I use System 600's driven by an Altec Lansing 9442a amplifier as my main near-field monitoring in my studio. They were purchased for their midrange accuracy and wide sweetspot. I knew when I bought them that the low end would be lacking. However, when conservative use of a subwoofer is added, the mix of the two is more than adequate.After a little tweaking and testing I've settled on a custom built 15" sub driven by a 400 watt amplifier with a fourth-order (a bit steep but it works well in my room) low pass filter at 52hz. While there is a slight bump at 3k as others have noted, I would hardly consider them to be excessively bright. In fact, I was a little concerned when first listening to them as they seemed a bit dull. One must remember that these are studio monitors and not meant for casual listening. Next to your run-of-the-mill, cheap "monitors" or hyped home speakers they will in fact sound dull. Then again, the average concert SPL will leave you thinking the world sounds dull for a few days! My concern faded over the course of my first few projects with the 600's as my mixes translated with less time than ever before. Thanks to the 600's, my clients now request fewer mix revisions than before. I have mixed on JBL, KRK, Genelec and PMC systems and have no reservations about the 600's. In fact, I have plans to add two more sets in the future for surround work. I have a set of replacement drivers on stand-by since Tannoy has discontinued the series. My rating of 5 for 5 is based on the fact that I made an educated purchase and my clients have been happy with the result! - Justin A. Mai JAMPROSOUND

amazing detail
tight bass
huge soundstage
great for all kinds of music

takes a lot of time to treat the room acousticly for them, and finding the right electronics (they are very picky...)

I believe, that people perform at their best where they feel comfortable, where they can just be who they are. The same goes with these Tannoy studio monitors: they're at their best in the studio, that's what they are designed for.
At home, they will show you that they are not living room consumer speakers.
So, to get the best out of them at home, you have to give them "studio like" surround:
they have to be in a very well acousticly treated room, otherwise they will sound very bright. they have to be powered by a flat, professional power amp, and a good source. positioning is crucial for them (From my experience they have to stand about 15 cm from the back wall, otherwise the bass is not balanced).
If you do all the arrangments for these speakers, they will amaze you...you will think you are in the studio in front of the band recording the album. I believe this is one of the best models Tannoy has ever produced, and since they are cheap in the second hand market, the value for money is huge in this case.

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I own Dali and Kef, and auditioned dozens of other speakers.

Everything(in combination with good equipment).

None.

In this price range I never heard anything like this.Bass is very warm,but strong and accurate in the same time.Vocals and drums are magnificant.First I had a problem with a lack of treble.Then I changed cables(VdH 102& VdH cs122).Now it`s a different story.

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B&W,Mission.

Neutrality, dynamics, sound staging

Frequency extremes missing, warm in lower midrange, a bit bright around 3 KHz

I love these speakers. I use these speakers for both mixing and casual listening. They are revealing, very accurate through the midrange, very dynamic, and clean. The sound is fairly neutral. The sound stage is exceptional, probably unbeatable at this price range, especially if you use tube electronics. They are easy to place, and have a wide sweet spot. The cabinet is unusual. I drilled holes in it to attach speaker stands, and the debris was like soft wood fiber, nothing like you get when you drill into MDF. There didn’t seem to be a binding agent. It seems like they took long, fine wood fiber and pressed it under high pressure. This make for a very well damped cabinet. The very highest frequencies, above about 15KHz, and the lowest frequencies, below about 50 hz, are missing. They have slightly excessive energy between about 80 to 160 Hz. So, you have to adjust your ears for this. They have another shortcoming that can be compensated for by learning the speakers’ sound. All Tannoy concentrics use a horn tweeter. Horn tweeters have resonances, and these have one at 3.1KHz. The literature says that all horn speakers need notch filters at their dominant resonances but, notch filters distort sound. Tannoy must feel that they have reduced the contribution of the resonance in their tweeter enough to get by without a notch filter. However, on some source material the sound is a bit bright. I especially notice it on some female vocals such as Natalie Cole, and Diana Krall. When they hit certain high notes their voices leap out of the speaker. If you are not careful, you could end up with a muddy mix if you attempt to overcome the brightness by warming up the sound. The frequency bump between 80 and 160 Hz is probably there to help compensate for the brightness. If you are mixing acoustic music, and or vocals, if you want to hear exactly what your instruments sound like, where they are in the sound field, and what your reverb and special effects sound like, then these speakers will help you do that. If you are mixing dance or rock, these speakers may not work for you because of their frequency limitations.

Similar Products Used:

Alesis Monitor One, Mackie HR824, Mackie SRM450

I bought these near field studio monitors to get the legendary neutrality and phase accuracy of the Tannoy Dual Concentric driver without spending $1,200 (the lowest priced "home" version).
Also Tannoy home speakers seem to be hard to come by in Northern California.

I have not been disappointed. The 6.5 inch dual concentric requires more power to drive than the home version (at least 50 watts per according to Tannoy), but they turn that power into accurate sound with surprising authority for such a small unit.

High mid and HF performance are where this budget reference speaker shines. Falsetto and female vocals can be chilling if recorded properly (one of the monitor's jobs is to reveal source problems and this speaker does).

I've never heard a recorded trumpet sound more live than with this speaker.

Tannoy reports the steep LF rolloff begins at 47 Hz and I'm able to set the low pass filter on my Energy e:XLS8 sub very close to this number and get a good blend.

Again, for home use you may want a more forgiving loudspeaker, but if you're like me and want to start with accurate speakers and build on that foundation, and you don't have $1,000 for speakers (I talked my local pro audio shop down to $500 for the pair), this satellite/sub combo may be a good way to go.