Tannoy Lockwood Academy 2's. First listening impressions and advice sought.
- Thread starter Chas B
- Start date
ToTo Man
the band not the dog
I'm a little surprised you find the speakers so bass-light with the port blocked-off, however I have no experience of the HPD385. I did briefly own some HPD315 in sealed Chatsworth cabs and the bass positively pumped out of them and was punchier and more authoritative than my MG15 in sealed Lancaster cabs. I didn't have the gear to take acoustic measurements back then so I cannot confirm how deep the dug, but they certainly weren't lacking impact in my 4.2m x 3.8m room! I wish I'd kept them... 
@cooky1257 would you mind modelling the HPD315 in a sealed Chatsworth cab? I'm curious to see what the roll-off's like.
@cooky1257 would you mind modelling the HPD315 in a sealed Chatsworth cab? I'm curious to see what the roll-off's like.
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Elephantears
Trunkated Aesthete
Do we know what kind of damping factor Tannoys like? I know this has been discussed now and again in the past but I've never really got a handle on it. Also NFB?
I have two pairs of Eatons - one 70s, one Legacy, and I've found it interesting to discover their slightly different amplifier preferences. It's quite subtle. The 70s Eatons love my Unison Research Triode 25 (push pull valve amp around 45W, I use it on the high NFB setting but that's still pretty modest I think). The Legacy Eatons sound lovely with that same amp on acoustic music, but they really need my Unico DM to get going. This is a 150W hybrid with higher damping factor.
I guess there is a spectrum running from Golds to HPDs to the more recent drivers. I'd love to have a really detailed sense of what they want and need.
Tony L
Administrator
To my mind they tend to work best with the kit of their respective eras, e.g. Silvers with SETs, Reds with push-pull valves, Golds span the valve and early solid state era, so both valves and things like 303s, 50Es, HPDs 405, 520, and more recent ceramic magnet Tannoys good modern solid state, e.g. I’d happily use Accuphase, Luxman, Sugden etc.
To highlight my point I have tried a lot of amps with my Monitor Golds over the years and they definitely seem to favour nice push-pull valves (Leak, Prima Luna, Radford) or my Quad 303 to say Naim, or even my Pass Aleph 3. The more modern the amp the smaller, thinner and drier they sound. The basic ‘Tannoyness’ just gets bleached out, and I’m sure it is damping factor. I was genuinely surprised by how bad both Naim (a 42.5/110 ages ago) and the Pass sounded into them, and neither are bad amps at all. The Pass is superb in its own way, a lovely match with the JR149s.
jtgofish
pfm Member
I have posted this before but it is worth repeating and explains these variables -
https://education.lenardaudio.com/en/12_amps_8.html
Tarzan
pfm Member
I really wanted you to remain a bit disappointed so I didn’t have to try Tannoys, now I’m going to have to.
Same here, a pair of vintage Cheviots l would love to hear/ possible purchase
cooky1257
pfm Member
I'm a little surprised you find the speakers so bass-light with the port blocked-off, however I have no experience of the HPD385. I did briefly own some HPD315 in sealed Chatsworth cabs and the bass positively pumped out of them and was punchier and more authoritative than my MG15 in sealed Lancaster cabs. I didn't have the gear to take acoustic measurements back then so I cannot confirm how deep the dug, but they certainly weren't lacking impact in my 4.2m x 3.8m room! I wish I'd kept them...
@cooky1257 would you mind modelling the HPD315 in a sealed Chatsworth cab? I'm curious to see what the roll-off's like.
75L Chatsworth/315 hpd sealed;
...however look what happens here, hpds with old cone/spider, the Fs always heads south as the drivers age, often to between 16-18hz, this probably accounts for the old'uns sounding fat and warm(refoam pulls this back up slightly)
ToTo Man
the band not the dog
Thanks, Frank!75L Chatsworth/315 hpd sealed;
...however look what happens here, hpds with old cone/spider, the Fs always heads south as the drivers age, often to between 16-18hz, this probably accounts for the old'uns sounding fat and warm(refoam pulls this back up slightly)
That's quite a difference between the fresh and aged spiders. I'm not sure how old my HPD cones were, when I pulled them from the cabs the cones were purply/blue and the surrounds looked in tip-top shape but the previous owner mentioned nothing about them having been re-coned. However, thinking back on it they must have been re-coned as an HPD foam surround wouldn't survive 35+ years?! IIRC they came out of a recording studio so the cones probably wouldn't have seen daylight!
cooky1257
pfm Member
HPDs shift lower, HE Golds shift higher. Thing to take from it is they do age but within the usual range HPDs even when ported, the consequences aren't that problematic- maybe a bit of a hump around the tuning freq, for DIY I'd always recommend fresh T&S measurements though so you can take it into account if the sims throw up an issue.Thanks, Frank!
I'm a little surprised you find the speakers so bass-light with the port blocked-off, however I have no experience of the HPD385. I did briefly own some HPD315 in sealed Chatsworth cabs and the bass positively pumped out of them and was punchier and more authoritative than my MG15 in sealed Lancaster cabs. I didn't have the gear to take acoustic measurements back then so I cannot confirm how deep the dug, but they certainly weren't lacking impact in my 4.2m x 3.8m room! I wish I'd kept them...
@cooky1257 would you mind modelling the HPD315 in a sealed Chatsworth cab? I'm curious to see what the roll-off's like.
This does concern me slightly, makes me wonder if there may be something more fundamentally wrong with my 315s. Driver and/or crossover related.
Elephantears
Trunkated Aesthete
I don't doubt you're right with this period-specific matching hypothesis. I'll come back to that after just slightly riding back on what I said in my previous post. I've back with the 70s Eatons and my Unison Research hybrids (I always come back to them after short flirtations, and have been doing so for a decade now). It really is a great match - the damping factor is higher than a push pull EL34 amp, but it's not that high, and certainly not in the ludicrously high range of Hegels and other modern monsters. So I do think that hybrids, being perhaps a more modern invention, are an exception to your period specific rule. Saying that, the contrast between my Unico Pre/DM and the Triode 25, a very traditional push pull EL34 design, is very interesting, but I'll come back to that another time.
What I wanted to say is how great if it would be if we knew all the relevant specifications for damping factor, NFB etc, in a selection of push pull valve amps and the range of Quads from 303 to 405 etc. And if we then had relevant specifications for the matching speakers from Silver to modern ceramic magnets ... this would be so fantastically useful.
Tony L
Administrator
I don’t think any of this is quite as simple as just being damping factor, though that will be part of it (and will explain why say a 303 sounds so good with vintage speakers). Voltage and current drive just behave differently. Here’s one of many pages one can google up on the subject: education.lenardaudio.com/en/12_amps_8.html
TheDecameron
Unicorns fart glitter.
Careful with that axis Eugene.