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sad day for coatbridge tannoy factory

a friend of mine has a MASSIVE organ in his front room which we heard today , must be 10 foot high by about 10 foot , powered by glorious tannoy dc speakers .... sounds almost as good as the real thing , these dc tannoys are pretty ancient . hopefully tannoy will go on for many more years wherever they are made

this is he playing another organ , his is just as big with the tannoys

 
I’ve heard this too, but I’m unclear when it actually happened. The Wikipedia page hasn’t been updated and suggests Philip Swift is the owner. I have a pair of Spendor S3/5Rs in my TV rig, so about a decade old I guess, and they are certainly made in the UK. Fabulous little speakers IMO!

It was done quite a few years back. Around the time of Audio Lounge started in Wigmore Street which is also owned by the same group...
 
i think the problem with hifi, is just so mind bending expensive,that me and most people cannot afford to pay retail, everything i have excluding main cables, and six way musicworks box, is pre owned, not old, i have a Esoteric K01x cd player, there is no way i would pay £20,000, retail,i would have sleepless nights, and magazines, keep banging on that £20K-£30K amps are a bargain, how much does it actually cost to build a amp, say we have a £20,000, amp take off the dealer 50%, then we are down to £10,000, take off the profit then we are down to about £6,000, this includes staff building, r&d, heating and all the rest, if you price it up in parts you would be looking at £3-£4k, and i'm not talking amp casing milled out of a 30kg lump of alli, this subject comes up all the time, about the cost of hifi, PS audio have gone online only in some countries but they have not dropped their pricing, and to say we should go out and buy new, is just plain dafft, cost will be the end of this great hobby, nobody is forcing us to keep upgrading, its what we do, the second hand market in the usa, is doing just fine, and the gear is about a third of new, what's not to like, the problem is it's 110v, amazing gear to be had on audiogon, and the likes, you can't tell me a £20,000, car is made for £3k ish,
 
i think the problem with hifi, is just so mind bending expensive,that me and most people cannot afford to pay retail, everything i have excluding main cables, and six way musicworks box, is pre owned, not old, i have a Esoteric K01x cd player, there is no way i would pay £20,000, retail,i would have sleepless nights, and magazines, keep banging on that £20K-£30K amps are a bargain, how much does it actually cost to build a amp, say we have a £20,000, amp take off the dealer 50%, then we are down to £10,000, take off the profit then we are down to about £6,000, this includes staff building, r&d, heating and all the rest, if you price it up in parts you would be looking at £3-£4k, and i'm not talking amp casing milled out of a 30kg lump of alli, this subject comes up all the time, about the cost of hifi, PS audio have gone online only in some countries but they have not dropped their pricing, and to say we should go out and buy new, is just plain dafft, cost will be the end of this great hobby, nobody is forcing us to keep upgrading, its what we do, the second hand market in the usa, is doing just fine, and the gear is about a third of new, what's not to like, the problem is it's 110v, amazing gear to be had on audiogon, and the likes, you can't tell me a £20,000, car is made for £3k ish,
Broadly speaking, ISTM that the high-quality end of HiFi industry is trying to maintain a manufacturing base largely un-adapted to a world of smaller customer demand.

The result is that some need to make belated drastic changes leading to the unfortunate loss of good products, as here. Others raise prices to try and cover overly-large operating expenses and declare marketing on customers to get enough of them to accept this.

So we see the salesmen using all of the marketing techniques they can (including in on-line forums) to make us dissatisfied with what we have. To make us spend lots of money on the smallest details and new things we didn't know we needed. Things they relentlessly promote as "revolutionary", "night-and-day", etc.

The magazines are part of this. A typical editor would, no doubt, deny it. But to quote Mandy Rice-Davies: "well, he would, wouldn't he?"

I have, through good fortune, not yet had to buy second hand. And I have developed a clear understanding of what I want to achieve so I don't listen to the salesmen who insists on telling me otherwise. But if prices for high quality products continue increasing I may decide to stop buying or go pre-owned in future.

And it's the way the industry is behaving that is the fundamental driver behind that.
 
i think the problem with hifi, is just so mind bending expensive,that me and most people cannot afford to pay retail, everything i have excluding main cables, and six way musicworks box, is pre owned, not old, i have a Esoteric K01x cd player, there is no way i would pay £20,000, retail,i would have sleepless nights, and magazines, keep banging on that £20K-£30K amps are a bargain, how much does it actually cost to build a amp, say we have a £20,000, amp take off the dealer 50%, then we are down to £10,000, take off the profit then we are down to about £6,000, this includes staff building, r&d, heating and all the rest, if you price it up in parts you would be looking at £3-£4k,

Your seem to be confusing the pricing of luxury goods with the pricing of commodities and audiophile perceived performance with high-fidelity technical performance. High fidelity technical performance has never been cheaper in real terms although that is now starting to change here in the UK as our economic conditions fall. Top of the range audiophile equipment on the other hand has become expensive because of a large drop in demand and a large increase in extremely rich people able to casually purchasing the "best" hi-fi without being an enthusiast.

If you are interested in technical performance these have been good times as things like DSP, multichannel, active crossovers, etc... have enabled substantial increases in technical sound quality of recorded music within a room in the home. OK most audiophiles are not interested in that sort of thing but it doesn't mean sound quality in the home has not being improving and for a reducing cost in real terms.
 
If you are interested in technical performance these have been good times as things like DSP, multichannel, active crossovers, etc... have enabled substantial increases in technical sound quality of recorded music within a room in the home. OK most audiophiles are not interested in that sort of thing but it doesn't mean sound quality in the home has not being improving and for a reducing cost in real terms.

It's sad that as audio performance has increased over the years, nowadays the actual music, with the exception of the specialist record labels like Hyperion etc, recorded music for the masses is dropping in quality. A lot of todays music is probably not even MP3...
 
I just have! They are due to be delivered hopefully Monday or Tuesday this week. Does anybody know where they are being assembled now? I assume it is still somewhere in Scotland and. There was a delay on my order of approx 10 days so either they were on the slow boat from China or the production facility was just being set up( Wishful thinking!). The stuff advertised in the Coatbridge auction looks like mostly ancient stuff. The factory site itself looks like a horrible ancient industrial unit. Google the Fyne factory unit it could be anywhere. It is just a modern rectangular box in a nice new industrial estate. The romantic ideal of rustic stone buildings housing a warren of Harry Potter type characters beavering away on turning out magical products is just an advertising dream.
From what I gather the stock goes/went from Coatbridge to Holland (maybe it's all just sitting there permanently now as site is closed) before being shipped to UK dealer for onward delivery to customer. This was my experience in early October at least.
 
a friend of mine has a MASSIVE organ in his front room which we heard today , must be 10 foot high by about 10 foot , powered by glorious tannoy dc speakers .... sounds almost as good as the real thing , these dc tannoys are pretty ancient . hopefully tannoy will go on for many more years wherever they are made

this is he playing another organ , his is just as big with the tannoys

Great, I must hear that through the Ardens later!
With those feet this guy could easily take up Kathak dancing!
 
i think the problem with hifi, is just so mind bending expensive,that me and most people cannot afford to pay retail, everything i have excluding main cables, and six way musicworks box, is pre owned, not old, i have a Esoteric K01x cd player, there is no way i would pay £20,000, retail,i would have sleepless nights, and magazines, keep banging on that £20K-£30K amps are a bargain, how much does it actually cost to build a amp, say we have a £20,000, amp take off the dealer 50%, then we are down to £10,000, take off the profit then we are down to about £6,000, this includes staff building, r&d, heating and all the rest, if you price it up in parts you would be looking at £3-£4k, and i'm not talking amp casing milled out of a 30kg lump of alli, this subject comes up all the time, about the cost of hifi, PS audio have gone online only in some countries but they have not dropped their pricing, and to say we should go out and buy new, is just plain dafft, cost will be the end of this great hobby, nobody is forcing us to keep upgrading, its what we do, the second hand market in the usa, is doing just fine, and the gear is about a third of new, what's not to like, the problem is it's 110v, amazing gear to be had on audiogon, and the likes, you can't tell me a £20,000, car is made for £3k ish,

A retail 20K amp, guess basic cost is less than 2K

If investors could bring down the cost say 25-50% and increase retail with 25% they'd done a sterling job for profit makers.
 
Top of the range audiophile equipment on the other hand has become expensive because of a large drop in demand and a large increase in extremely rich people able to casually purchasing the "best" hi-fi without being an enthusiast.

.

Having been out of the loop where hifi is concerned for about 15 years , on returning to the fold it appears that with the exception of Rega and a few others there is very little budget hifi made in the UK , nearly all made in China, there is generally less mid range equipment aimed at enthusiasts and more stratospherically priced upper high-end products available which would suggest the demographic has changed , echoing the changes in society, the increasing gulf between the haves and have nots, after all we have more millionaires than ever before and yet food banks in every town.
 
I looked through an Audio Magazine from 1972 a few years ago. I saw my Monitor Golds were sold for £45.

Adjusted for inflation that would be about £598.

Could they be manufactured for that price now?

A cursory glance has revealed i can buy B&W 606 S2 Standmounts for about £1 more.

I realise the world is a massively different place now. I'm not sure I can see that B&W being as desirable in 47 years time.
 
I’ve always wanted to hear a pair of Tannoys but never fancied owning them; they just don’t fit with domestic acceptability.

The market has moved on, the demand for old drivers is driven by scarcity; if they were readily available the allure would be lost.
 
From what I gather the stock goes/went from Coatbridge to Holland (maybe it's all just sitting there permanently now as site is closed) before being shipped to UK dealer for onward delivery to customer. This was my experience in early October at least.

Thanks for that. Had to go back over a few threads looked like you got Ardens? Did the dealer tell you that? When I made a query I was told factory was still open and sure they had visited it earlier this year but it is obviously well shut. Surprising that there is no reports in the papers or online as the original attempt to close it generated a lot of noise. I hope the storage thing in Holland is just a 'temporary little arrangement' as one of our Taoiseach claimed when entering coalition with a smaller party and they open up somewhere near Coatbridge.

Funny there was a slight delay on 'production' of my pair so wonder now what that really meant.
 
Thanks for that. Had to go back over a few threads looked like you got Ardens? Did the dealer tell you that? When I made a query I was told factory was still open and sure they had visited it earlier this year but it is obviously well shut. Surprising that there is no reports in the papers or online as the original attempt to close it generated a lot of noise. I hope the storage thing in Holland is just a 'temporary little arrangement' as one of our Taoiseach claimed when entering coalition with a smaller party and they open up somewhere near Coatbridge.

Funny there was a slight delay on 'production' of my pair so wonder now what that really meant.
Yes, dealer mentioned in a phone call, no idea whether UK dealers were aware things would happen so quickly to the point of closure at Coatbridge.

I’m glad I got my Ardens in October, it was sort of in the spur of the moment, helped by a fair part ex and a good deal generally.

In hindsight, if I’d waited, I may have been spooked by the latter Coatbridge news and what seemed like a sudden acceleration of events.
 
As I'm sure I've mentioned here many times before... I visited the Tannoy Coatbridge factory around 1991. It was a prize from Hi Fi World. I heard the Westminster Royals in their listening room and came away with a pair of 603s, which, like most of the 'Sixes' range, were very fine speakers.

That visit was in the company of Eric Braithwaite, sometime reviewer for HFW. I liked Eric and never was able to establish what happened to him. I recall some names of the Tannoy staff, but won't name them here. The factory had a very impressive anechoic chamber. Also what seemed to me to be modern and well resourced R&D and production facilities.

I've long hankered over a decent pair of Tannoy 'Heritage' speakers.. though I don't have the space... or the money.

It's very sad to see yet another great British and formerly World leading company company lost.
 
In hindsight, if I’d waited, I may have been spooked by the latter Coatbridge news and what seemed like a sudden acceleration of events.

It's not really sudden. It will just seem that way if you've not been following the story but it's been a slow motion death.

It's very sad to see yet another great British and formerly World leading company lost.

It is but it's really just the name that is lost, or rather the value of the name. The people are still here and doing the job. Just not under the same name. It will be interesting to see what develops in the future. As the Tannoy brand devalues and the owner crashes support and development, will Fyne start taking over legacy support? I'm guessing, no idea. Just wondering how things might go.
 
It is but it's really just the name that is lost, or rather the value of the name. The people are still here and doing the job. Just not under the same name. It will be interesting to see what develops in the future. As the Tannoy brand devalues and the owner crashes support and development, will Fyne start taking over legacy support? I'm guessing, no idea. Just wondering how things might go.

One could argue that Tannoy has just been a brandname since it was sold to Harman and moved to Scotland in the early ‘70s! That is the point the linage with the London company and Guy Fountain ended. The Monitor Gold was the last London Tannoy. As such, and given they produced much of value since that point, all may not be lost and Music Group (who to be honest I am not a huge fan of due to Behringer blatantly ripping-off classic synth designs etc and pumping them out with cheap labour in China) may not be the final stop for them.
 


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