Best Tannoys for mid-field listening?

Confirm Kiddman. They will all work in near and midfield but you can't just drop them, or any other speaker in the room at random and expect them to work their best. You need to know and understand how to set the speakers up properly to optimize their performance. But the first thing you need to consider is your room acoustics and that it will have the most impact on your speakers, you might have picked the worst spot in the room for convenience and aesthetics.

Hi Kiddman-

My Glenairs were about 2-3' out from the back wall, about 8' apart on either side of my fireplace, and my listening position was about 9' away, right in-between the speakers. I can't think of a more correct setup - the tweets and woofer didn't smoothly resolve and the speaker sounded too bright. I've had many other speakers in the same position without any issues.

Your thoughts?

Thanks, Bob

Hi Bob,

I believe that this issue you have of more a speaker placement matter than the speaker's fault. I have a pair of Glenair 15 and they image very well at diverse listening positions (it's not clear to me what you mean with "resolve").
It's worth it to read this review, where the reviewer much enjoyed listening to the 15' Glenairs from a close listening position, as if listening to headphones:
http://dagogo.com/tannoy-glenair-floorstanding-speaker-review

All the best,
Alberto

Hi Bob Rodgers,

Who knows....the speakers can easily work there. But I forget - are the Glenairs the Tulip waveguide? If so, I don't find them as coherent, and I find them brighter.

Then there's amps, cables, on and on.

I've always used my tulip and then pepperpot Tannoys in similarly-distanced configurations. I've also heard the Glenairs (both models) many times. There are differences in sound between various models, but all were coherent at short distances. Though the Glenairs are not my favorite Tannoys, I do like them, and they're pretty neutral -- certainly not bright. It's unfortunate to hear about your troubles, and I'd suggest spending some time investigating whether any upstream gear or even connections may be the culprit.

Though you may be dealing with significant back-wall reflections, since you're firing down the short dimension, in my experience it's still very difficult to "drag a Tannoy down with the room". Thus, I would suspect some kind of electrical/matchup issue before room acoustics.