Напольная акустика — Tannoy WESTMINSTER ROYAL GR-OW

The Westminster Royal GR-OW is part of Tannoy's Prestige GR family, described by the company as a 2-way floorstanding hi-fi loudspeaker built around a 15 inch Dual Concentric driver and finished in oiled walnut. The company links the design to its HPD Series of the 1970s and says it carries that line forward with larger, newer drive units and parts that were not available in that decade.

Key specs that matter

Rated bandwidth is 18 Hz to 27 kHz at -6 dB, averaged across that range at 1 m on axis. Sensitivity is 99 dB for 1 W at 1 m, taken in half space using an unweighted pink noise signal, into a nominal 8 ohm. Under IEC rules the speaker handles 175 W continuous and 700 W peak, and it reaches 121 dB continuous or 127 dB peak. Coverage is a nominal 90 degree cone. The coaxial driver joins a paper pulp cone, on an impregnated twin roll fabric surround, with a 52 mm aluminium and magnesium alloy dome, and both parts use 52 mm round wire voice coils. Net weight per cabinet is 140.2 kg.

Engineering and use context

Instead of reflex loading, the 380 mm cone works into a compound horn enclosure made from 19 mm MDF, braced inside with plywood and heavily damped. The electrical crossover point sits at 1.0 kHz, with time compensated second order slopes on the low and high sections, low loss parts and hard wiring. Two switch blocks on the front baffle, hidden by the detachable grille, adjust the top end. The Energy control has five positions and moves the output of the high frequency compression unit up or down by up to 3 dB as a shelf between 1.0 kHz and 27 kHz. The Roll Off control also has five positions - +2 dB, level, -2, -4 and -6 dB per octave - and tilts the slope of the extreme treble above 5 kHz. The walnut veneer sits behind a nylon grille, which is released with the supplied grille key.

Pairing

Amplifiers of 20 to 350 W RMS fall within Tannoy's recommendation. The rear panel has five 4 mm binding posts in 24 carat gold, so a single cable with links, a bi-wire run or bi-amping are all possible, and a fifth terminal offers an optional ground connection to the amplifier. For a bi-amped pair Tannoy specifies four mono amplifiers, or two stereo ones, all of identical type, with the links taken off beforehand. Supplied accessories include four bi-wire links, six metal feet, six felt pads, the grille key, a tin of wood wax and welcome pack documents.

Alternatives

Tannoy's Kensington GR-OW is a 10 inch Dual Concentric floorstander from the same Prestige GR line in oiled walnut.