Are the Turnberry's priced per pair or per single speaker?
Tannoy Turnberry vs Fyne 502SP?
I was planning on picking up a pair of Tannoy Turnberry speakers in the near future, but remembered about Fyne audio. While I'd love to get some of the 700 series speakers, they are just a bit beyond my budget. However, I am curious how the 502SP would stack up vs the Turnberry. Does anyone have any insight?
They are roughly the same price, with the Turnberry's being slightly more.
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I have had Turnberry speakers for 5 years and recently auditioned the Fyne 703 which retails for $15k or so. The Fyne sound very similar. No surprise because the Fyne people came from Tannoy. I didn’t purchase the F703s. Not worth it at all to me. Turnberrys retail for around $9k. Much better deal than the Fynes IMO. | |||||||||
You may find this fact interesting. Jim Smith of Get Better Sound fame sold his Tannoy Canterbury speakers with $10,000 upgraded Duelund crossovers for the Fyne 703s. He enjoys the Fyne’s as much and mentioned perhaps even more than his $30,000 Canterbury speakers. I own the Fyne F704s and they are remarkable. I have heard great things about the 502SP from owners. Do try and listen for yourself. Dr. Paul Mills is Fyne Audio’s lead designer/engineer and came over from Tannoy. He was Tannoy’s design and engineering lead for 3 decades! The Fyne speakers have some great new design features and I think deliver the goods sonically. Great value. | |||||||||
Depends on the dealer, but most that I've seen price per speaker but require them to be sold in pairs (which always confused me a bit).
Compared to the 703's price point, the Turnberrys are quite a bit cheaper. Apparently when the 703s first came out they were priced pretty much at parity, but it seems they've shot up in price the past few years unfortunately. That is why I was considering the 502SP. Supposedly, they have the same internals as the 12.5k 702 series speakers, but are in the 502 cabinet. A bit of an odd middle ground between the 500 series and the 700 series, but the price is pretty compelling at ~$6500/pr.
Yeah, I've heard plenty of stories about long time Tannoy owners swapping into Fyne speakers. Clearly, the team at Fyne took what they learned at Tannoy and modernized it a bit. The 700 series is just too far outside of my comfort zone for pricing unfortunately, or else I would seriously be considering them. The 704 especially would suit my needs. They are higher efficiency so I'm guessing they will sound incredible paired up with some great tube amps. I already love the Tannoy + tube combo, so I can only imagine... But, this is why the 502SP was pretty compelling since it incorporates a lot of the innards from the 702 into the 502 cabinet to make a sort of Frankenstein hybrid. I do wish there was a dealer near me that carried them to audition, but alas, that's the problem with imported hifi. Very few places carry them. Even Tannoy is tough in the US. The only way I heard the Turnberrys (and kensingtons) were through people I know that own them locally. | |||||||||
I purchased a pair of F- 702s before the last price increase, and I am very pleased with them, driving them with a Rogue Audio Stereo 100 Dark. Superb imaging, sound stage, and tonal qualities. Depending on the recording, the performers appear to be in the room with us. The innards of the 502SPs are reportedly the same, the cabinet being made of high quality MDF rather than numerous layers of veneer. I am not sure how this might alter the sound, but it should not differ greatly from the 702s. | |||||||||
It's just odd to me that just the different cabinet for the 702s is commanding an almost 2x price tag over the 502sp. There has to be a reason. It just seems bizarre to me that a $6k price difference could be chalked up to *just* the cabinets, but who knows. Probably my biggest hesitation with these is that the sensitivity on them is fairly low. I usually prefer to run tube amps and they tend to be fairly low WPC, so I'd be concerned about these getting enough power from tubes to shine properly. But, maybe like Tannoys, they just *work* even when the numbers suggest they shouldn't. | |||||||||
@grannyring Circling back to this post to see if there were any updates, I also noticed you are parting with your 704s! I do wish I was in the position to buy at the moment (though, I'm not exactly in pickup vicinity)! | |||||||||
@tennisdoc56 that is good to hear. I've been considering pairing with a NAT HPS amp but had some concerns about whether it would be enough power to drive the fynes (or tannoys, frankly). | |||||||||
I have the 501SP with the Luxman 550AXII 20WPC class A but 95WPC A/B (so I've been told by the importer) always suspected these had more watts. It drives them really well. I had a 30WPC tube amp and thought that was enough until I hooked up the Luxman. I've heard the 30 WPC Luxman is 125 A/B. By chance is that what you have @tennisdoc56 ? | |||||||||
Esoteric F03. 30 wpc. Pure class a. No ab mode. Large transformer that likely provides peak power when needed. Crazy expensive markup but when I heard the two together, had to have them. Tried the luxman with high expectations after a pre Covid Tampa audio show driving magicos. Heard them in Atlanta with kef blades and Tampa with my Fynes. Didn’t work for me, lots of positive reports with both luxman and accuphase with Fyne | |||||||||
My issue is that solid state is a dealbreaker for me. I vastly prefer tube amps with what I typically am listening to. I don't love how clinical SS have been when I've tried a few. It's possible there are SS amps out there that don't suffer from this, but I'm also not willing to spend $10k+ on one just to see. | |||||||||
@bjesien so something along the lines of the Cary Audio SLI-100? Not very familiar with that amp, but have heard good things about the brand. | |||||||||
I would compare the 2 companies and see if there are red flags. I don’t understand how Fyne could come up with more models than Tannoy in the 5 years of their existence.
Partly it’s their packaging, and stying, they have more "skins" for similar designs. Still, I would be wary of Fyne, facts don’t lie Sure, Tannoy may have more executive with bigger mortgages baked into the price of the speaker, but as they say 9 women can't give birth to a child in one month. Something with Fyne does not add up....
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@grislybutter from my understanding Fyne was founded by many ex-Tannoy people, and they brought with them many years of speaker-making expertise with a modernized design. Many of their models are quite similar to Tannoy offerings in design even - probably for good reason. Tannoy has, in recent years, moved production to China, which has been received pretty poorly overall in the hifi community from what I've gathered. Fyne are made in Scotland. From what it looks like, it seems Tannoy is stuck in the past with not much innovation going on there at the moment, with cost-cutting by moving production to China being a bit problematic. It almost feels like they're just riding on reputation now, whereas Fyne took the Tannoy experience as a launching point and ran with it. This is just what I've gathered and as far as I understand, but I could have some gaps in my understanding as well. | |||||||||
@mmcgill829 thanks, I didn't know most of it. I knew Fyne was founded by ex Tannoy engineers but I don't know how much of Tannoy's IP they can take and reuse It seems unfair to Tannoy. But I am impartial and I know zero about the legal aspects. Looking at pricing, they seem to be a bit steep for my budget, so that's a wash, similar pricing, but what matters is what's inside | |||||||||
Dr. Paul Mills is the lead designer/director of engineering at Fyne and played the same role for Tannoy for many, many years….upwards of 35 years for Tannoy! He certainly has many designs in his arsenal and has no problem at all designing many models based on his knowledge and extensive experience. Those facts speak loudly and Fyne is a mighty fine company making mighty fine speakers. | |||||||||
The Circle Labs A200 is a wonderful amp for the higher end Fyne models. Great amp on my F704s. The 704s are 96db efficient 8 ohm speakers. Do the 704s need 100 watts? No, they can be driven nicely with 30-50 SS or tube watts. The Circle Labs A200 possesses a tonal purity that mates up very well with the Fyne 704s. | |||||||||
@grannyring that's what I thought about Fyne. Totally explains how they were able to hit the ground running since they have all that experience coming from Tannoy, and from what I've heard from owners, they've improved upon it. The circle labs on paper looks great. I have a hybrid amp now, however, and I don't particularly love it. It doesn't have the lush soundstage as tubes I had prior did. But it could just be this particular amp or the fact that it's relatively 'budget' in comparison to the A200. I'm still leaning toward a NAT HPS S.E.T. amp at the moment, but on the fence still. Of course in home auditioning would be nice, but I can't afford to buy 2-3 amps and have a shootout and return the others, so hard to really directly compare. 🙃 | |||||||||
Speaking to some other owners of the NAT HPS, it seems like a common consensus is that it can lack some bass power but does have a really nice midrange and really fabulous detail, so a bit torn now. I may end up saving a bit and looking for a demo set of Fyne 703s if I can track some down since I could likely get them for about the same as a pair of brand new Turnberries. The 703 is 94db sensitivity (not quite as good as the 704s, but still pretty good). Recommended power into the 703s is 20-250w, so there's quite a bit to choose from.
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