Tannoy’s first speaker in seven years, the Stirling III LZ Special Edition, is a homage to the company’s 1960s-released III LZ (Monitor Red), combining vintage aesthetics with modern engineering to resurrect one of the brand’s all-time classics. Considering the popularity of retro-modern speakers right now, this seems to us like a sensible reintroduction.
The new Stirling speaker’s design is built around the latest incarnation of the company’s Dual Concentric Alnico Magnet driver, which this time sees a two-inch aluminium/magnesium alloy dome tweeter at the centre of the 10-inch paper pulp cone driver’s cone. This Dual Concentric driver has been used in Tannoy designs since the company invented it in 1947 – including in the III LZ.
Tannoy says that this driver’s true point-source concept, delivering the entire frequency range from one axis, ensures “unmatched off-axis performance” and “pristine phase coherence”. In an effort to make the Stirling III LZ Special Edition less fussy with placement, Tannoy has included an energy control system on their baffle as well as front-firing bass ports.
While the UK brand says it has retained some of the III LZ’s original cabinet design characteristics, it has developed a new wooden enclosure that combines modern materials and engineering techniques, including Tannoy’s familiar DMT (Differential Materials Technology) bracing which has the all-important job of fixing the drive units to the cabinet.
Designed and manufactured in the UK and available in a walnut veneer finish complete with a nylon grill cover, the Tannoy Stirling III LZ Special Edition will be available in the coming months, priced $12,500 a pair.
Visitors to the High End Munich Show later this month will be able to see the new speakers in the flesh ahead of their summer launch, and we for one will be stopping by for a demonstration!
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