New Tannoys.

[aquapiranha]

Hehe.... I have one neighbour one side with the TV on full blast, and the young chap the other playing some charty tripe, sounds like Pink - that is all I can hear at the mo!! I am getting tempted to give them some Nick Cave at unreasonable and downright anti-social levels... !!

I will try to get over this week, maybe before you two come over?

Steve.

[lexi]

No worries Marco, as I mentioned to Ian you are more than welcome anytime (err...except tuesday..)
I have never heard some of the bigger Tannoys, though I have wanted to...
Fact...the word "tannoy" comes from the phrase Tantalum Alloy....more incredible facts to follow...
Steve.

Don`t be silly...everyone knows that Tannoy is what tells you the 4.30 is going to be an hour late

They have improved the cabinets big time over the early stuff.

[aquapiranha]

I have just returned after listening to the tannoys, and they are bloody fantastic! scale, emotion, detail, realism, headroom...it is all there in spades! thanks again for the opportunity to hear them Ian, see you soon.

[Ian Walker]

Cheers Steve glad you liked them,as you could probably tell i rather like em myself .

[Marco]

Hehe... Nice one, Steve

They are rather special, aren't they?

Don't underestimate though the significance the other components in Ian's system make to the sound you heard. I know his system inside out, and was directly involved in it being assembled, so I know exactly what's responsible for the sound he gets - in fact we own the exact same DAC, preamp and cables.

The Tannoys are absolutely fantastic, but in reality they're only making the most of the quality of the signal they're being given. I know you're not suggesting this, but it's not simply a case of buying a huge pair of Tannoys, plugging in a squeezebox (or whatever) and any old amp, and away you go!

I can tell you from experience that the most significant contribution to overall performance upstream is that of the modified Croft preamp and Ian's AOS/TD valve amp, which combine beautifully and synergise so effectively with his Tannoys. Remove those from the equation, and the sound produced is rather different, as was evidenced at Ian Clarke (the previous owner's) house before we installed the Croft and AOS/TD amp at his place...

Furthermore, IMO, computer audio set-ups only work to audiophile standards (certainly what I could live with) when a top-notch DAC is used (and I mean TOP-NOTCH), and here the Audiocom-modified Sony DAS-R1 fulfils its role admirably, not to mention Ian's meticulous attention to detail in terms of mains set-up (and supports), a process that I also emulate with my system at home. Quite simply, everything in his system pulls together in the one direction and has been very carefully considered.

I just thought that I should point this out for the benefit of everyone reading in case anyone was under the misconception that the outstanding sound Ian's system produces now is solely down to the Canterburys. There are some folks out there you know who are (in a rather blinkered sense) entrenched in the 'speaker first, and bugger the quality of anything else' system-building methodology, which is total nonsense

I look forward to meeting you soon and checking out those wickeeeeeeeeed horns

Marco.

[aquapiranha]

Indeed Marco, I do not disagree - a good system is the sum of it's parts. I particularly liked the Helios, a very flexible and relativly inexpensive device, but as you say, in conjuction with all of the other kit a very life-like sound...

[Marco]

The Helios is great, Steve, and I'm surprised that more people don't use it. IMO, it's a better sounding and overall better solution to computer audio than the squeezebox and other current popular choices out there.

Btw, don't think that my last post was directed in any way at you - I just wanted to (given the thread title and the way the thread has developed) get across that the Tannoys are not the only superb bits of kit in Ian's system

You must pop along to mine sometime. Ian and I both have a similar type of sound going on, but since he's got the Tannoys his system now has a good bit more scale and slam - bastid!

Marco.

[anthonyTD]

i hear the sound of distant drums!!!

[Ali Tait]

What's this Helios you're talking about?

[tubehunter]

I had a Helios X5000 for about 18 months, streamed flac/divx files from my server.(I installed Ians')
The firmware software in the Helios is clunky and crashes now and again.
The onboard Dac is ok allthough thin sounding and vocals can sound pinched.
Better to use a off board Dac.

I now use a Playstation 3 with my homebuilt Dac, 100% improvment. Accessing files is much smoother, I can search for music while playing files even browse the internet and read forums
The Playstation brings all my separate boxes into one:
Streams my music, movies and photos from the server.
Has 2 freeview tuners so I can pause/record tv, tv sound through the Dac.
Plays Blu-ray/Dvds
Plays Video games
Web Browser
Best birthday present I've ever had!

Duncan