subwoofer and this provides that little bit of extra bloom to the bass, but it is by no means essential.
I daren't think how superb these speakers will be when they are fully broken in. Straight out of the (very large) boxes, they sounded exactly right to my ears. My CD player is a Sony XA7ES and I'm using a Sony DA777ES receiver and 7700 DVD player. I can confirm that the S10s sound great in this system...detailed, warm and sweet. All kinds of music benefit, though I am particularly pleased with classical music reproduction. Wind instruments are very nicely rendered and plucked strings are a joy. Female voices are extremely natural and there is an overriding sense of control and ease of reproduction. The soundstage is extremely wide, with pleasing depth. Seperation of instruments and voices is the most vivid I've heard. I can't speak highly enough of this product. Bravo Tannoy.
Note: These are VERY efficient. They go loud with no strain whatsoever and tempt you to go a notch higher.

Similar Products Used:

Kef, Mordaunt Short, Boston.

Solid performance at any volume level.

I consider myself a little more than enthusiastic about music, I am an active musician and songwriter myself, but I will leave the Audiophile title to those who seem to have a superior base of knowledge on the different manufacturers.
I bought my S10's for $1,650, they had been used as floor models and were at least partially broken in, they still had/have a little way to go as they seem to be continually maturing.
I am thouroughly impressed with my friends' B&W 602's @$480
for the set. Looking at the higher priced models, however, left me somewhat dissappointed. The expected quality to price improvement ratio wasn't there. In fact, the 603's & 604's were inferior in many ways to the less expensive 602's.
The klipsch legends at $1,600 a pair were equally dissapointing. Neither of these providing the desired "experience".
Halleluia Tannoy!
The S10's are well situated in their price range, the place I purchased mine sells them for $2,100.
I won't repeat all the things already stated previously but suffice it to say that I've found the "experience" I've been looking for and sooooo much more!
You definately need to bi-wire to get what you want from these but lack of education on the subject can be quite costly. Luckily I am an expert on cable and cable quality (I spent some time managing inventory control for the largest computer networking firm in the world while I was waiting for my music career to take off), and you don't need to spend hundreds on your cable. The differences in bass and sound quality from the cables the previous reviewer may have experienced comes from the different grades of conducter purity used by different cable manufacturers and indeed, the amount of twists in the wire. The goal is transparent conductivity and as I've said, it doesn't have to cost alot.
Idaho multimedia (1-888-441-1865) sells Interlink directional bi-wire cable for $3 a foot. It's created in an environment of pure oxygen and delivers your signal pure and true. No I don't work for Idaho Multimedia, audio cable is ridiculously over priced and I can't stand to see people pay 5x what they should for inferior cable.
As far as the Tannoys go, just read on down through the other reviews, then go get a pair for yourself and find out what each reviewer here already knows; there just aint' words for it!
I can't imagine anything better at twice the price. There should be a special category of stars to rate them higher than the ordinary products here.
Halleluia Tannoy!

Similar Products Used:

B&W, Klipsh, Wharfedale

Easy placement. Very natural sound. Bass response to 29Hz!

Very large but I actually like that.

After a little more than a year of almost daily listening, I have to agree with the gentleman below; they still wear nicely on the ears. They did improve noticeably after about 100 or so hrs. of use and really matured after probably closer to 250-300 hrs. Very subtle changes but noticeable never the less.
I shopped several similarly priced offerings and really the S10's stand in a class of their own when put side by side. I have not heard the Vandersteens that Pat speaks of but nothing I have heard in the $2500 or less bracket compares.
I had seriously considered the B&W Nautilus 802 which are really as much a piece of art as they are a speaker. I found them to be grainy and a bit overbearing when played at slightly higher volume levels though where the Tannoys maintained their well balanced and natural sound at even higher levels. I found that at more than 3 times the cost, the 802's were not sonically superior in any way to the S10's and were much less enjoyable to listen to although they are very beautiful.
I like my S10's so much that I have gone ahead and done my whole surround system with the Saturn line. I really am quite satisfied with this and feel that I really couldn't have done any better for the money.
For those who give a rodents behind, this consists of the S10 Fronts, S8C Center (best center I have heard), S8 towers for surrounds, (get FULL SIZE surrounds for the FULL HT EXPERIENCE!).
I happened to get ahold of a couple LF-10 subs which are absolutely exquisite and very hard to find and they round out my "wall 'o sound".
Hope this helps!

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Auditioned many

Further to my 11/00 post. The following may assist those unfamiliar with the (natural) Tannoy sound who are listening to the typical sales line at most US high- or mid-fi shops or reading the "speaker d'jour" reviews in Stereophile, et al. It was posted in the speaker asylum section of Audio Asylum on 5/9/01.

Quote:

The reason people dump on Tannoy, and that they have virtually no market in the US (the best product - the Prestige line - is not even imported into North America) is that the vast majority of high end speakers sold in the US, and promoted by the magazines, are c---. And because of that, North American tastes have moved away from righteous tone and coherent musicality towards high fi sound - bright agressive tweeters, tight but hollow bass, and so-called transparency and soundstaging (usually implemented as thiness). Much of the current speaker market is fashion oriented. People want thin speakers, not big boxes, and they want cool looks. The speakers must be capable of producing big impact in the limited listening environment of a showroom, and sharp highs leave people mightily impressed. It's onlt when they have lived with them for awhile that something begins to grate on them, and most people are not concious of it - they just listen to music less and less because it tires them.
The Tannoy Prestige series is the top selling high end speaker in Japan. Their values towards sound reproduction, and their equipment, is light years ahead of the US market. Tone is the major thing. Ease of presentation, natural coherent tone, and linearity are the prime factors. My comments are based on my experience of the Prestige line, but can be taken as the general Tannoy approach throughout their lines.

Most people say Tannoys are soft, lacking in dynamics and have recessed highs with bloated bass. No soundstage depth. Boring.

In fact North Americans must re-learn how to listen when approaching Tannoy speakers. The highs are not recessed - they are simply properly placed and integrated, as opposed to blaring out into your face. There is virtually no attempt to control or overly dampen resonances, so the speakers really give a warm, full, natural tone. In my opinion - overly damping a speaker will give a very tight sound - but music is resonant, damping in excess kills tone. They are full sounding and give tone I never heard before, so they will not sound as open - until you learn that they really are extremely open, it's just the bigger tone throwing you off. And the bass is very big.

My experience of Tannoys is that all audiophile considerations/obsessions/bs falls away and becomes inconsequential. The sheer musicality, ease and pleasure of listening makes me not need to think about whether the bass is tight enough, or worry about the depth of the soundstage, I am too busy being wrapped up in the music. I no longer care about audiophile trivialities.

In my opinion, and in particular of the Tannoy Prestige line, this company separates the posers from the music lovers. By the way, there is a reason that this company has been around for so long - and that some of the designs have essentially survived in the market for decades...

Unquote.

Linear, natural sound, efficient, fills the room with sound

Heavy, but then any speaker this large is heavy

My Tannoy S6s were not big enough for my new digs so I got a slighly larger speaker in the form of the Infinity IL40. Mistake. I should have gotten a larger Tannoy first. The Infinitys were unnatural in that they put too much emphasis on high frequency information. Nothing sounds that way in the real world. I went to Uptown Audio in Roanoke and got some S10s used. If you have normal hearing and dont have a severe high frequency deficiency you will like the sound of the Tannoys. If your hearing is shot you may like some of the bright squawking stuff sold for home theater. I am in total agreement with the review below. If you want to hear something besides treble buy Tannoys.

Similar Products Used:

Tannoy S6, Infinity IL40

Beautiful sound at a whisper, mid-volume, or thundering. Big! Nice, simple, elegant design.

Grills eat up a noticable amount of frequency range -- go without 'em if you can.

If you've read through the other reviews, you've already pretty much got the idea. These speakers are pretty amazing for the cost.

Before purchasing my current system, I was someone who loved music, and knew very little about audio hardware. After deciding to drop some (to me) serious cash on a great audio system, I educated myself. Fortunately, I'm surrounded by musicians which proved to be invaluable. My godson, a musician of 10 years, said one day, "Man, too bad Tannoy only makes studio speakers." We checked out their website, and surprise surprise, Tannoy had consumer division. He immediately said, "Those will be your speakers." This was the first time I'd ever heard of Tannoy. For the next couple weeks we went around Brooklyn and Manhatten listening to different "audiophile-level" speakers. Many listening rooms later, Tannoy came out on top.

You've already read how nice these speakers sound, so instead I'll share some steps I took that made them sound even better.

1) I had a smallish, fairly weak amp powering my S-10s at first. The bass came out blotchy and super deep. The poor little amp didn't have what it takes to make those bass magnets come alive. (The highs were ok with the sub-par amp.) Since having upgraded to an Adcom 5400 poweramp, I finally got to hear what the bass is capable of. Its superb sounding, warm & tight at all volumes.

2) I eventually bi-amped my speakers. Big difference. These speakers are fully bi-amp'able. Take advantage of this capilbility. Spend some $ on the crossover cables if you go down this road. I went cheap with the cables at first, then upgraded to some AudioQuest corals. They aren't insanely expensive cables, but they are solid, and made a noticeable difference with the sound.

3) Use the carpet spikes. I didn't at first and noticed the difference when I did. It disperses the bass differently -- for the better.

4) The other Saturn speakers: the S-8 center, left, right blend beautifully with the S-10s. They really made my system come alive for listening and for home theater.

5) I picked up a PS110B sub-woofer, because, at the time of my purchase, that was the best match for the Saturn series. Now Saturn has its own 350w powered sub. I haven't listened to one yet, but just thought I'd let you know, it's out there!

Bottom line: with quality amplification, processing, cables, etc. you'll get more mileage from your S-10s then many speakers with a price tag 2 or 3 times larger.

Similar Products Used:

B&W, M&K, Infiniti, Polk

Natural mids, good sensitivity (93dB/w), good stereo image.

Bass could be faster and tighter.

I bought these speakers without listening them. I had only seen some reviews and also heard that Tannoy Dual Concentric drivers sound amazing.
Saturns sound great and they give amazing value for money. The Dual Concentric drivers give great sound image and are very accurate. Bass goes deep and has enough power. Only in very fast bass lines the 10" drivers sometimes seem to lost their touch a little, but not too badly. I have no complaints about the sound of tweeters.
These speakers can fight against high end speakers that cost over twise as much.

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Many

A-M-A-Z-I-N-G, acurate, precise, and perfect are the only words I can use to describe them. I purchase the pair after having listening and comparing them to Tannoy S8. If you think the S8 are great, you're right... However, the S10 are just top notch! The bass is clear and not muffled, the high are precise and acurate. No distortion.The sound seems to come from a wide stage and identifying the location of the speakers become very difficult due to the large image they project. In addition, play them whisper low or hard bangging loud and you'll heard the same sound... just louder... On a scale of 1 to 5, I give them a 7!