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Berkeley 15s

A

Anex

Señor Member
Team big Tannoys,

Thoughts on these, please:
http://bit.ly/I5xDtp

Unsure about the tweeter creasing so emailed the seller about that. Otherwise they look neat and tidy and the price seems about right, no?
 
The crease is just in the dust cover. If it is a crease. Some are metalised covers and they reflect the light in that way sometimes.
Behind that is a short aluminium horn and much further in a peppar pot (metal with drillings in it to disperse the sound waves). Nothing in there you can poke in to damage.

More worrying is the replaced foam surround - I am seeing it is the one on the left. Does not look anything like an original to me - I replaced both mine with original pattern foams.
So it's likely they will sound slightly different. Less bass on the new one I would suspect but who knows.
Usually the foam lasts 15-20yrs so why was only one replaced? Damaged perhaps? how much longer does the right hand one have left.
You have to remove the dust caps to centre the cones when you replace the foam hence it is an after market and photographs differently - that's my take in it from the photos.

These are 3828 drivers, not HPD's or Golds, Reds or Silvers that are worth more in increasing order.

I had a pair of those driver as my first foray into 15" Tannoys and made larger GRF enclosures for them in 21 / 24mm birch ply. Much better sound than the Berkeleys or Ardens.

The 3828 is a good driver but laws of rareness / desireability place them down the order a bit.

Given all this, I think that price is far too high for them TBH.
The drivers in proper spec are far better than the cabs do them justice.

To have them both refoamed with original surrounds would cost about £450 at Lockwoods - they insist on changing the cones too as it is not economical labour wise for them to unpick / clean up the old foam. It's perfectly doable.

New surrounds are avail from Aus & perhaps the Netherlands (don't ask my why those countries) at about £50 a pair with the fitting materials.
Whoever changed the foam / dust cap on the left cab last did a neat job of the gluing of the dust cap - that's pretty tricky. The right hand one looks bodged by comparison - you can see glue around the edge of it caused by too much glue.
 
Looks like one driver is a 3828 and the other a 3808(this the non tanoplas surround driver looks a bit odd to me).
They are not a pair, the dodgy foam surround 3828 driver has a heavier strutted cone and is about 3 dB less efficient too.
 
Yeah looking at them again on a better screen I can see the cones are different too. - as cooky says, even different drivers.
 
Perhaps I'm just looking in the wrong places, but I'm seeing fewer pairs of actual Tannoy speakers, i.e. two cones in two boxes, around. Lots of drivers on sale, some empty boxes but neither is much use without the other.
I suppose I could put a nice plant on top of one of the boxes.
 
Quite a few pairs of IILZ's turn up on ebay, my friend recently bought a nice pair with the original cardboard boxes. Going rate seems to be about £1000.
 
Now keeping an eye on these:
http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/710-5...0001&campid=5338728743&icep_item=170825391261

Don't much like the cabs, but they're a good starting point. I figure if I don't like the Tannoys I can probably get back what I pay for them, but if I do keep them they my ADAM monitors will probably cover the Tannoy cost so net outlay shouldn't be much more than the cost of Tannoy shipping. Or I might just be greedy and keep both as I do loves my ADAMs.
 
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No, you generally won't loose on classic Tannoy DC's. Years ago I had 12" Silvers and 12" Golds. More recently got some 12" HPD's.
 
Not that I won't like them of course. But there could be a space issue at some point down the line.
 
Anex said:
Perhaps I'm just looking in the wrong places, but I'm seeing fewer pairs of actual Tannoy speakers, i.e. two cones in two boxes, around. Lots of drivers on sale, some empty boxes but neither is much use without the other.
Click to expand...

Earlier Tannoys, e.g. Silvers, Reds, Golds were frequently sold as just drivers. It was a very different and far more DIY-centric market, even at the ultra-high end / studio market where things like Tannoys resided. Both home users and studios frequently built their own cabs and audio furniture (Garrard didn't make a plinth for the 301/401 and things like the Leak Stereo 20 don't even have a bottom panel as they are designed to be screwed into a user's cabinet). This became less and less fashionable as time moved on and whilst HPD drivers were sold for a while (I have a mag with an old Wilmslow Audio ad in it somewhere) the practice became less and less common to the point Tannoy now only sell complete speakers. IIRC the original alnico HPDs were the last driver that was sold separately. The 12" Golds in the eBay listing above are entirely legitimate, they won't be missing their original Tannoy Lancaster or Chatsworth cabs, it's just how they'd have been originally purchased.
 
I thought it was saying my bid must be at least xxx, but it was saying it had to be more than xxx. A rookie mistake for sure.
 
Anex said:
I thought it was saying my bid must be at least xxx, but it was saying it had to be more than xxx. A rookie mistake for sure.
Click to expand...

Oh dear, I suppose you might have bid more then.

Those 12" Golds were reasonable at under £1000.

12" HPD's are good value if surrounds are OK. Having those, I do not miss my 12" Golds or Silvers.
 
I'm not at all fussy about which model I get really. I'd like a pair of System 15s, but I can't find any around and not sure whether my ~£1K ish budget would cover them.
 
Anex said:
I'm not at all fussy about which model I get really. I'd like a pair of System 15s, but I can't find any around and not sure whether my ~£1K ish budget would cover them.
Click to expand...

I'm not familiar with them, perhaps someone else will comment.
 
They're a more recent (relatively) studio main monitor. HPD I think, they just come in grey boxes. I like the look of them though.
 
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