Tannoy Arden

Used to have it 20 years ago, learned a lot out of this speaker. Mine was from 1978. with old, almost dissolved foam suspensions, but still there was no distortion at all. 15" cardboard dual concentric beautiful giant, i was impressed immediately. By specifications, speaker was 70w (rms)and i had a big question mark over my head. Tannoy Arden in that poor state had no problems with Krell ksa 200 at almost full power. Just to remind respectable audience that mentioned amplifier works only in "a" class, so i find quite weird, maybe a bit speculative handling that enormous power with 70w. Everything sounded big, opened but firs noticed minus was the lack of 3d sound-staging. Sound comes directly from the speaker. We were not the first ones who noticed that this kind of speaker could be ideal for main monitoring, but with serious corrections (those appeared later)...
Tannoy Arden has two speaker crossovers, but "time delay" is the main key. Lot of others in those days were producing dual concentric s, but those couldn't figure how to construct it for many years after. Time delay crossover measures drivers excursion because tweeter is fixed, and cant play accurate without it. Good side is that tweeter uses the same magnet, thus he can withstand high powers. Inverted 10cm dome behind high efficiency horn has an impressive pressure and details, but even with a time delay crossover 3d sound-staging never appeared. Arden can play with a budget friendly amps because of his high efficiency, but the lack of details will be obvious even to a beginner. After a while, we had to change suspensions, and that was a big problem without internet. In the end, major mistake, but that was the only way in those days here. We literally destroyed them by changing foam with hard rubber. All parameters lost for good, and we sold them in that condition, very sad...
Ive learned a lot from Ardens. Matter of taste of course, but never bought dual concentric again. Also, no drivers bigger than 7". Big drivers are slow and they have lateral anomaly's due to a weight of a membrane. The most important thing learned from this speaker is how bad is to take a speaker just for being impressed at firs listening. Impression is not wanted before large numbers of listening hours.
Tannoy Arden will always have his honestly deserved place in speaker development. He was a good platform for monitors to come, and still is a good speaker for those who are entering the wonderful world of a true audiophile knowledge.
This is my first review here, if you like it, i will gladly make more of them.
Kind regards,
Sunce