Tangent Speakers RS-8
The RS-8s were the top of the line Tangent speakers. They are a 3 way design with all the drivers phase aligned. They stand .96 metre high. The drivers are:
- tweeter - Audax soft dome
- mid - Audax 4 in.
- woofer - Dalesford 10 in.
I would call the sound of these speakers well balanced. The bass is tight and controlled but there's not a lot of it.
I've received some information from Anders Persson on Tangent speakers that enlightens/confuses the naming conversions used for the speakers...
The Tangent RS8 was marketed as PS8 in Europe and the speaker you are asking for information about was called PS4. That would possibly be the RS4 on the North American market. This is a little confusing, though, since there was an older series produced by Tangent that were called RS in Europe and they had conventional shape like the RS2 in your site. There was a PS2 they never marketed in Sweden and it was a two-way speaker with pyramid shape.
I visited a Hi-Fi shop in Oerebro in Sweden together with a friend late 1980 to listen to the PS8 speakers. They were driven by a set of Michaelson & Austin mono tube amplifiers, a Musical Fidelity preamp and the signal came from the -in those days - obligatory Linn LP12.
We also listened to the PS4 and PS6 (RS6 in the American market?) models. The PS6 was an inbetween model with the only the bass driver differing from the other two and it had the same kind of front as the PS8, only it was smaller. It had an 8" Dalesford bass driver.
We had both listened to several british loudspeakers during a couple of months. Spendor, Heybrook, KEF, B&W and they were all good but far to expensive for us to buy and when we heard the music from these speakers we were both hooked.
My friend, Lars, bought a pair of the PS4 speakers almost immediately after we had listened to them. They sounded quite like the larger models and were more affordable. Somewhere around 5000 - 5500 Swedish crowns (SEK) I think. A swedish industrial worker was earning about 7000 SEK per month at the time. Today his or her salary would be about 23000 SEK which is around 3000 USD.
I waited for six or seven months and saved some money and ordered a pair of PS6 at a local dealer in my hometown. They were priced at 7200 SEK and I had to wait for two months for them and when they arrived they had grown to PS8:s. The guy who owned the shop had found a pair of demo speakers and let me have them for the price of the PS6. The price for the PS8 speakers was 9500 SEK at the time.
I still use my PS8 speakers. The amplifiers have changed over the years. I could never afford the tube amps and started with a Yamaha A-1 (4300 SEK in 1981) and kept it through the eighties and after that I have used another Yamaha amp (AX-900), a Quad 44 + 405 combination and now I use a Pioneer C90 + M90. The speakers demand quite a lot of the amplifier. I have tried them with weaker amps and it has been disapointing. The Pioneer combo really manages these speakers well and have given my music listening a great boost.
After 25 years the speakers have almost become family members and I use them about 5 - 8 hours every week and wouldn't change them for anything else. Even my wife has gotten used to them (you know how most women are about these things <grin/>).
I don't know if the RS8 speakers on the pictures are yours, Chris, but if they are you should try to put them back on the wheels or some other 2" high stand and place them about 1,5 - 2 ft from the wall pointing inwards so that the crossed focus of them is about 3 ft in front of you. That was how they were meant to stand and it makes a huge difference compared to other positions. The same advice goes for the RS4.
