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. 

@charles007100 As a Forte-4 owner, let me tell you my experience. Shortly after purchase, I decided to open the binding post assembly to check for tightness, etc..

@dweller I think you describe a far more common problem than people realize, across brands and components: either mis-wiring, bad connections, a wrong part used in a critical slot, or outright bad design leading to bad or sub-optimal results. Usually the knee-jerk prescription is: "it needs more burn-in in time" or "fix your room acoustics" or "synergy!" lol. When those inevitably fail, the owner either just learns to live with it, or moves it along. 

As I mentioned before, I bought a set of Tannoy Glenair 10’s from TMR that I later discovered were VERY badly mis-wired at the binding posts. They sounded AWFUL. The note from the prior owner, posted by TMR was to the effect "these speakers require very careful room positioning and amp matching to sound their best!" LOL what a joke. When I discovered the problem and fixed it, I was very happy to have them, as they’ve sounded truly wonderful ever since!

In another case, longer ago, I got hit by a double screw-up: an OTL tube headphone amp had been shipped by the builder with output coupling caps that were rated far too low (voltage) for the application - this is a VERY dangerous situation (for your ears, and the headphones). I had one local tech "fix" the issue; well he did that by putting a very small capacity, very high voltage cap in SERIES with the existing output cap - which fixed the danger but resulted in midrange and bass roll-off below 1000 Hz (one-thousand Hz, not one-hundred). Of course it sounded awful and the prescription then was "those new caps need 400 hours burn-in". This hobby is a joke at times, with not the brightest minds doing the tech work. I had it properly fixed with output caps of the right capacitance AND voltage ratrings - it sounded great AND didn't blow headphones after that. 

I’ve had components, from large makers, reversed at the L/R outputs. Lots of other stories too if I search my memory banks.

When my Kensington GR (UK) were sounding bad in original form, I tried every possible combination of tweeter and woofer wiring just "to see", and the one where tweeters were wired out of phase relative to woofer actually wasn’t too awful - it could easily have shipped like that and many owners would be none the wiser.

One component with ample horror stories that I’ve NOT personally experienced yet: MC phono cartridges. I must have owned 40+ of these by now, and I have my favorites but they’ve all been pretty darn good! Maybe that’s were I have above average luck.

Anyways in short - if you’re gonna be playing with a lot of gear in this hobby, you should learn to not trust nor assume anything, and to do basic diagnostics on your own. OR get a good local tech you can trust.

Sorry to derail, OP @charles007100 
Glad you liked the Volti, and that looks like a very nice choice!