What is so special about vintage Tannoys????

[Tarzan]

l am getting fed up reading about vintage Tannoys, as a person who has never had the pleasure to hear a pair, can any AOSers please educate me as to why they seem to have such a cult following- and do l need to listen to a pair?

[Macca]

Yes you need to listen to a pair. One will only give you mono

I think the thing is with the big Tannoys is that although they are far from perfect, like most large loudspeakers, their reproduction is so effortless that once you have experienced it then it is hard to go back to a little 2-way bookshelf system that has to force the sound out by comparison. Another advantage is that they are not so bothered about the room or placement. They don't boom even when up against a wall in a small room, something I had been told but just didn't believe until I heard it for myself.

[The Black Adder]

Come up and have a listen... your very welcome.

[Gordon Steadman]

Not sure really. My organ tutor (behave) used to have a pair of Tannoys and whilst they were indeed, very effective with some of the lower registers, I preferred the LS3 5As with the mid and treble - he had both and we used to swap them around for fun.

I preferred the Quads then and I assume I still would, although I do use a sub nowadays.

Horses for courses perhaps.

PS. And of course, you need to listen to some to see if you like them

[Tarzan]

Come up and have a listen... your very welcome.

Joe, l have seen your room, and if l was not going to work , l would be up like a shot to hear your system.

[Audio Al]

You can listen to my Tannoy Cheviot's when I get around to re foaming them

[walpurgis]

l am getting fed up reading about vintage Tannoys, as a person who has never had the pleasure to hear a pair, can any AOSers please educate me as to why they seem to have such a cult following- and do l need to listen to a pair?

Drop by for a cuppa and a listen Andy, you're not that far away. Speaking as somebody who has heard most of the respected Tannoys, I'd say mine are outstanding. Happy to give you a demo (or anybody else on here). If you've not heard a good pair then I reckon you'll be rather amazed.

[The Black Adder]

I'll give this a try... lol

Well they have a cult following because they are extremely nice sounding speakers. They have a rich history/provenance as you may know so putting them back on duty and feeding them a decent signal is something many people enjoy. You do need to hear some really.

The presentation of the old dual concentric drivers is different to the split 2/3way. This presentation gives a more accurate sound representation with all of the information coming from a single point source. They have great presence and weight. They can do all genre's of music too, rock and delicacy.

The thing with them is that you do have to do some tweaking, so a bit the old DIY is generally necessary to get the very best out of them but this is more like a journey in to how they sound which is also interesting for some.

For example, for the 15" drivers the cabinets that Tannoy originally made for the range are great but the smaller cabs could be moooooch better. Lockwood made the professional cabinets so those are the babies to get, if you can. Another point is that generally the crossovers are now more than ripe for an update/upgrade too. Although this can cost £50 - £££££'s so that's up to budgets. Again, it's a journey thing. In the right cabs they have an amazing frequency response.

On a whole the vintage tannoy's (eg. Monitor Golds) can still hold it together extremely well. Tannoy still make drivers that use practically the same design and they use them in the prestige range. But for me using the vintage drivers doesn't take anything away from the music, in fact it adds more feeling. In a way it brings back the importance of how bands like Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Stones etc...etc. mixed and heard it for themselves on the day of the approved down mix.

A superb sound with some romance thrown in if you like.

[The Black Adder]

Drop by for a cuppa and a listen Andy, you're not that far away. Speaking as somebody who has heard most of the respected Tannoys, I'd say mine are outstanding. Happy to give you a demo (or anybody else on here). If you've not heard a good pair then I reckon you'll be rather amazed.

Yes.. this is a must really. Get to listen to some that have been sorted... not a shabby pair from grannies attic.

FYI.. the drivers are not the things that need attention (unless they are damaged obviously) but rather the cabs, crossovers and decent source/amplification which goes without saying.

If the drivers are damaged, Lockwood and Tannoy still service them, re-cone & align so that's another great thing about them.

[Reffc]

Tannoys...not for everyone.

In the right cabs and with the right crossovers, they can sound very enjoyable. Accurate? Nope, not by a long chalk, but enjoyable. That's not to say they can't be detailed and incisive, because they can be. They do theough have an impedance curve like the Alps and an acoustic response which is...err, interesting However, they do sound enjoyable and have endeared themselves to countless thousands of enthusiasts over the years.

If you like big effortless scale, a nice (albeit coloured) midrange and can house them, then vintage Tannoys can sound pretty respectable.

Many judge them after listening to worn out examples in poorly made highly resonant cabinets which do nothing for the sound. Unfortunately, this applies to many cabinets made in the 60's and '70s. My favourites include the 12 inch HPDs and Golds in Chatsworth cabs (more domestically acceptable than many) and some of the York and Canterbury cabinet designs.

Decent crossovers, as Joe points out, are a must and the one curse of many Tannoy set ups can be crossovers lashed up from "values found on the web" few of which are right, particularly where fixed inductors are used in place of autoformers.

15 Golds give decent bass, as do 12 inch HPDs (their response is very similar) and 15 inch HPDs also give excellent bass response although many prefer the 15MG.

The 12 inch HPD goes much lower and has higher power handling than the 12 inch MG.

10 inch vintage DC's may be cute but there's little esle to recommend them unless you like listening to the mids and don't much care about bass...'cause they haven't got any.

You need to listen to a set rather than have someone convince you. Preferably, you need to listen to as many different ones as possible to get a flavour for just how important the differences in cabinet/crossover designs are.

You may love them or hate them but I doubt you'd fall in between! They do tend to be a "marmite" speaker, but done well, can be mighty impressive.

Modern Prestige variants imho are certainly no better than the older drivers and in some ways, I think they sound worse as the horn resonance issues and time delay circuit added to correct phase in the newer units I think makes them sound less coherent than say an HPD with a decent crossover.

I will go against the trend of agreeing that they sound great in small spaces...my experience has been the opposite when played at anything over moderate levels. The bigger ones move a lot of air and if your room modes correspond in the bass, they can sound very boomy. They can be placed close to walls but like all speakers, avoiding equi-distant placement between side walls and rear walls is probably a good way of reducing the risk of boom. You can listen close up and personal though and I do think that this is why so many see their way into smaller rooms (look at the demand in Japan asnd Hong Kong for all things Tannoy!). Their design represents a true point source so they can be used almost near field, one of the reasons I suspect they were popular in studios too; that and the fact they can go very loud!