Classic hi-fi components

[Themis]

Steve Toy, post no 12 in the 'chez themis' thread:

'I find that speakers account for about 10% of the overall signature of a system and no more.'

I think that what Steve means is that you can get a very good result with £1k speakers and you have lots of room for obtaining good music with the rest even with such speakers.
So, in short, what he means is that above this price speakers go quickly expensive.

Maybe he can't persuade his wife to allow some big Tannoys into the house, and this is post-hoc rationalisation.

We listened to Tannoys the other day, but I think the price is more of a show stopper than the size (£11k). Moreover, Steve found out that you can have excellent Tannoy sound with 12" speakers. So the size matters less.

[Dave Hewitt]

Hi I have often been tempted to the 15 inch tannoys several times but have wondered if the 12 inchers would give the same scale but ,have a faster sound.I have always given the 12 inch models a miss but after whats been said here wonder if there is much difference between the two.
Cheers Dave.

[Macca]

Hi I have often been tempted to the 15 inch tannoys several times but have wondered if the 12 inchers would give the same scale but ,have a faster sound.I have always given the 12 inch models a miss but after whats been said here wonder if there is much difference between the two.
Cheers Dave.

HFW reviewed the 12'' Yorkminster a couple of years back and concluded that to get the full benefit (real low bass and 'slam') a large room was needed. That's why Tannoy offer 8'' and 10'' versions.

This review really intrigued me at the time but as the price is way beyond my reach I figured I would never actually get to hear any; but I have since had a listen to Ian's 15'' Canterburys and was amazed. They are not 'slow' in any way but if HFW are correct then his room is not large enough to get the full benefit and he could have 'made do' with the 10s or 12s and not noticed a difference.

[Dave Hewitt]

Hi Martin,I have heard Ians tannoys and came to the same conclusion as you,they didnt sound slow to me,but i once heard a pair of Edinburghs which I thought were crap,in a room of similar size to Mr Walkers,so cant make up my mind if HFW are correct in their assumptions regarding room size.Cant be the amp giving the difference in scale because I tried my myamps on them at Ians

Dave.

[Rare Bird]

My tuner issue is that my Arcam Delta 80 sounds the best of all, but looks so boring compared to the 70's greats. It was an analogue tuner with digital display.

I loved the A&R Cambs 'T21' to bits was so good at picking up even withought a good ariel.Was just the nighmarish tuning display that did my head in..

[Macca]

Hi Martin,I have heard Ians tannoys and came to the same conclusion as you,they didnt sound slow to me,but i once heard a pair of Edinburghs which I thought were crap,in a room of similar size to Mr Walkers,so cant make up my mind if HFW are correct in their assumptions regarding room size.Cant be the amp giving the difference in scale because I tried my myamps on them at Ians

Dave.

Hi Dave

Could be becasue the Edinburgh is an older model whereas Ian has the modern up to date spec?

[Spectral Morn]

Thanks Chris, much appreciated. You're pretty much spot on with where I am headed I think - I'm not after anything "legendary" just something that will put in a reasonable performance, and, look 70s cool. Plenty of options and no mad rush. Thanks again.

Alex if you can wait a bit I will have tuners a plenty for sale when my write up is finished. I will only be looking for what I paid for them.


Regards D S D L

[Jonboy]

My tannoy Sterlings fill my room with only 8 watts driving them, its 0ver 30 ft long and 13 foot wide with a vaulted ceiling in part of it, they have plenty of bass and only have a 10 inch driver, i have been tempted to go bigger and try 15's but it will mean having something that needs a couple of wardrobes for cabinets to make the most from them, i think Marco's Lockwoods are a good compromise for size, i have listened to Westminsters as well, they do need a concert hall to make them sing and really shout if the room is to small from my experience.

[Marco]

Hi Dave,

Hi Martin,I have heard Ians tannoys and came to the same conclusion as you,they didnt sound slow to me,but i once heard a pair of Edinburghs which I thought were crap,in a room of similar size to Mr Walkers,so cant make up my mind if HFW are correct in their assumptions regarding room size.

You've also heard mine in an even smaller room than Ian's, and they rock! There's nothing 'slow' about them whatsoever. I think Avinash is still trying to get over what he heard the last time

Martin, you must pop over sometime for a sesh. I'd value your opinion of the difference in presentation between my Tannoys and Ian's - both are excellent but a little different

I've got a fair bit of experience now with listening to different Tannoys, and what's blatantly obvious is that the type of presentation offered depends largely on the vintage of the drivers and type and size of cabinets used.

When 15" drivers are used, for example, the cabinets must have a minimum internal volume of 300 litres - anything smaller than that will not allow the drivers to 'breathe', and thus a thin and somewhat 'pinched' sound will ensue, in comparison to what is possible with bigger cabinets. Therefore cabinets of the size of Ian's Canterburys and my Lockwoods are mandatory when 15" drivers are used.

Also, rather crucially, baffle width must be such that the huge cones have sufficient space on either side of the front of the cabinets to allow a 'freedom of movement' that ensures optimal performance, which is why you need a very wide baffle area to successfully accommodate this aspect of their design. This is one of the reasons why I don't think that the current Glenairs (which use 15" drivers) are entirely successful because compromises have been made in that area in order to make them more domestically acceptable.

Unfortunately, in some of the older designs, Tannoy had a habit of 'shoe-horning' their larger drive units into cabinets which were way too small to allow those drive units to behave optimally. Perfect examples of this were the Berkeleys with 15" drivers and Devons with 12" drivers. Both of those speakers used cabinets’ way too small for their respective drive units, and had a compromised sound as a result, although they could still be huge fun to listen to.

With regard to huge Tannoys needing very big rooms to work properly, all I can say is that experience so far suggests that is not the case.

It will of course largely depend on the vintage and type of speaker concerned, however neither Ian nor I have big rooms for our respective 15" Tannoys, and have experimented with the seating position we use. We have found that they suit near-field listening rather more than they do when one is sat further towards the back of the room, where bass sounds rather full and starts to dominate proceedings. The effect is very obvious in both of our rooms.

Therefore, when listening, we both sit around 3 metres away from our speakers for optimal results. Crucially, I also discovered this at the show we did at Scalford Hall, where my Lockwoods were used in a room about three times the size of mine at home, and guess where they sounded best? Yes, it was near-field, around 3-3.5 metres away! Consequently, the first two rows of seats were where the sweet spot was, and they sounded excellent there. Conversely, at the back of the room the sound was boomy and quite horrible.

Now of course much will depend on the acoustics of the room concerned, and the plasterboard walls of the room at Scalford Hall would not have helped matters (some large rooms might indeed work very well), but consider the results Ian and I have achieved with near-field listening at home and also that around 90% of Tannoy's biggest models in the Prestige range are exported to discerning audiophiles in the Far East, where the rooms are not much bigger than a postage stamp.........and the notion that large rooms are mandatory is far from conclusive.

As ever, there are simply too many variables, so one just has to suck it and see!

Marco.

[Macca]

As I recall it (and I still have that issue somewhere) the point NK was making in the very extensive review was that whereas the full benefit of the Yorkies capabilities was only realised in the large room they still sounded excellent in the smaller room. So no conflict with any of our own 'hands on' experience.

Interstingly Ian mentioned to me that the Tannoys were the only large speaker he had used that did not suffer from excess bass in his room. As you say, so many variables.