Tannoy KINGDOM ROYAL User manual

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Manual

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4 Tannoy - A short history
8 Introduction to the Kingdom Royal
10 Tannoy Dual ConcentricTM drive unit
14 SupertweeterTM
16 Bass driver
18 Crossover
22 Enclosure
24 Unpacking instructions
28 Positioning
30 Amplier choice
32 Cable choice
CONTENTS
34 Amplier connections
36 Single wire connections
40 Bi-wiring theory
42 Bi-wiring connections
44 Bi-amping
46 Grille removal
48 Loudspeaker system adjustment
50 Running in
52 Note on auditory perception
54 Care of cabinet
56 Fault nding
58 Warranty
60 Specication

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In the early days of broadcasting, radio
sets needed both low and high voltage
DC power that had to be supplied by
batteries. The lead acid batteries used
in the radio sets of the time needed
regular recharging.
In London, in 1926, Guy R. Fountain
perfected a new type of electrical
rectier with the aim of designing a
charger more suitable for use in the
house. His rectier consisted of two
dissimilar metals held in a special
electrolyte solution. One metal was
Tantalum and the other an alloy of
Lead. So successful was this invention
that Guy Fountain founded a British
Company called Tannoy (a contraction
of the words ‘Tantalum’ and ‘Alloy’).
Tannoy soon became internationally
known and highly regarded in all
aspects of sound reproduction.
Moving coil loudspeakers with DC
energised magnets began Tannoy’s
continued success in the eld of
loudspeaker technology. A discrete
two-way loudspeaker system followed
in 1933 and shortly after a range of
microphones and loudspeakers capable
of high power handling.
Tannoy has always been at the forefront
of the communications revolution,
developing its own equipment and
production technology. The company
built a fund of knowledge and experience
that has proved invaluable in the
development of loudspeakers for a truly
wide range of applications. The now
famous Tannoy Dual Concentric™
principle was created and developed
under Guy Fountain’s direction around
1950. It is highly regarded by music
enthusiasts, and recording and broadcast
studios because of its unique properties
in faithfully reproducing sound to a very
high quality standard.
TANNOY - A SHORT HISTORY

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Guy Fountain retired from the company
in 1974, but the Tannoy company
continues his philosophy dedicated
to the accurate and realistic reproduction
of music for both enthusiasts and
professionals around the world.
The Tannoy Research and Development
unit has further rened the innovative
Dual Concentric™ principle. Using the
latest design and material technologies,
with sophisticated circuit techniques in
crossover design, Tannoy has produced
a loudspeaker system with superb
reproductive capabilities and
exceptionally wide dynamic range.
Tannoy is now part of the TC Group,
whose goal is to design, produce and
distribute the best engineered, most
recognised and respected brands of
high performance audio products in
the world.

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The Kingdom Royal is a statement in
engineering excellence, hand crafted
to exacting standards and setting a
new reference for musical performance.
Distilling 80 years of Tannoy expertise
into a new agship loudspeaker
of unrivalled accuracy, musical
coherence and dynamic range.
Four years of extensive research,
cutting edge technologies, new
processes, and extensive design
detailing have resulted in the most
revealing and musically articulate
loudspeaker Tannoy has ever built.
INTRODUCTION TO
THE KINGDOM ROYAL

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INTRODUCTION TO
THE KINGDOM ROYAL

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One of the unique advantages of the
Tannoy Dual Concentric™ principle is
that the low and high frequency sound
radiation is generated on the same axis.
The high frequency unit is mounted
behind, and concentrically with, the low
frequency unit. High frequency sound
radiates from the centre of the low
frequency unit through a carefully
designed high frequency exponential
horn. Low and high frequencies are
therefore fully integrated at source.
It is this feature that gives the Dual
Concentric™ driver such unique sound
reproduction qualities.
There are other signicant benets.
The high frequency unit does not
obstruct the low frequency unit in any
way (a unique feature when compared
with other so called coaxial systems).
Polar dispersion of sound is symmetrical
in both horizontal and vertical planes.
By careful crossover network design
the virtual acoustic sources of the high
and low frequency units can be made
to occupy the same point on the axis.
Therefore the total sound appears to
emanate from a single point source
located slightly behind the drive unit.
This means that a full and accurate
stereo image can be recreated by the
loudspeakers when fed from a high
quality stereo source.
The Kingdom Royal has an all-new state
of the art 12 inch Dual ConcentricTM
driver. The outer bass/ midrange driver
combines a revolutionary low mass,
ultra-rigid multi-bre cone and precision
edge-wound voice coil with a massive
ferrite motor system for breathtaking
transient response across the upper
bass to lower midrange spectrum.
ENGINEERING OF SOUND
TANNOY DUAL CONCENTRICTM
DRIVE UNIT

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Its hard-edge roll surround has a very
low memory effect further improving
articulation in the mid and upper
bass and is also damped and shaped
correctly to terminate the moving
cone and provide optimum compliance
and linearity at large excursions.
This outer driver crosses over to the
high frequency unit at an exceptionally
low 700Hz to ensure key vocal ranges
are handled by the new tweeter.
This HF drive unit is one of Tannoy’s
most radical driver designs to date.
It couples a 3 inch heat treated
aluminium alloy dome with a 1.5kg
ferrite motor to create an extremely
efcient horn-loaded compression
driver, to give reference standard tonal
accuracy combined with exceptional
dynamic abilities. After bonding to the
copper-clad aluminium voice coil, the
assemblies are deep cryogenically
treated. This relieves residual stresses
in the microstructure of the dome and
reduces crystal boundary imperfections
in the voice coil for greater naturalness
and emotional communication of
the music.

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At 17kHz the Dual ConcentricTM HF
unit crosses over to the latest evolution
Tannoy SuperTweeterTM. Again many
engineering hours were spent selecting
the right material for the Kingdom
Royal SuperTweeterTM dome, with a
magnesium alloy nally being chosen
for its lack of colouration, coherence
and even extension out to 61kHz. Each
dome is vapour coated with a thin
ceramic layer for optimum rigidity and
damping, before being carefully plasma
treated by hand and bonded to the
voice coil. This revolutionary plasma
technique increases the surface
energy of the dome to give greater
coupling to the voice coil and ensure
greater consistency. Combined with a
neodymium motor and rear damping
cavity, the new SuperTweeterTM offers
outstanding linearity and accuracy,
alongside higher sensitivity and wider
bandwidth than the previous generation
titanium SuperTweeterTM.
SUPERTWEETERTM
For ultimate delity the enthusiast
will appreciate the slight improvement
in clarity and detail that is achieved by
removing the SuperTweeterTM grilles
during listening.
The SupertweeterTM grille is a friction t
part which locks onto the gold trim via
four discrete slots. Carefully remove by
pulling the wire mesh towards you.
It is essential that the SuperTweeterTM
diaphragm is not touched, as damage
will destroy its performance and require
specialist repair by your Tannoy dealer.
Any such damage will not be
covered under warranty.

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While underhung driver topology is
expensive to implement, the result
is constant electromotive force on
the voice coil leading to signicantly
lower distortion than traditional driver
designs and improved motor cooling.
Extensively tuned by Tannoy’s most
experienced electro-acoustic engineers,
the bass driver produces prodigious
low frequency extension with uid and
articulate bass delivery through to the
crossover point with the DC driver. The
cabinet has been engineered to offer
ideal damping and suspension charac-
teristics while the rear port is tuned to
an extremely low 15Hz in order to retain
the Kingdom Royal’s ultra-fast dynamics
into the sub-bass range.
BASS DRIVER
To deliver accurate and extended
low frequencies, the Kingdom Royal
features a 15in multi-bre bass driver
with massive ferrite motor system and
underhung voice coil. In an underhung
conguration the top plate is extended
to ensure the voice-coil remains
completely within the ux of the magnet
over its entire range of motion.

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After extensive testing 99.997% purity
single strand silver cable was chosen
for the SuperTweeterTM circuit for its
exceptional top end transparency.
Tannoy’s DMTTM (Differential Materials
Technology) compound is used to seat
components, further improving
damping and resulting in greater
naturalness and pin point imaging.
Once assembled the entire crossover
undergoes full deep cryogenic
treatment to relive component and
conductor stresses at crystal level.
While cryogenic treatment is a costly
process for such a large assembly, the
resulting benet in terms of musical
cohesion and smoothness make it an
essential part of the Kingdom Royal’s
natural sound.
The Kingdom Royal necessitated the
most sophisticated crossover Tannoy
has ever designed, splitting the low
frequency and high frequency sections
into individual assemblies, to avoid any
electrical interaction between the two.
The entire crossover is decoupled from
the cabinet base using an innovative
free-oating isolation system, with rubber
suspension turrets. Both upper and
lower HF and LF boards are hard-wired
(i.e. not a printed circuit board) using
silverloaded solder and six nines
PCOCCTM copper (99.9999% pure
copper) cable.
CROSSOVER

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At crossover component level, the
component choice to match the
new Kingdom Royal drivers was a
critical design concern. Many brands
and types of component were
auditioned and rejected before the
nal conguration. Each crossover
uses the very latest ICW ClarityCapTM
MR polypropylene capacitors as these
were found to have the lowest internal
resonance and better self damping
than any other capacitor on the market.
Low loss laminated core inductors are
used throughout and non-inductive
heat-sink mounted thick lm resistors
were chosen for their micro-dynamic
capabilities and thermal stability.
Impedance matching the Dual
ConcentricTM HF unit was another
area of concern, with the very best
acoustic results coming from a custom-
built autotransformer rather than
traditional resistive circuit, in order to
maintain damping. Adjustments
for the Dual ConcentricTM Tweeter
and SuperTweeterTM energy levels
are available using a new low-loss
switching panel mounted on the
front bafe.
On the rear panel very high quality
WBTTM binding posts are congured
in Tannoy’s unique ve-terminal
arrangement that affords bi-wiring and
bi-amping as well as direct grounding
(via the fth terminal) for the chassis of
the main drivers. The grounding of the
chassis helps to reduce radio frequency
interference providing a smoother
sound with improvements in detail
and transparency.