Any experience with Tannoy loudspeakers?

I also own Canterbury GR, and I’m in bliss with them. They’re fantastic, though I think the MSRP has (unfortunately) gone pretty high recently. You’ll definitely find other loudspeakers in this price range (and below) with notably better bass extension (including its own Tannoy sibling the GRF 90) and bigger soundstage, but what makes me happy with Canterbury GR is the deep connection to music it forms, and how it can realistically reproduce the energy and feel of a performance. The midrange is amazing. I drive mine with 275 Watts/ch tube amps, and get such amazing energy and dynamics. My musical diet includes a lot of rock and heavy metal.

But if ultimate bass extension and soundstage size are your main priorities - you should probably look elsewhere from this model.

I toe my Tannoys in a lot (I’ve owned 5 models now), but not enough to crossover in front of me. In my current setup they’re aimed to crossover slightly behind me. The positioning is a close to equilateral configuration, with each speaker some 9 feet away from me.

I tried the “cross over in front of me” setup some time ago and did not like it. This toe-in recommendation is written right in the manuals, and personally I find it a little baffling. It’s quite true that the sweet spots from my Tannoys have been relatively small, but oh so very very sweet. That works fine for my usage, with usually just one guest (my girlfriend) or just myself. They do get less impressive as you have more competition for the sweet spot. My guess is that the in-front crossover extreme toe-in might be a technique to expand the sweet spot size for a larger audience, spread over a larger area - but at the expense of the ultimate “sweeteness” in the single most optimal spot.

I don’t have too much space around my Tannoys, but enough to make them sound absolutely gorgeous. I do think it limits their ultimate soundstage size this way, though. They are amazing speakers! My girlfriend and I look forward to the all-night weekend listening sessions, all during the week. Just being honest about their limitations, in my experience.

@williewonka
My Tannoys are situated in a section of my living area room, backed into a little alcove (4 feet deep) that’s 14 feet wide and serves as the front wall for my setup. The length of the room in the other dimension is 21 feet. 10 foot ceilings. However, the left wall is only partial, and the right side opens up into the rest of the main living area - fully 30 feet in that dimension. So there’s effectively a bit more space around Tannoys than there would be in an actual closed 14’x21’x10’ rectangular room. The Canterbury is an excellent size for this space. I used to own Kensington SE, and their bass was a little lean in the same room. And the best bass I heard in this room was from Yorkminster SE, but unfortunately its midrange is not as beautiful as the Canterbury.

The bit of room asymmetry is not ideal, but the building construction is excellent and I’ll easily take a little asymmetry over a flimsy construction with bouncy floor and low ceiling under a drywall shoebox. No residential neighbors around, either, so late night loud listening is my favorite pass-time :) And my seating at midfiend/nearfield-ish, along with Tannoy’s controlled dispersion, largely mitigates the asymmetry effects. Sounds amazing! Total immersion into the musical performance, with good records. 

The 12” driver with traditional reflex porting, like the discontinued Yorkminster SE and current GRF 90, will give excellent bass extension - significantly better than the 15” Canterbury. I think that is due to the distributed port on the Canterbury and most other Prestige models - but also I speculate that distributed porting helps given them a sweeter midrange at the expense of bass extension. 

Thinking about this some more, I wonder if @islandmandan ’s custom build, with reflex porting and a large vintage Tannoy HPD driver, would achieve a nice balance of bass extension plus sweet midrange. Especially paired with the right tube amp, which it seems he’s also done. And good god Dan - your custom cabinets are beyond gorgeous! Brilliant work.

Dan's project is impressive regardless of the fine details and what-have-you's. Yes, the Westminster is the only current production Tannoy with a complex folded-horn cabinet structure, and has been for some time. The other cabinets are pretty simple (minus the nice cosmetic wood work) but reasonably well braced and upper-line products use the excellent Baltic birch plywood. Part of me wishes I had Westminsters instead of Canterbury, but I think they would just overwhelm my room.

So minor philosophical differences aside, you can at least see how enthusiastic we Tannoy owners are for our speakers - one common theme is that we all feel Tannoy offers a good route out of audiophile hell and towards musical bliss. Get you some!!

@williewonka 
No, they have some space around them from the corners - about 3.5 feet from back of speakers to the front wall, and just shy of 2 feet from the outer sides to walls. Gives them enough space to breathe, even with all ports fully open. 10' ceilings help, too. 

Works out nicely because visually it acts like a "stage" for the system, and all the gear is set back enough to be protected from the walkway. 

I listen to a lot of hard rock and metal. I used to own Kensington SE. They are very good for that music, but you don’t want them in too big a room so that they have trouble pushing out satisfying bass pressure - or use them with subs. You’ll also want to pair it with gear with a sweet and slightly relaxed treble.