Nordmende Tannhäuser 59
Tannhäuser, born into a family of knights in Salzburg, took part maybe in the sixth Crusade of 1228 and led a wandering life as a poet and a bard. He attended the court of Duke Frederick II in Vienna.
According to legend, during his life Tannhäuser found the Venusburg (mount of Venus), the subterranean reign of Venus, and lived with her for one year. He then left the goddess, full of remorse, and undertook a journey to Rome, in order to ask Pope Urban IV for forgiveness. The Pope reminded him that such sins lead to eternal damnation and promised to forgive him only in the event of a miracle: the appearance of flowers on his cane. Three days later Tannhäuser returned to Vienna and the cane bloomed.
The legend was put into music by Richard Wagner in his Tannhäuser.
Nordmende, in its heyday of technological growth, decided to name “Tannhäuser” its best device ever produced.
A device designed to represent the crest of the technical perfection of its time and extreme attention to detail.
The output stage is composed of a pair of EL84 in Push-Pull. The phase inversion is carried out with a section of the double triode ECC82 in Cathodyne configuration. This kind of inverter has an advantage, the possibility to be connected directly to its previous stage. Such stage consists of the remaining section of the double triode ECC82, which provides for the amplification of the signal after the attenuation deriving from the tone control circuit.
The triode contained in the multifunction valve EABC80 constitutes the input preamplifier and receives a signal from a logarithmic potentiometer with 3 intermediate sockets for a complex and very accurate physiological volume control circuit.
The radio section is of the same high quality. An additional medium frequency stage is present, in order to increase the selectivity.
This allows the receipt of transmissions, especially in FM, particularly stable and free from disturbance.
The complex of loudspeakers, moreover, is really impressive. All the loudspeakers are made by Isophon.
The reproduction of low and medium frequencies is ensured by a big elliptic woofer P 2031/19/105 which measures 31 cm in length and 20 in height.
To trebles, instead, are dedicated 5 loudspeakers built with 2 different technologies.
Frontally we have a 13 cm midrange for a soft reproduction, perfectly integrated with that of the woofer.
On each side was placed the famous HM 10/12/70 cone tweeter and an ST HB7 electrostatic tweeter
As Baudelaire wrote, the Tannhäuser represents the struggle between the two principles which choose the human heart as their battlefield, that is the flesh against the spirit.
Nordmende honoured this great piece of work with the realisation of its best product.
Frontally, we can find the famous cone tweeter HM 10/12/70 The trumpet exit of a DKS 6/13/100 and an electrostatic tweeter ST HB7 were put on each side.