Tannoy, opinions please.

[Marco]

Can I have some of what you're on tonight, dude?

Marco.

[Mr. C]

I might let you have some,if you are good boy Marco, but only if you behave yourself

[Marco]

Ok, daddee...

Marco.

[walpurgis]

Calling walpurgis!!!!

Thanks Shane!


Hi Steve,

having had sixteen pairs of various Tannoy dual concentrics over the years, I feel able to express an opinion.

As has been said, they don't suit everybody. Some people find the horn loading to the Tannoy D/C tweeter a problem. I never have, but I have heard some terrible horn tweeters of other makes. Other people claim they can sound wooden, but you get colourations with all speakers. The 12" and 15" HPDs were slated for this when they first came out, as they did have obvious cone colourations, but they are now all over thirty years old and if they have the original cones (probably with new surrounds), the obvious colouration will largely have gone due to 'break in'. Owners will know what I mean.

I think it's fair to say that if you like 'Prog', you're going to love what a pair of decent dual concentrics can do.

The tulip waveguide models are generally good, but for me the 'pepperpot' tweeter types just delve deeper and image that bit better. I've owned many of both types.

With Tannoys, as I'm sure you know, your budget is everything!

You can get away with spending less than £100, just get a pair of Tannoy i6 or i6AW speakers (not the 'T' or 'DCT' versions) off eBay for about £60, take the drivers and crossovers out of the horrible little plastic cabinet and bung them in decent ported boxes about 3 cubic feet in volume and you have a remarkably good pair of compact Tannoys.

Or, if you want vintage 'pepperpot' types just about anything with 12" or 15" Monitor Gold drivers is worth a look, they sound very nice and can be modernised should you choose. Same applies to the 10" and 15" HPD models.

Virtually all the many tulip wave guide models can turn in a pleasant performance. The floorstanding Turnbury is favoured by many and I'd also suggest the System 800 monitor which is compact and very good indeed, a clean second hand pair can be had for a couple of hundred quid!

If you're limited on funds or space, but want the 'classic' Tannoy sound, look for a pair of 10" HPD Tannoy Eatons, they are still available at moderately sensible (but rising) prices. They are quite compact and sound really great, nicely transparent and very punchy, much better than the 12" HPD models for various reasons. I still have a pair of Eatons, as they are one of my favourites.

If money is no object and you have a room that can cope, I'd suggest Tannoy Lancasters or Yorks with 15" Monitor Gold drivers, it can be worthwhile adding extra internal bracing to these cabinets. Or for new speakers the Tannoy Kensington will drive a pretty big room well, but they are getting very pricey these days. There are of course other options.


Models I'd avoid:

The IIILZ, over rated and now very overpriced, it has a bit of an unruly top end (use them with a Decca London cartridge and you'll shatter windows) and pretty poor bass extension regardless of what sized cabinet is used.

12" HPD (Devon and Cheviot speakers), I've had a couple of pairs and found a problem with top end coarseness similar to the IIILZ.

DC200, the least transparent Tannoy dual concentric I've come across, pretty dull and two dimensional to say the least, coloured too.

The DC1000, DC2000 and DC3000, Mayfair, Dorset, etc. These aren't bad as such, but do have obvious colouration from the plastic cones.


As for powering Tannoys, well, in the average home you are unlikely to use more than about twenty watts even for loud listening or even parties as sensitivity is always good, in practice seemingly better than quoted. A twenty five to fifty watt amplifier should be more than adequate. Beware of using bright or unforgiving amps, I wouldn't suggest Naim for instance. Valves, or smooth Class A solid state is the way to go.



Geoff.

[Reffc]

I agree with Lewis here. After hearing all the generalisations about Tannoys, many seem to come from non-Tannoy owners or people who've heard older units with poor cross-over design.

They have come a long way and are anything but a posh PA speaker.

The Prestige line is about as "hifi" as you can get in terms of refinement, tonal balance, imaging and timbre PROVIDING great care is made with the matching amplifier as this seems to make or break the performance.

As for the transition from little tweeter to big woofer, well that's not stricly true either in design terms. That big woofer is shaped and designed to operate well into the midrange with limited excursion (and low distortion) and the newer prestige ramge use compression drivers which use the cone as a horn for the mids then switching via the crossover to the tulip waveguide dispersion horns (or Pepper pot dispersion design) and the whole does sound pretty cohesive.

Get the amplification wrong and you can get an upper mid glary lift, so they are amplification critical. Just because they are sensitive does not mean that they will work with any amplifier, nothing could be further from the truth. Whilst many low powered amps will drive them, that in itself isn't a recipe for success with modern Tannoys.

[DSJR]

Trust me to be different

The Eaton used to squeal in comparison with the others when new and was hopeless when compared to its peers at the time (Spendor and Rogers of all sizes, IMF's of most sizes and the big AR's to name but a few). The Devon and Cheviot sounded fab on a Dolby A master-copy we had of Tubular Bells and Ommadawn (wonder what they used at The Manor studios back then? )

The much later and not classic DC2000's and 3000's sounded incredibly "there" at the time and in fact, we never found them particularly coloured as such. There was so much beef in the balance the tweeter was never an issue at all.

Late 90's saw us fleeced for some D300's. Godawful veneer laying on the tops and a tweeter set so high it took your fillings out. Reducing the tweeter level helped, but they still didn't breathe like proper Tannoys can and do. The 700 sounded thick and too "velvety" as well in our demo room.

Just my alternative experiences. I don't like hifi Dave's IIILZ's, but they never sounded that wonderful when new I remember, the AR3a's being far more to my taste. I'd love to hear some Lancasters nowadays on a sympathetic system though..

[The Black Adder]

Tannoy Golds 15" or 12" + New/updated crossover + Decent cabs + Valve or neutral sounding Transistor amplification = The most moving and emotional sounding speaker system I've ever heard with a sound stage that's quite amazing.