My new (vintage) Tannoy Cheviots!

[walpurgis]

Hello all,

some of you looking at "bargains on eBay" may have seen my post about the £500 Tannoy Cheviot 3128 speakers I just bought.

They were collected yesterday and I had a brief demo at the showroom. They sounded bloody marvelous! Even with sagging cone surrounds and an occasionally rubbing coil on one. These are definitely 'proper Tannoys'.

The ceramic magnet 3128 driver is also used in the Tannoy Balmoral and is a long throw, lower resonance version of the SRM/LRM 12" unit, very different to the 12" HPD driver in most Cheviots (I've owned those in the past too).

At the moment, I'm refurbishing the rather tired looking cabinets, removing paint spatters, repairing veneer chips, and restaining prior to the satin finish going on. I intend having these looking as close to new as possible.

The original grille cloths have no holes, but quite a few snags/pulls. This is easy to sort, just push them back through the fabric with needle pointed tweezers. They don't show then.

Strangely, one plinth is half an inch shorter than the other. It has been sawn down, presumably due to damage. I'll restore this to size with some hardwood cut to fit.

Two sets of cone surrounds are on order, along with various adhesives. I've bought foam roll surrounds as per original and a set of fabric double pleat surrounds as used on the SRM/LRM series drivers. I will decide which to use in due course.

The crossovers will be checked and maybe upgraded and I shall be rewiring the speakers with something decent, possibly bypassing the plug & socket into the driver.

This being the very last incarnation of the Cheviot, it conveniently sports a set of reasonable looking banana sockets instead of wire grippers. Nice, I won't have to alter that.

If I can work out how to upload some decent photos, I shall show some of the work in progress.

Geoff.

[southall-1998]

Should be interesting, Geoff.

Good luck.

[walpurgis]

Taken this morning. Just a couple of thumbnails showing the butchered plinth and one re-stained cabinet side (its the one furthest way).


(and yes, my listening room is tiny, overfilled and has too many Tannoys in)

[walpurgis]

Should be interesting, Geoff.

Good luck.

Thanks Shane, I'll give you a shout once they're done and you are welcome to a listen. Geoff.

[southall-1998]

Lovely, I'm looking forward to it.

[wiicrackpot]

Taken this morning. Just a couple of thumbnails showing the butchered plinth and one re-stained cabinet side (its the one furthest way)

Erm...it's not that we want to see, it's the 3128's !!!, i'm intrigued to see whats the difference to a bog standard Cheviot driver.

wii.

[walpurgis]

Erm...it's not that we want to see, it's the 3128's !!!, i'm intrigued to see whats the difference to a bog standard Cheviot driver.

wii.

It is a 'bog standard' Cheviot driver for this series. It was the last version of this range and to me, sounds better than the HPD315.

[jaym481]

Unless you are determined to restore them to near original, I'd suggest lose the plinths and get a nice pair of good stands for them. I haven't done that for my own Cheviots, but did it for my Berkeleys. Be warned tough, the plinths are likely glued on as well as screwed, so take care you don't lose a strip of veneer if you decide to do it.

[walpurgis]

Yes, I want them looking as near original and new as possible, so I'll be retaining the plinths.

The damaged one came off without bother and is nearly restored, haven't tried removing the second yet.

I know stands can help in certain listening environments, I may make up a short, steel box section pair that fit around the outside of the plinths (could be a marketable item?).

[jaym481]

The metal frame stand thing isn't new, but I doubt you'd make much money from it. Not enough Cheviot owners out there who would be interested I should thing (I might be the exception, but I'm more interested in completely re-housing mine eventually).