Tannoy to show off its $75,000 Kingdom Royal Carbon Black speaker at CES 2014

Tannoy Kingdom Royal Black Carbon

Visitors to CES 2014 will be the first in the world to see Tannoy's new $75,000 Kingdom Royal Carbon Black, claimed to be "the most powerful speaker ever created in the company's 87-year history".

The Kingdom Royal Carbon Black features a 15in multi-fibre bass driver, an all-new 12in Dual Concentric driver that combines an outer bass/midrange section with an ultra-rigid, multi-fibre cone and an edge-wound voice coil with Tannoy's 3in aluminium alloy dome tweeter. The tweeter crosses over at 16kHz to a 1in ceramic-coated, magnesium alloy dome SuperTweeter.

Tannoy will be sharing a room with Cary Audio, and in it will demo two systems. The first pairs the Tannoy Kingdom Royal speakers with Cary Audio's flagship CAD-211FE 150W tube monobloc power amps in a striking red finish, and the partnering SLP-05 tube preamplifier.

As the main source component Cary Audio will use its brand-new DMS-500 DLNA/UPnP Network Audio Streamer which can handle playback of DSD files as well as 32-bit-384kHz ones. It also has aptX Bluetooth streaming, internet radio, coaxial and optical DAC inputs and three USB Type A inputs.

The second system comprises the new DMS-500 music streamer playing various digital files from a direct HDD connection with the HI-200.2 tube hybrid Class D integrated amp, drivng a pair of Tannoy Prestige Gold Reference Kensington speakers – also making their North American debut at CES.

The Prestige Gold Reference Kensington speakers feature a Dual Concentric 10in low-frequency driver combined with a high-efficiency compression driver with 2in heat-treated dome and Alnico motor system.

By Andy Clough

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Andy Clough

Andy is Global Brand Director of What Hi-Fi? and has been a technology journalist for 30 years. During that time he has covered everything from VHS and Betamax, MiniDisc and DCC to CDi, Laserdisc and 3D TV, and any number of other formats that have come and gone. He loves nothing better than a good old format war. Andy edited several hi-fi and home cinema magazines before relaunching whathifi.com in 2008 and helping turn it into the global success it is today. When not listening to music or watching TV, he spends far too much of his time reading about cars he can't afford to buy.