Tannoy Announces Super Gold Monitors – First Look

All Image Credit: Tannoy

The very first recording studio and LEDE control room that I designed and built for the Department of Music at Salford College of Technology, UK, used dual concentric Tannoy Super Red SRM 12x control room monitors. At that time the college offered both classical and pop music courses and we found that this model seemed to be enjoyed by performers of all skill levels and all styles, from; Brass band, Electronic and Contemporary Jazz  to Classical Music, Rock and Pop.

Me sitting in my first LEDE Control Room with Tannoy SRM12x monitors

This latest range of dual concentric speaker models builds on Tannoy’s classic Professional Monitor Gold and 95+ years of speaker development, design and manufacturing history, with its new Super Gold range continuing to be designed and manufactured in the UK.

The Tannoy Super Gold range of speakers comprises three models – Super Gold 10, Super Gold 12 and Super Gold 15. These latest models have a direct link to the original Tannoy Gold concentric design which has been used in many professional recording studios since the 1960’s. According to Tannoy these new models are designed for you to: “Hear Your Music Exactly as the Artist Heard It in the Studio.”  With many artists using Tannoy’s as the final link in the signal chain including artists like; Michael Jackson, Elton John, The Eagles, Billy Idol, Depeche Mode, Christina Aguilera and soundtracks for films like Top Gun, Breakfast Club and Catch Me if You Can.

Tannoy invented the dual concentric speaker design in 1947 and it has been refined and improved continuously over the decades. The SUPER GOLD gives you the very latest incarnation of this design with many refinements to include; modern ferrite with copper demodulation rings and high flux magnetic circuit, which perform better than the original 1970’s Alnico design.

Internal Concentric Design

With Tannoy’s Dual Concentric design, the woofer and tweeter are literally merged together, which positions them on the exact same axis, giving you excellent phase coherence. Since the sound is coming from the same point, it is a true point-source imaging scenario and adding to that a spherical wave front that ensures an extremely even dispersion both vertically and horizontally, creating excellent off-axis performance.

This concentric design also has the advantage over convectional distributed designs in creating a much wider and true sweet-spot. This means you don’t have to sit dead-center in front of the speakers to enjoy every single, subtle detail in the music. Something very important when teaching recording techniques to a group of students and working with band members sat around the control room.

LF cone and Concentric HF unit

Each of the new models designations reflect the drivers diameter from 10 inches to 15 inches with each design using the same model of 1.3″ HF unit. The main (bass) cones are constructed from paper pulp with twin roll impregnated fabric surround, with a 52 mm (2″) edge wound voice coil, while the HF units are manufactured using an aluminum/magnesium alloy dome with edge-wound voice coil.

All models features various front panel controls to allow the user to tailor the speakers frequency response to suit their acoustic environment and as the designs use front facing ports they maybe placed up against walls, in walls or corners with few sonic issues.