Better than Tannoys...?

[Elephantears]

I've currently got a pair of Eaton Legacy in the house, along with my 70s Eatons (with modified crossovers). It's going to be some time to digest the comparisons and differences, particularly as I've also got a pair of Harbeth C7-ES3 in the house. In the past I owned the C7s for 3 years, before moving on to ESL63s and a variety of other speakers, including Harbeth M30.1 and SHL5Plus. All of them with their own unique qualities and flaws. I originally got the 70s Eatons as a stop-gap, but once I'd got the crossovers sorted by RFC I found them an excellent compromise, and used them as my main speakers for 3 years. They were in a tie with the C7s for longest stay in my room, so I thought I'd stage a kind of personal speaker World Cup. But now the Legacy Eatons have entered the competition to complicate matters.

I'll say two things as a starter about the Eaton Legacy. One is that I think 50 litres is a good choice of cabinet size for a 10" DC. The original Eatons are 45 litres, and I can hear the compromises on an upright bass, at least in comparison to a 60L cabinet like the Harbeth SHL5Plus. They do, however, have considerably more lower bass than the equivalent sized Harbeth C7-ES3.

My second point is that the Legacy model absolutely needs to be bi-wired. If anyone has heard them, used them, or reviewed them, in single wiring configuration, I suggest they reject all their impressions and start again. It should be mandatory, and I'm annoyed with Tannoy that they don't explain in the manual how crucial it is to get a balanced sound.

 

[windhoek]

My second point is that the Legacy model absolutely needs to be bi-wired. If anyone has heard them, used them, or reviewed them, in single wiring configuration, I suggest they reject all their impressions and start again. It should be mandatory, and I'm annoyed with Tannoy that they don't explain in the manual how crucial it is to get a balanced sound.

Just to clarify, you're not talking about bi-amping? You literally mean just have two pairs of speaker cables going from 1 set of Pos and Neg terminals per channel at the amp going into four terminals per cabinet, with jumpers removed, obviously?

 

[Cesare]

Just a turn of phrase to illustrate over-tightening. Anyone with experience of 80s UK audio will have seen tonearms etc destroyed by dealers using absurd levels of force etc. It may not ever have been what Linn themselves meant, but it is a useful phrase IMO.

The classic London-era Tannoy drivers were all designed to be mounted from the back of a baffle. They have a compliant damping felt (Silvers, Reds etc) or rubber (Golds) front face for this purpose. The cabinets of their era always had grille cloth. To my mind the idea they are bright or harsh is modern revisionism and comes from cranking them down hard to the front of a high-rigidity DIY cabinets and using them without grilles. This is simply not how they were ever intended to be used and they inevitably sound a lot different in this context. I view them the same way as LS3/5As etc in that they are voiced for a certain type of baffle and grille.

brightness or hashness is going to be HF energy from the compression driver, and the moving mass of this driver is so small as to be insignificant compared to the weight of the whole driver, so I don't see any way that running it loose can affect the frequency response of the compression driver. I'd agree if you were to say that it's likely to be people tightening the compression driver screws on the back, and affecting the alignment and hence introducing significant distortion, but how it is mounted on the baffle sounds unlikely to be the source of the problem.

 

[Tony L]

brightness or hashness is going to be HF energy from the compression driver, and the moving mass of this driver is so small as to be insignificant compared to the weight of the whole driver, so I don't see any way that running it loose can affect the frequency response of the compression driver. I'd agree if you were to say that it's likely to be people tightening the compression driver screws on the back, and affecting the alignment and hence introducing significant distortion, but how it is mounted on the baffle sounds unlikely to be the source of the problem.

I suspect it is a combination of factors, none of which actually have anything to do with Guy Fountain!

My experience so far suggests that tightening the basket to the baffle produces a subjectively thin and spikey sound. It took me a long time to really dial into this, and some of it may be that it produces a leaner & drier bass. Add to that front-mounting and not having a grille cloth and things move further away from what I hear as neutrality. Finally add-in the fashion for third-party crossovers which, in my experience so far, always sound worse than the originals (I’ve heard some seriously expensive ones too). Every step moves things to a thinner, overly analytical, and more peaky sound to my ears. It just loses what I like.

I really don’t want to name names as I love the place and the people, but I remember going around the WigWam show on the year that Tannoys were The Thing and not hearing anything that sounded like a Tannoy to me. In fairness none were, they’d all been modified or tweaked in some way. Just fundamentally different to the sound I’m hearing right now, which is the typical big-boned, easy studio main-monitor sound. Not harsh or edgy at all. Sure, it doesn’t have the fine-detail/midband resolution of say ESLs, but it compensates with real scale, ease and dynamics. Good enough all round that I honestly don’t know which I prefer between Tannoys and ESLs.

Mine are a totally stock pair of 15” Monitor Golds in ‘60s Lockwood Universal Major cabs. I’m not saying they are perfect, but I’d be amazed if they pissed people off in the way some accuse Tannoys of doing. So many amazing records were born via these speakers they just can’t be that wrong. If Tannoys were over-bright or forward every classic Abbey Rd, Porky Prime Cut, Decca SXL or whatever would sound dull and blunted! They are what was used on many of the most prized items in our record collections.

 

[Elephantears]

Just to clarify, you're not talking about bi-amping? You literally mean just have two pairs of speaker cables going from 1 set of Pos and Neg terminals per channel at the amp going into four terminals per cabinet, with jumpers removed, obviously?

Of course.

 

[Seanm]

I'm new to Tannoys but on first setting up my Berkeley MkII, and coming from Harbeth C7, the treble was the immediately striking thing, and not in a good way. It took a fair bit of experimenting with position and direction, and other things too, to get it sounding right to me, and I'm still finding it very easy to get them sounding, not harsh exactly, or grainy, but hard in the treble: any change in the set-up is very likely to require a bit of tweaking to banish it again. I think I'm over-sensitive to this particular quality and I've had to move on well-liked and otherwise very good bits of kit because of it. Hopefully not the Berkeleys!

@Elephantears, look forward to hearing more about the Eaton/C7 shoot out.

 

[cooky1257]

So many amazing records were born via these speakers they just can’t be that wrong. If Tannoys were over-bright or forward every classic Abbey Rd, Porky Prime Cut, Decca SXL or whatever would sound dull and blunted! They are what was used on many of the most prized items in our record collections.

And often made on 4 Lockwood Majors side by side in a row which was the common set up in loads of London studios at the time.

The HF is a horn loaded compression driver, some people just can't get on with horns of any description, the lengths manufacturers such as JBL have gone to over the years to eliminate the sound signature of a comp driver/horn combo whilst retaining the rimshot/high hat honesty that only horns can give is an ongoing challenge.
The Energy and Level controls on the Tannoy DC is a clever 'stepped' exploitation of the necessary eq that comes with Constant(well near constant) directivity horns.
To illustrate, look at the raw driver response(second row), it should be clear how easy it is to make the driver sound PA/gritty as you relax the EQ that initially flattens it-the taste thing at play in my case is merely down to what Tannoy call 'flat' and what I feel is 'flat'.

 

[ToTo Man]

On the subject of the different impressions/reactions toward the treble presentation of vintage pepperpot Tannoys, I think some of the disagreement arises due to the fact that it's almost impossible to do a fair, 'apples-to-apples' comparison, because the treble response can vary so much between different samples of the same Tannoy model.

Take the following example, where I have averaged the frequency responses of two pairs of MG15 drivers. (Ignore the response below 400Hz as the drivers were measured without an enclosure or baffle, the measurements are only intended to show the comparative differences in the HF response between the two pairs of drivers):

Frequency response is of course only one attribute of a speaker's presentation, but it is an important one that listeners tend to latch onto first and it can often make or break our first impressions.

In the above example, there is a difference of 2dB or 3dB between 6kHz-10kHz and 5dB or 6dB above 10kHz. This tonal difference between the two pairs was very audible to me upon back-to-back auditions; the 'green' pair sounded more sharply detailed and airy, the 'blue' pair sounded softer and more laid-back. Which sample is more representative of what an MG15 should sound like? Until we are able to build a time machine to go back 50 years and measure some MG15s as they roll off the assembly line, we will never know......

 

[Chris81]

@ToTo Man Thank you for your insights and impressions.
@cooky1257 : (No offense!) How do you know that the crossover of the Legacy Arden and the System 15 are the same?

 

[Chris81]

They do, however, have considerably more lower bass than the equivalent sized Harbeth C7-ES3.

Hi Andrew, I'm afraid to say but they don't as you can see here:

Harbeth: -3dB point from the highest bass peak around 55Hz, -6dB around 37Hz.

Tannoy: -3dB point from the highest bass peak around 75Hz, -6dB around 55Hz.

The thing is, IMO our ears are very bad in guessing the right (deeper) bass frequencies. Many people (including me!) are often mistaken mid and upper bass with lower or deep bass. Because of the bigger driver and better efficiency the Legacy Eaton will definitely will hit harder.

 

[Chris81]

@Tony L Sorry for the short offtopic. How big was/is the room and listening distance of the room you use(d) the Klipsch La Scalas and your Tannoy Lookwoods? Do you think they will work in my 14sqm ( 4,49m = 14.73 feet by 3,155m = 10.34 feet) with a listening distance around 2,5m = 8.2 feet up to 3m = 9.84 feet?

 

[Elephantears]

The thing is, IMO our ears are very bad in guessing the right (deeper) bass frequencies.

The thing is, you've reproduced one FR graph for Tannoys with no citation, and no explanation of measurement methodology, then compared it with another graph for Harbeths, from another source, with no citation or methodology.

There is real danger on this thread and on the forum in general of people weaponising FR graphs for speakers they have never heard.

If you read my post I was referring to 70s Eatons. They certainly measure as having more lower bass in my room, according to REW. I will be doing more measurements in my own room in due course.

 

[ToTo Man]

@Old Shatterhand, an advantage of the newer Legacy models is the ability to tune the bass to suit your room by blocking one or more of the ports with the supplied foam bungs. You could probably tune the Lockwoods too, to some extent, but it would be more hassle and involve lots of experimentation because you'd need to keep taking the back panel off to gain access to the vent (Lockwoods don't have a port as such, it's basically a flat rectangular slot). I regret not experimenting with the vent on my Lockwood Majors before I sold them...

 

[cooky1257]

(No offense!) How do you know that the crossover of the Legacy Arden and the System 15 are the same?

.. because I make it my business to know stuff about Tannoys. The HF, the area of concern in that German magazine plot vs the other plots posted, when flat is just a 3.9uF cap in series with some padding resistors. In the System 15 output above 2khz can be adjusted by changing the series resistor value-the Arden is more 'consumer oriented and has both a Energy level and a Roll off adjustment..

 

[Chris81]

The thing is, you've reproduced one FR graph for Tannoys with no citation, and no explanation of measurement methodology, then compared it with another graph for Harbeths, from another source, with no citation or methodology.

It is from the same magazine and they measure all speakers the same way so you can compare them.
The thing is, you can't cheat the laws of physic. You either have a higher efficiency, like the Tannoy Eaton or deeper bass like the Harbeth with less efficiency from more or less similar sized speakers.

 

[Tony L]

@Tony L Sorry for the short offtopic. How big was/is the room and listening distance of the room you use(d) the Klipsch La Scalas and your Tannoy Lookwoods? Do you think they will work in my 14sqm ( 4,49m = 14.73 feet by 3,155m = 10.34 feet) with a listening distance around 2,5m = 8.2 feet up to 3m = 9.84 feet?

Different rooms, the La Scalas were parked right in the deep alcoves of the back TV room, the Tannoys are in the front. I’ll focus on the Tannoys as Klipsch are odd things that love corners.

This is my front room measurements, not to scale (the shape is just freehand), but the rest is accurate. It also needs to be factored that this is a very full room with a strong nod to traditional studio control room ‘live end/dead end’ acoustic techniques. It is a nice sounding room, though some small stand-mount speakers do boom a little.

My speaker position is largely dictated by the record collection, I need to be able to get to stuff, but it is cramped behind the Tannoys, in fact it is a right PITA to get to Dexter Gordon at present. Sonically it works. I’m closer than ideal to the back wall and the balance shifts depending on where exactly one sits. The thing a lot of people don’t get with Tannoys is they really aren’t bass monsters. The shift air, have a remarkable ease and scale, but they don’t have much of anything below about 40Hz even in cabs the size of mine. They can do a bass guitar bottom E in a way very few speakers can though.

I obviously can’t tell you if they’ll work in your room, but my experience is that Tannoys are rather easier to accommodate than one would ever expect looking at them. Again it is due to their not being bass monsters. If I sit forward on the listening seat, or sit on the floor in front they are actually quite lean. Andy831 has a pair of GRF Memory, which are larger than mine, in a room somewhere between half and two thirds the size of mine. They sound great. I’ve never noticed any boom there.

 

[Chris81]

Thank you very much @Tony L.
I asked for the La Scala because they don play as deep as other 15" driver speakers like the Cornwall, the Legacy Arden, etc.

Interesting, with the big Tannoys in smaller rooms. Slowly I'm getting curious if they will work, still my mind can't imagine. The second thing is, in Germany you rarely have the opportunity to buy bigger Tannoys, even the smaller ones like Stirling, Turnberry, Kennsington aren't very often available in the second hand market. I won't buy them new because of budget reasons. Older models are sometimes available but I'm way to wary to buy refurbished crap.

@ToTo Man I know they can be tuned but I'm not really a fan of that. If you can tune the port length or size I would say okay, that can be a good idea but the foam thing, especially if you cover all ports IMO does alter the whole speaker concept and I would't recommend it.

I have tried to cover the ports of my Harbeth for example. The only thing that happened was a very deep and narrow Q dip in the mid bass. The deep bass room mode was still at full throttle.

 

[Elephantears]

It is from the same magazine and they measure all speakers the same way so you can compare them.

You've wilfully misread my post twice now; for the third time, my comment was in relation to 70s Eatons!

Regarding the magazine measurements, can you say what partnering equipment they used?

As far as I can see, neither of the UK reviews of the Eaton Legacy used bi-wired cable. No measurements would be meaningful without this. Having said that, it's Tannoys own fault if the speakers are misrepresented. If they are doing to design a speaker with crossovers intended for bi-wiring, and which has a skewed FR in any single wiring configuration, they need to say this in the manual.

 

[Chris81]

It wasn't my attention to upset you, I'm sorry if I did and apologize.

I know that you have the 70s Eatons (since #181). I think you misread my answer too.

Sure the FQ-response graph is from the Legacy Eatons but I can imagine that they aren't having a totally different deep bass response because of the driver and cabinet size.

The partnering equipment isn't that relevant for speaker measurement as long as it is a good stable solid state amplifier.

Again, no offense, but I don't understand why bi-wiring should cause a different deep bass response compared to a single wire connection with a bridge. To me there is no logical technical reason for that. Again, really no offense!

 

[cooky1257]

Just like the in the original Arden the triple ducted port is designed to be tuneable, giving 4 options, it's a while ago now but as I recall the tunings were, sealed, 3 ports @49hz, 2 ports 38hz and 1 port 29hz-, very useful imho. This thread is being derailed tho which is a shame.