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tannoy legacy series

Booked in for a demo of the Arden next week. Also going to try Luxman and Primaluna Intergrated amps with them. I have no real idea what to expect as my current system Rega Brio-R and Monitor Audio Gold 50 is the best I’ve ever heard (I don’t know anyone who cares enough about music to bother with a system) hoping it blows my mind, could be an expensive day!
 
Booked in for a demo of the Arden next week. Also going to try Luxman and Primaluna Intergrated amps with them. I have no real idea what to expect as my current system Rega Brio-R and Monitor Audio Gold 50 is the best I’ve ever heard (I don’t know anyone who cares enough about music to bother with a system) hoping it blows my mind, could be an expensive day!

Lovely, do let us know how you get on.:)
 
Anyone been trying the legacy series since November? I have tried a number of amps and currently have a sugden a21se with them .really sings with the sugden , powerful and balanced sound. They rather come alive with a bit of class A up em !!
 
This is not terribly relevant, but... 44 years ago I took my newly-acquired Radford STA15 and it's SC22 preamp to my local dealer in Norwich and they hooked it up to a pair of Tannoy Cheviots (which I could neither accommodate nor afford). The record we put on was Marisa Robles playing the Faure Impromptu for harp on a Decca SPA. I have seldom heard such gobsmackingly real sound.

If you get Tannoys, you owe it to yourself to hear a Radford valve amplifier with them!
 
Lovely, do let us know how you get on.:)
I really should have done an update!
I bought the Luxman 509x which is simply stunning. I also had some ‘dusty box’ Arden’s over Christmas, which turned out to be pretty beat up and I returned them. The Arden’s were a bit too much for the room and I couldn’t tame the bass and didn’t have time to address the room. I considered Cheviot’s, but also that I’d over spent on the amp budget. I ended up with Harbeth SHL5+ after demoing with the dealer I bought the amp off. I’m still running a little dsp to tame the bass in the room, but hopefully I’ll address that once I get round to renovating it (The house is a do’er upper)
 
I'm very surprised the likes of Stereophile still haven't reviewed any of the Legacy range. I'm particularly interested to see how they measure compared to the original models, i.e. do they still have the characteristic rising HF response? Of those on this forum who have bought a pair, have any of you measured them? If so I'd be grateful if you could upload a graph or two :).

I'm sure this must have been discussed in the various Tannoy threads over the years, but my memory fails me: Was the rising HF response of vintage Tannoy DCs an intentional part of the tuning, or was it more a case of them not being able to flatten it out in the crossover circuit without adversely affecting other areas of performance?

Given that a lot of DCs went into recording studios I'm curious why Tannoy didn't put more effort into achieving a flatter HF response? I guess the counterargument to that would be that studio engineers ought to know the strengths and flaws of their monitoring equipment inside and out and be able to make subconscious allowances for these, so that the equipment colouration doesn't colour their mixing/mastering decisions. I wonder if said recording studios of that era EQd their monitors for a flatter target response or just used them in stock form?
 
The rising response is on axis and a function of the horn, Tannoy used to measure 15' off axis and the same for listening. Power response is a much better indicator of perceived tonal balance.
From Troels showing Monitor Gold @ 0,10,20,30,40 degrees off axis etc

48886587187_70497ecb8e_o.jpg

The tulip waveguides are better behaved.
 
The rising response is on axis and a function of the horn, Tannoy used to measure 15' off axis and the same for listening. Power response is a much better indicator of perceived tonal balance.
From Troels showing Monitor Gold @ 0,10,20,30,40 degrees off axis etc

48886587187_70497ecb8e_o.jpg

The tulip waveguides are better behaved.

Very interesting. What about with treble energy -1? And do you have any links to similar measurements for HPDs, both 10" and 12"? I haven't measured my Eatons, but when I first got them it was obvious from listening to test tones that there was a problem around 3KHz. Getting the crossover tweaked to bring that down a little worked wonders.
 
Very interesting. What about with treble energy -1? And do you have any links to similar measurements for HPDs, both 10" and 12"? I haven't measured my Eatons, but when I first got them it was obvious from listening to test tones that there was a problem around 3KHz. Getting the crossover tweaked to bring that down a little worked wonders.
That's interesting as none of the vintage DC drivers I've measured exhibited a peak at 3kHz, they were all very well behaved in this area. This includes MG12, MG15 and HPD315.
 
I cannot find any published frequency response data for the Eaton HPD 295A, however Tannoy's published graph of the IIIZ MG10 suggests a peak at around 4kHz:
Tannoy%20IIILZ%20review.jpg


Troels appears more concerned about a deep cancellation around 6kHz-7kHz that is apparently caused by phase shift due to the shape of the throat in the MG10. More details here: http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/Tannoy_IIILZ.htm. I have no experience with 10" DCs of any vintage so cannot comment.
tannoyMG_10_vs_LS35A.jpg
 
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From the original Cheviot (HPD 315) owners manual (pdf here):

"...loudspeakers should be placed 2 to 4 metres apart so that the listening position and speakers form a triangle with equal sides. For optimum stereo imaging over a wide area, they should be angled inwards so that their axes cross a few feet in front of the listening position." (my emphasis added).

I'm curious how many Tannoy owners use the above setup geometry? As all the Tannoys I've owned have been large enclosures, I didn't have enough free space to toe-in the cabs that much, so I usually toed them in just a little bit so that their axes crossed behind my listening seat. When I had my Lockwoods I sited them more or less parallel to the walls, which was effective at taming the rising HFs but created a "centre-fill hole" if the listening position was moved forward too much.

With regards to loudspeaker dispersion patterns in general, and not strictly those from a Tannoy DC driver, if one is seeking to minimise the off-axis roll-off in the horizontal axis and provide stable imaging for listeners to the left or right of the hot seat, I'd expect a more even left/right tonal balance with the speaker axes aiming at the hotspot instead of in front or behind, or else the angles will favour one off-axis location more than the other. Is that a logical expectation?
 
I've always found the Tannoy cross-eyed positioning set up to be best.
Without off axis roll off you can have a sound that tends to be overbright in a normal reflective room.
 
From the original Cheviot (HPD 315) owners manual (pdf here):

"...loudspeakers should be placed 2 to 4 metres apart so that the listening position and speakers form a triangle with equal sides. For optimum stereo imaging over a wide area, they should be angled inwards so that their axes cross a few feet in front of the listening position." (my emphasis added).

I'm curious how many Tannoy owners use the above setup geometry? As all the Tannoys I've owned have been large enclosures, I didn't have enough free space to toe-in the cabs that much, so I usually toed them in just a little bit so that their axes crossed behind my listening seat. When I had my Lockwoods I sited them more or less parallel to the walls, which was effective at taming the rising HFs but created a "centre-fill hole" if the listening position was moved forward too much.

With regards to loudspeaker dispersion patterns in general, and not strictly those from a Tannoy DC driver, if one is seeking to minimise the off-axis roll-off in the horizontal axis and provide stable imaging for listeners to the left or right of the hot seat, I'd expect a more even left/right tonal balance with the speaker axes aiming at the hotspot instead of in front or behind, or else the angles will favour one off-axis location more than the other. Is that a logical expectation?


Mine cross just in front of me, in as-close-to-equilateral a triangle as I can manage. Crossing behind me is too diffuse. Must try going really cross-eyed!
 
Given that a lot of DCs went into recording studios I'm curious why Tannoy didn't put more effort into achieving a flatter HF response? I guess the counterargument to that would be that studio engineers ought to know the strengths and flaws of their monitoring equipment inside and out and be able to make subconscious allowances for these, so that the equipment colouration doesn't colour their mixing/mastering decisions. I wonder if said recording studios of that era EQd their monitors for a flatter target response or just used them in stock form?

Remember they were designed to be mounted on the back of the baffle and used with the grille-cloth of the time period. Folk using them front-mounted and naked are obviously not going to get the response Tannoy designed for, that is obviously way brighter. My pair, in their period correct Lockwood studio cabs, don’t sound over-bright to me. Tannoys also beam, so an on-axis response really isn’t typical of what one hears in-room a bit off-axis. The vast majority of people used them flat either against the wall (so not crossing), or in corner cabs (crossing in front of the listener), neither of which would have the effect of modern toe-in and would again attenuate the HF spike to a large degree. I have mine toed-in to my taste, which may not be accurate!
 
I don't think the back mounting arrangement added anything other than negative effects. The design of the drive unit mounting arrangement reflected the cabinetry of the time of non removable permanent 'upholstered grills" hiding mounting bolts glued through the baffle(pre t-nuts).
Tannoy began taking more of an interest in cabinet design/construction in optimising the performance of the DC. The plans for the York featured a sub baffle that mounted the driver flush with the baffle( largely ignored by the cab suppliers who in some even had a vertical strip of baffle obstructing the horn) and this front mounting arrangement was common from the Mansfield onwards from the time of the HPD range, despite still incorporating a gasket into the front surround frame clamps from the Golds. Exposed drivers were becoming fashionable and a must for serious listening, the front mounting/rebated driver dealt with cavity distortion effects of rear mounting and improved the dispersion and off axis response.
 
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The point I was making is that you won’t find any pictures of classic/London-era Tannoys grilles-off in studios. Decca, EMI, CTS etc all used them in the cabinets of the day (mostly Lockwoods, but Decca had Canterbury corner cabs and there were at least some Lancasters at Abbey RD), all back-loaded, all with grilles. These cabs do flatten out the slightly hot treble response to some degree, and I’m sure the slightly hot response was engineered in knowing the usage context, ie. this is how they were intended to be used. Tannoy grilles only started being removed in studios with the SRMs, SGMs etc of the 1980s (i.e. ceramic Scottish Tannoy-era). I’ve never seen a single period-correct picture of a pro-studio installation with Silvers, Reds or Golds used grilles-off.

PS The Yorks with the bar down the front are really odd! I always assumed it was an attempt to diffuse and scatter the treble a bit, i.e. reduce the beaming, but I’ve never heard a pair.
 
The 'engineered hot response' for use behind non-acoustically transparent grills sounds plausible though remember they have level and energy controls in any case. Also as the drivers were available as kits many studios were custom/cavity installs where front mounting became the necessity.
 


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