Loudspeakers

Anyone who’s seen Rocky 5 or A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child can attest that the fifth in a series rarely lives up to the original. But hopefully Mercury V – the fifth generation of Tannoy’s budget hi-fi and AV speaker series – won’t fall into that trap.

Of all of the big British speaker brands still in existence, Tannoy is perhaps the most unusual. In effect there are two Tannoys; the first produces capable and attractive budget and lifestyle speakers that are relatively conventional in design and appearance; the other produces speakers that are built around the premise of large, highly sensitive speakers that make use of the company’s long-standing dual concentric system, where the tweeter is placed inside the axis of the main driver. Many of these speakers – the Prestige range in general – might look like they’ve dropped through a hole in time from 1959 but they are capable of great things.  Where things get interesting is where these two ranges meet. The Definition lineup has already featured in Home Cinema Choice and those large, elegant speakers left a very positive impression. Now Tannoy has taken some of the elements of the Definition range and created the smaller Precision series. Like the Definitions, the Precisions are a halfway house between the visually elegant side of Tannoy and the classic, high-sensitive designs of old. 

It’s 1981 and the dying embers of disco are still burning the nation’s dancefloors, Diana Spencer is about to marry our future king, and British audio brand Wharfedale unveils its very first Diamond speaker – the progenitor of the 5.1 system you see before you.