Hello my friends, it's been crazy busy here at Jeff's Place, both on the day job, and with all the cool & fun Hi-Fi gear that has been coming through to visit. I'll be catching up on e-mails and comments shortly, as I've gotten a bit behind on that front, so hang in there and please be patient with me.

Tannoy Kingdom Royal: The Kingdom Royal project was initiated in Summer 2006 at Tannoy’s Head Office in Coatbridge, Scotland. Dr. Paul Mills, Director of Research & Engineering at Tannoy (and also responsible the Westminster Royal SE), headed up Tannoy’s Kingdom Royal project team. In the photo of the Kingdom Royal project team below, in the back row is Harry Bakke, Tim Lount, and John Grimason. In the middle row is James Harkness, Meryl Saunders, and John Smith. In the front row is Dr. Paul Mills, Matthew Phelan, and Andzej Sosna. The project team embarked on a four-year journey, taking the Kingdom Royal from an idea to a reality that was released for public viewing in Fall 2010 at leading Hi-Fi shows. Kudos to the project team! They really created a magnificent loudspeaker with the Kingdom Royal!

The big news is I finished writing the review of the magnificent Kingdom Royal loudspeakers yesterday, and I am just waiting on the nice folks at Tannoy to send me a couple of photos for the article before I turn it in to the Editors Dave and David. Expect to see the article go live at Positive Feedback Online with the November issue.  Here's a photo of the Kingdom Royal with the grill on.

Here's a photo of the Kingdom Royal with the grill off.

Here's the system I used for the Kingdom Royal review: An EMT TSD-15 phono cartridge on the VPI Classic 'table feeding the ASR Basis Exclusive phono stage via Sablon Audio Panatela interconnects, which were in turn feeding the ASR Audiosysteme Emitter II Exclusive Version Blue, which was driving the Kingdom Royal loudspeakers through the phenomenally good Sablon Audio Panatela Component Speaker Cables that I reviewed in Positive Feedback Online Issue 63. I also used quite a number of the very effective Acoustic Revive accessories to optimize performance of the system. Many thanks to Dr. Friedrich Schaefer (ASR), and Mr. Zed Husain of Musical Sounds (the USA importer of ASR) who were kind enough to make the ASR Emitter II Exclusive Version Blue amplification and ASR Basis Exclusive phono preamplifier available for this review.

Here's a photo of the ASR Basis Exclusive phono stage with its battery power supply. The Basis Exclusive is at the bottom of the turntable stand (black chassis with blue capacitors), and the battery power supply is in the foreground behind the Panatela speaker cables.

 Here's a better photo of Mark Coles' Panatela speaker cables - they are a match made in heaven for the Kingdom Royal loudspeakers and ASR electronics. Many thanks to Mark Coles for making the Panatela speaker cables available for this review.

Finally, I’d like to say thank you to everyone at Tannoy for letting me give their new statement Kingdom Royals a listen – they are magnificent!