Amplifier for Tannoy Turnberry GR

Super speakers these Tannoys are. After hearing many many speakers and owning a good number of them I found ultimate solace in a pair of Tannoy Turnberry SE. I know the Kensigtons are better but it doesnt bother me because music sounds so satisfying on a Turnberry.

Regarding amps, it is a tricky one. Tricky because this speaker can be used with a huge variety of amps. At the same time it will also reveal the power limitations of the amp if driven harder. A 211 based SET would do well. A Kt88 or Kt120 based push-pull would do well. Even high powered OTLs would do well. But solid state amps also sound fantastic with these speakers. In fact Tannoy has designed these speakers to be paired with SS amps. I currently use a Tenor OTL75 and FM Acoustics F10 amplifiers. Both around 70 watts per channel. Both sound fabulous in their own ways and both can run out of juice when I play large orchestral music loud. If you dont mind exploring solid state amps I would strongly recommend you try a Naim amplifier with your Tannoy. You will be amazed with the combination. Look at either the Nait 5i or their entry level pre-power combination. You will hear these speakers breathing with great dynamic range and ease.

The other option would be to go with a Pass Labs (First Watt) F6. It is a lot closer to tube amplification by design and has a healthy 30 watts to boot.

By the way I had a McIntosh MC275 for demo at home and I realized that these speakers sound so clean and dynamic that any amount of power can be consumed unknowingly. A friend of mine who has owned almost every Tannoy suggested that they need a minimum of 100 watts per channel to sing unconditionally. At the same time if you choose to feed it with only 10 watts of SET power, it will not dissapoint you. So its tricky!

I've been running my Canterbury's with 60 watt Atma's OTL's and they truly sing with those. Been curious about trying them with a good 100 watt plus SS amp, or a first watt amp, particularly for large orchestral music and opera to see how that would work.

Redcarerra, a good high powered amp will bring concert hall experience into the room with your speaker.

So if a good solid state amp would work well would a Bryston 3B SST be a good match? They are plentiful and affordable.

Hello,

I thought I'd add my two cents, My one-off Tannoy HPD 315's (12" Dual Concentrics from the mid seventies) sound gorgeous with an SET 300B, that puts out a very stout 9 Wpc.

However, I recently (out of curiosity) built a Class D Audio kit (CDA 254), @ 125 Wpc, when built as a stereo amp. I, however, took it a step further, and added a second amp module, and are running the two modules in bridged mono mode. In theory, they will output 500 Wpc this way, I'm not sure just what they output, when sharing the same power supply, as in my case.

The original kit was $430, and another $145 for the second module. They also sell complete amps for a fair price. My Tannoys love the power provided by this amplification, and sound nearly as good as they ever have, kind of like an SET amp on steroids.

It's an inexpensive way to try alternative amps, and it's great to have different amps to chose from, and to have a back-up in case of tube failure.

Regards,
Dan