Which Tannoys, folks?

[f1eng]

Good point David.
It was very different then. Garrard were very proud of their engineering and looked for clever effective but, where possible, inexpensive to manufacture solutions.
Nowadays people seem to make a virtue of the astonishingly expensive solutions chosen, even when there is no need...
Mind you the strobe markings on the 401 were cut with a gear hobbing machine - somewhat overkill but nice looking.

[tannoyman]

Good point David.
It was very different then. Garrard were very proud of their engineering and looked for clever effective but, where possible, inexpensive to manufacture solutions.
Nowadays people seem to make a virtue of the astonishingly expensive solutions chosen, even when there is no need...
Mind you the strobe markings on the 401 were cut with a gear hobbing machine - somewhat overkill but nice looking.

Hi Harry

How many modern pieces of hi fi will be treasureed in the way that vinage Garrards are today in 50 years time? (answers on a postcard)

I owned a Garrard 401 in 1970 purchased through the wholesale channel (Harris & Russell in Reading) and regret ever selling it. It is an ambition to get a nice late oil bearing 301 (with gear cut strobe markings) for my vintage system. Perhaps 2013 will be the year.

David

David

[DSJR]

The thing I remember, and this was right at the end, was that Garrard were always helpful and happy to send out spares at not too silly money. The only real problem I have with their early 70's stuff is that by this time, Dual had raced ahead with regard to precision auto decks. Kind of makes my well-working (in fairness) AP76 seem a bit flimsy and agricultural, especially when the trip pawls seize up

Having said that, I have plans for yet another Garrard auto deck

[tannoyman]

The thing I remember, and this was right at the end, was that Garrard were always helpful and happy to send out spares at not too silly money. The only real problem I have with their early 70's stuff is that by this time, Dual had raced ahead with regard to precision auto decks. Kind of makes my well-working (in fairness) AP76 seem a bit flimsy and agricultural, especially when the trip pawls seize up

Having said that, I have plans for yet another Garrard auto deck

Hi Dave

Dual another blast from the past. I remember being very proud to own a Dual 1219 auto deck in about 1969. It put the cheap Garrards to shame in terms of design and finish but not their better stuff.

I find it interesting that you choose to use very old equipment of modest quality. I regularly have musical evenings with a pal whose kit is of truly horrible 1980's origin (Amstrad or some such brand) and we have delightful evenings just listening to and discussing great music and the system doesn't matter a tinker's damn.

David

[DSJR]

I can't afford expensive gear any more, so don't actively look there for personal use. The systems I have a huge fun, keep me sane (just) and are actually still quite good.

The Micro Seiki CD player though, is hardly "modest quality," in fairly recent times seeing off many sub £3000 players. I found I was reacting negatively to the balanced-phono chunky-silver cable mark Grant made for me (sorry Mark) and fished out some twin-lapped mic cables sold by RS around 20 years ago, terminated the ends and found the sonics much better and less "spot-lit." The Dual 701 is a great precision vintage auto deck IMO and with the right cartridges and extra mat, makes for a highly quiet and stable musical platform for vinyl - you cannot beat their auto mechs either The Crown "D" amps were inherited (I sold part of this system to the original owner), they compare VERY favourably with the best Glenn has to offer (once the preamp had a pair of updated op-amps and four 1uF caps replaced and we spent hours listeng at hifi dave's to confirm - he has a complete set of his own now) and I'm delighted with the quality of the sonics which were steered away from in the late 70's because of the valve revival (all rose tinted and pretty horrid with hindsight). The BC2's have toned right down with the old but still good Cable Talk Excel 4 I recently purchased and still have a great midrange/lower treble. We sold loads of this speaker cable and used it for many of our non Linn or Naim dems (think of a small-scale VDH The Wind as Marco uses - no treble hash or "splatter"). The office setup has a great vintage Denon 1520 CD player as transport (Sony ES linear motor drive sled mech I think), which inverts the phase on the audio output, making the result a bit wishy-washy, a tricked up QED Digit which comes to life once the output stage is separately powered and the nasty output caps are replaced with "better," a collection of turntables you wouldn't even look twice at, my beloved Croft preamp (equivalent to an R now)an ex-editing suite HH power amp which still delivers the goods after twenty years 24/7 (I'm planning on getting "my" Quad 33/303 back at some point) and a pair of again, ex editing suite Rogers "BBC" LS5/9's I'm custodian of.

The thing is, the whole "HiFi" thing is really a hiding to nothing once you've gone so far. Rich people can go into the likes of KJ West One and indulge themselves in the latest OTT products imported by Absolute Sounds, but in reality, are they actually buying a *better* sound? BIGGER certainly and beautifully presentated in most cases, but BETTER?????

Had I the funds and the room, I'd be seriously looking at some SP Acoustics monitors I think. Active and passive, the drivers are amongst the best out there and the mid driver is run wide, leaving the bass units for the bass only (no mid smear that afflicts so many three ways) and the tweeter handles only VERY high frequencies (I'm assuming the dispersion is ok done like this...). A pal with ears I trust implicitly raytes them as the best medium sized monitors he's ever heard. The fact that the designer was responsible for the original AE1 and its family and that they're based between AVI and ATC in that region of Gloucestershire really does pique my interest

Sorry to go on, but good cheap and/or old gear can still cut the mustard I think, as long as it's correctly matched and allowances made for more limited capabilities sometimes.....

[tannoyman]

Hi Dave

I obviously got it wrong when you spoke of early Garrards. Please accept my apologies

David

[Reffc]

Dave's comment about cheap and /or old kit still cutting it is bang on IME.

I recently set up a frien's TD150 which he's owned from new. It was set up with a Quad 34/304 (recently serviced and upgraded) amps played into Heybrook HB2 loudspeakers. It sounded fab. That whole lot together cost less than my current MC cartridge which made me i) feel pretty ashamed and ii) was capable of surprising resolution, and more importantly emotion.

My upgrading days are over now (please do quote me on that!) so any replacements in future will be older or refurbished kit. I'm very pleased with the 1970 401 I've refurbished this year (complete strip down and rebuild) and having fitted it with a Hadcock full cryo arm and an excellent vintage Shure m95He it's making great music with the Tannoys. I use that deck more than the Gyro these days.

[tannoyman]

Dave's comment about cheap and /or old kit still cutting it is bang on IME.

I recently set up a frien's TD150 which he's owned from new. It was set up with a Quad 34/304 (recently serviced and upgraded) amps played into Heybrook HB2 loudspeakers. It sounded fab. That whole lot together cost less than my current MC cartridge which made me i) feel pretty ashamed and ii) was capable of surprising resolution, and more importantly emotion.

My upgrading days are over now (please do quote me on that!) so any replacements in future will be older or refurbished kit. I'm very pleased with the 1970 401 I've refurbished this year (complete strip down and rebuild) and having fitted it with a Hadcock full cryo arm and an excellent vintage Shure m95He it's making great music with the Tannoys. I use that deck more than the Gyro these days.

Hi Paul

I totally agree. I recently bought a Quad 33/303 and a Quad 66 CD player and am taking two of them to Huntingdon tomorrow for same day servicing. Contrast that with major Japanese manufacturers where some machines from post 2000 can no longer be repaired because parts are no longer available. That of course is the major caveat with vintage gear. Even if you are handy at repairing yourself if you cannot get parts you're buggered. This point needs to be taken into account when calculating the correct price to pay. The servicing availibility is the reason why vintage Quad kit still sells for very good money

I would love to buy a nice Sony SCD 777es Universal player but I am a bit wary because I understand that you can no londer get replacement lasers for them. I am still very tempted, but they sell for £800 - £1000 so if it went wrong I could be left with a very expensive door stop

David

[DSJR]

There's plenty on the Quad 66 CD player to turn it into a really nice player. I used to use mine (one I "borrowed for a few months from work for use as transport) with a Croft made 4A rated mains filter, which helped no end on so many of these 1541 based machines. Apparently, replacing the film caps around the DAC chip with higher value types (as Marantz did on mostl of their machines at the time) helps too, although Quad used SMD types. A clock upgrade probably wouldn't go amiss either, although how much life is left in the laser is obviously another matter...

The Linn LP12 owes its very existance to the TD150 layout, and it's amazing how close all the dimensions are too Obviously the RD11/LP12 when first launched was basically a "blue-printed" TD150, but conversely, some careful setting up and re-plinthing on a TD150 can work wonders for the sonics. I don't mind the crude old arms fitted either, since there are many good sounding cartridges that would work in these nowadays after a careful fettling...

[Reid Malenfant]

I have just read this thread. It took a long time. I am not knowledgeable about Tannoy speakers (but have enjoyed them the twice I have listened) so no comments here.

I have a couple of points to make though.

Firstly several posters mentioned the superiority of a single 15" unit over multiple small units "because it hardly moves". Well clearly that depends! 4 8" units will move -less- than a single 15", and have 4 motors. I am not disputing what is heard, I haven't compared a speaker with a 15" bass unit with one with 4 8" units... Just sayin'

Getting it back to the speakers

I think the point is here is that to get some kind of realistic sound level you do need to move a lot of air, or at least be capable of doing it when called for!

The thing with the Tannoys is the coaxial tweeter that effectively makes all the sound radiate from one place, that single driver. Generally most people will think of the 15" unit as optimum simply because it can move the most air.

Personally I'd go for a Tannoy that one of the members on here owns (can't think of his name right now) that uses a smaller 10" coaxial driver & a pair of 12" drivers for filling in the bass. At bass frequencies sound is omnidirectional, so you'd never notice it wasn't eminating from a single driver anyway. I'm also sure that a 10" driver would do a better job in the midrange (less distortion) up to the crossover frequency of the tweeter than a 15" would, simply because it'd act as more of a piston.

Give the bass over to those 12" drivers at less than 150Hz say & I'm sure it'd be something to behold

Tannoy appear to be going back to a similar setup with their modern speakers, a smaller coaxial but paired with a 15 or maybe even an 18" bass unit in there largest speakers.

It makes total sense