Tannoy or Volti

Are the Tannoy at upscale the ones from China?

Thanks for the suggestions…

Probably. But I have some China-made Kensington GR drivers that actually sound better than an earlier UK-made set of the same. Couldn’t tell them apart visually, except for stickers. Quailty doesn’t necessarily suffer from the origin. I used to be against the China-made Tannoys, but this opened my eyes. Cabinets are still made in Poland, same as they always were (excellent quality). Final assembly - who really cares; a trained child could do it. 

Either way, 50% off full MSRP for a used set isn’t a very friend-ly price. Far from it. 

I'll say that even as a Tannoy lover, I've yet to fall in love with with a 12" Tannoy. You'd think that would be the sweet spot for a DC driver, but I've always preferred either 10" or 15" incarnations. The 12" I've heard were more aggressive / shouty than what I like; missing the sweet organic mids for me. I guess this is what some would say "sounds like a horn".

I've also heard Tannoys thar were just BAD due to either mis-wiring or other issues. I've had this set of Kensington GR that just didn't sound right at all, until I replaced both crossovers and drivers (of the 2, crossover was the worse offender) - now they're fantastic, maybe even my favorite. From longer ago, I have a set of Glenairs that were badly internally miswired (easy fix). I wonder how many Tannoys are out there that don't sound "like they should", for whatever reasons. The drivers themselves are VERY robust, so it's not an issue with driver fragility. 

Either way, not a great deal on that used set, so you're doubly right to pass on. 

@mulveling Just looked at your systems Mulveling, all I can say is wow and you definitely know what’s going on with Tannoy….if you had it to do over what speakers would you try?….

Thanks Charles! I’ve heard other speakers I’ve liked, but nothing to sway me away yet. Really liked the smaller Acora SRC-1 floor-standers. Paired to VAC Statement iQ mono amps, that came pretty close to my "nirvana". Some of the Von Schweikerts - VR55 Aktive, Endeavours - have been quite enjoyable. I’ve liked Magico’s S-series, but not A-series (the bass sounds awful to me). The Audio Physiks with cone tweeter had spectacular soundstage and imaging, even in a small room. I liked Focal Sopra 3’s, though maybe a tad on the bright / aggressive side for me, long term (just like their beryllium headphones). I really like big line arrays (McIntosh, PipeDreams - my friend has a pair of the latter). But aside from line arrays, the biggest speakers just start to lose me somehow - e.g. big Focal Utopias, the really big $200K+ Acoras, Von Schweikert Ultra 9 and up. It’s kind of shocking to be sitting in front of $1million of gear and NOT be into it AT ALL! Ugh.

I can only speculate that I’m so used to the coherence of a good Tannoy DC implementation, that something inherently breaks the "illusion" when drivers get too spaced out. Room and gear are also a factor - this level of speaker is typically paired to obnoxiously expensive gear that might not actually have the best synergy. And it’s typically placed in a very big room - think I prefer more intimate settings. Tannoys are usually great for that because they’re room friendly and you can even put big ones in smaller rooms (sometimes).

The Canterbury and Kensington models are perfect for an "intimate" setup. The GRF90, like prior Yorkminster, are sort of voiced differently and have a lot more low bass output (they use bass reflex porting unlike the other models' Onken-style "venting"), so that probably requires a larger room and more careful setup. They're also voiced differently in the mids, not really to my liking.