Tannoy Monitor Golds

[ToTo Man]

I didn't recognise them as GRFs either. They do however look to be very well built but I've no idea how that design would sound. Perhaps I'd be safer with a sealed cab made to Lancaster dimensions, at least that way I'd end up with Q=0.5, which apparently yields optimum transient response for the MG15.

PS - Thanks for the offer of your York cabs Tony, I'll bear it in mind.

 

[Pac1]

The use of the term "Designed" might be a mute point when they are described as something that clearly, they're not

 

[ToTo Man]

How much of an improvement would these be on my Lancasters, and how would they stack up against the Lockwoods? I know it's apples and oranges, but that's why I'm asking! ;-)

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/710-5...0001&campid=5338728743&icep_item=191702896089

Price has now dropped to £300, surely a loss-leader??!!

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/710-5...0001&campid=5338728743&icep_item=191708809517

I'd take a punt but we no longer have a big car so moving them onto a new home in the event of not liking them would be a challenge!

 

[Tony L]

Some pics:

...

As they are now, loaded with my trusty Monitor Golds. The Lockwood badge matches the background colour of pfm, which is cool!

I've changed things around a little since the above:

The change being driven by the same old issue of not being able to find a phono stage that sounds good into a stepped attenuator passive preamp. I still don't understand this as CD into the passive pre and the Leak sounds bloody amazing, really, really good, but vinyl just sounds gutless and lacking in slam in comparison. As such I've given up on it and swapped kit around so the Verdier Control B and Quad 303 from the 149 system are now driving the Tannoys and the Leak and passive are driving the 149s (and sounding very good indeed). I may have lost a tiny bit on CD by doing this as the PAS-02/Leak really does sound amazing in this context, but vinyl via the Verdier just destroys the Croft RIAA into the passive, the punch, dynamics and enthusiasm is back! That's now four phono stages I've not liked driving a stepped attenuator passive (Dynavector P100, Cambridge 640, EAR 834P and now Croft RIAA). As such I give up - I'll just use the Leak in a digital context as I'm not prepared to modify it to reduce it's input gain to be able to use an active pre. I guess I should try a transformer pre at some point, but no rush as everything is working fine where it is.

As the system stands it is sounding very good. Very clean and smooth, no digital glare or grain whatsoever, maybe just a touch over-warm, but in a nice way, and I'm sure I could tube-roll that out if I want to. There is certainly a feeling of more power on tap with the Dada-upgraded 303 and that rather tube-like trait 303s have anyway is emphasised by the Verdier upstream. I've got some nice Mullards in the line stage, one 1961 square-getter TK1 construction ECC81 and a pair of '80s military CV4024s downstream. The phono stage currently has a Sovtek 12AX7LPS and a pair of Brimar E83CC which I'm sure are rebadged Sylvanias - I'm reluctant to burn expensive tubes there as it's obviously on when I'm playing CD too. A Quad 303 driving Tannoys is a certainly a classic studio pairing so a good enough place to stop really!

 

[martin clark]

Nice!

Reminds me, I've been doing some thinking on the psu ideas we talked about - I'll try to compose a summary email this w/end.

 

[Tony L]

Excellent, that will be very interesting, thanks Martin.

(For anyone else interested: the Verdier Control B preamp was available in two versions: one with a reasonably chunky plastic 'floor-wart' PSU, which I have, and a far more expensive one with a huge and most elaborate tube-regulated PSU. The latter is allegedly a good bit better sonically. In both cases the preamp is identical, it's just the PSU that is different, and it just connects to the pre via a 4 pin XLR so a completely non-invasive/non-destructive mod/upgrade is likely possible here. I asked Martin if he thought there was any scope for making a better, say 'HiCap grade' PSU as that kind of thing is very much his area. We just need to figure out what it wants to see on which pin and see if we can do it any better than the existing floor-wart. It comes with a circuit diagram so looks very possible!)

 

[PigletsDad]

Martin, Tony,

There are some recent insights that I've had about regulators which may help, especially with respect to higher frequency performance. Minor changes of topology can give radically better performance.

See http://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum/showthread.php?t=177486

 

[martin clark]

I read that with interest PD, thanks, had long spotted what an odd 'regulator' that really is but never played with one - and no wonder the output cap is so critical to any kind of stability with aging. But I am not now, and never have been, a NAP250 user

 

[Mr Tibbs]

...but vinyl via the Verdier just destroys the Croft RIAA into the passive, the punch, dynamics and enthusiasm is back! That's now four phono stages I've not liked driving a stepped attenuator passive

Could well be a load matching issue. The Croft might not be happy unless its being asked to drive no less than 47k Ohms (or possibly even 100k) so that could easily account for the lacklustre result with the passive pre. Even some transistor based RIAA stages need to see at least 47k or performance will begin to suffer. I'm guessing the input impedance of the PAS-02 is 10k and that's where you need to be selective with what you feed into it. CD players normally no problem there of course.

As the old saying goes - there is no free lunch.

Mr Tibbs

 

[Tony L]

I'll bare that in mind - I've no real plan to move the Croft on as I bought it second hand and it's mint, boxed and won't go down in value any further so I may as well hang onto it in case a future use emerges. The Leak's input impedance is apparently 1 megOhm, so I guess I could try a 50k or even 100k attenuator. Might be something to consider building from scratch at some point as I'd really like a balance function, so maybe build one with two really high quality pots rather than a stepped attenuator. Not something to think of now as I'm really enjoying the Verdier/303 combo, it seems to suit the Tannoys in the new Lockwood cabs very well. I have a feeling the phono stage in the Verdier may be the better one of the two too. I've not spent much time with it so far as I was using it in a CD only context with the JR149s upstairs so actually had the power from the board pulled to save wearing the tubes!

 

[Mr Tibbs]

The Leak's input impedance is apparently 1 megOhm, so I guess I could try a 50k or even 100k attenuator.

OK so if the Leak's input impedance is 1 meg then a 100K attenuator would be fine with that. Which is handy, because the Croft will likely be fine into a 100K attenuator load. Problem solved. You could test the theory relatively cheaply by buying (or borrowing) a half decent 100k stereo pot to play with. Or you could just put all that old valve stuff away and get a NAIT 1 instead

Mr Tibbs

 

[martin clark]

Given the highish gain of the Leak, if the passive pre is used down around quarter scale or below with the Croft one could also just add say 33-47K in series with the passive pre input per channel simply to test the approach really damn cheaply. There'll be a slight noise penalty for such a crude approach of 8-10dB, but it's only a test.

 

[Chilliboy13]

If I may gents; the question of best enclosures for 15" Golds. This is my interest at the mo`.

Corner units; good in principle, but surely depends on how far apart your corners are? Stereo screws up with too much or too little separation. I`ve also found in my world that out in the open, free standing in enough volume, sounds `best`.

So, my question is - is anyone making the best `all round` enclosure for Golds 15"`s out there?

Cheers CB13

 

[Tony L]

When it comes to Tannoys the corner cabs are considered better as they tend to be more rigid and don't have a potentially resonant back-panel right behind the driver, it's just a more logical and inert shape when it comes to internal reflections. There is no law saying a corner cab need actually sit in a corner aside from designs like the Klipschorn that actually use the house walls as part of the bass horn. Of the classic Tannoy-made cabinets the corner ones are certainly the better ones across the ranges, e.g. corner York better than rectangular York, corner GRF better than R-GRF etc.

PS There is no consensus as to the best Tannoy cabinet, so good luck with that one! You'll not even get people to agree over infinite baffle vs. ports vs. back-horn loaded vs both front and back-horn loading, and even if you could the room is a factor, e.g. Autographs or Westminsters may be a bit much for some rooms!

 

[djdstone]

They looks nice Tony - what happened to the black cabinets that you used to have?

 

[Tony L]

They looks nice Tony - what happened to the black cabinets that you used to have?

The rectangular York clones with the black painted fronts/black grilles? They are sitting out in the kind of brick shed thing I have in my back yard. Free to anyone who wants them/can collect! They are an excellent cab for nowt, certainly better than Lancasters.

 

[djdstone]

I see - the Lockwood cabs do look nice

 

[Richard C.]

Interesting, looks like it was rebated-in too, so must be a fairly thick baffle, i.e. thicker than anything that went before. I don't think Tannoy ever thought too much about sealing cabs, they described Lancasters and Chatsworths as aperiodic IIRC, which is about right IMO - despite not having a port they'd not float for long! Tannoy cabinets are interesting things, clearly an awful lot of thought went into the GRF and Autograph, yet the Chatsworth, Lancaster etc are pretty basic. I guess the earlier drivers (Golds and before) date from the era it was normal/expected for the customer to build their own cabs (lovely brick corner horns etc) whereas as time moved on people just wanted to buy a finished product, so the cheaper boxes probably got rather better.

Been away, so missed this contribution - some time ago I wrote on the subject of Tannoy cabinets and their manufacturing/sales ethos.

Tony, the foregoing is correct in that before about 1965 and during the zenith of the British HiFi scene, Tannoy expected many of their products to be housed in bespoke cabinets. For this reason the sales of drivers to those of completed speakers sometimes exceeded a ratio 2:1. However, as the general enthusiasm for the seeking of audio Nirvana waned, so Tannoy, along with other manufacturers, turned to a "plug and play" philosophy to more easily cater for an "audio systems" market less interested in individual specifications or designs.

I think it a fair observation that this change did prompt an improvement in the overall build quality of Tannoy-made cabinets.

 

[djdstone]

Got my 15" HPDs back form Loxwood (refoamed for a not unreasonable £180) and have just got them back in the Berkeley cabinets. Sounding really rather nice now they are working correctly. What the deal with upgrading the crossovers?

 

[Cable Monkey]

My take on vintage Tannoys is this. Feel free to shoot me down!

Tannoy took longer to adopt stereo than others out there. As a consequence a lot of the careful matching of speakers both visually and electrically simply didn't happen back then. There isn't much you can do about visual mis-matches but you can certainly ensure that your drive units are well matched and that your crossovers are a reasonable facsimile of each other, be that due to ageing components or wide tolerances because the procurement process was geared towards mono use.