Tannoy Speaker Owners


I have Tannoy DC8Ti speakers.  I'm planning to retire sometime this year, and want to try tubes before I do. I'm wondering what amps, tubes or otherwise, other Tannoy owners have. I'm only interested in power amps.  I've tried the Tannoy's with each of my three solid state power amps: Pioneer SPEC-4 (~36 years old) ; McIntosh MC2600 (~ 25 years old); and NAD M22v2 (1 year old). The NAD sounds best in my system: wider sound stage with better instrument separation, timbre, musicality, detail, etc.  

My current system:  Herron VSTP-3A(r02) pre amp, NAD M22v2 power amp, Innous Zenith MKII media player, Small Green Computer i7 for Roon DSP, Audio Mirror Tubadour III SE DAC, Parasound JC3jr phone pre, and Technics SL-1200G TT w/ Ortofon Quintet Black.

My listening room is small ~13'x12'x8'.  I listen to contemporary jazz (no John Coltrane , Miles Davis, etc) and old school R&B (none of today's Hip Hop or Rap).  I love vocals (e.g., Gregory Porter, Diana Krall, Angela Glaupo, Randy Crawford, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Chicago); non-vocal music (e.g., The Crusaders, Arne Domnerus, Brad Mehldau, Dave Grusin, Stanley Clarke) and the combination of both (e.g., War, Earth, Wind, and Fire, Santana).

I'd like to audition whatever I buy in my system.  I'd prefer to start looking at amps that others are using. My budget is ~$7500, and I'm in no rush.

I'm not opposed to used, and there are several deals on agon at the moment. In particular a Zesto Audio Bia 120 that is about 60% below retail.  In my area, there are several high-end audio stores and independent manufactures that produce high-quality / reference grade components.  I realize there's the usual suspects (Cary, Rogue, PrimaLuna, Luxman, etc.).  I also plan to visit the local manufactures.




oldschool1948

Showing 2 responses by mulveling

Big fan of Tannoys here! They sound pretty great with any decent amp that’s not on the dry, bright, or analytical side of things. I’ve even heard them sound good from the old PS Audio class D amps of the 2000s, so I’d bet your much more modern NAD sounds pretty nice there (I like NAD gear too). I play loud and I like a lot of power. Yes, I can shamefully admit I’ve once even hit hard clipping given 60 Watts/ch tubes into 93dB / Watt Tannoys before! Hence my focus on push-pull amps of KT88-types. So consider that context when I describe my amp experiences.

I’ve ran Rogue tube amps for the vast majority of my 12+ years with Tannoy speakers. Started with the basic Atlas (non-Magnum) and went all the way up to the Apollo Dark monos. Great value for money with Rogue, and great service/support. They’re really great sounding amps with Tannoys, especially as you roll in NOS small tubes to match your needs. I never liked their use of 12AU7 driver tubes much, so I sub in 12BH7 and get better sound. The only downside of Rogue amps with Tannoys is they tend to have a very high gain, so this places a higher burden on your preamp to have a very low noise floor in order to not be audible from the high sensitivity Tannoys. You could always pick up a used Stereo 100 just to play with and see how you like Rogue - it should sound great, especially after some NOS tube rolls. And the older Zeus is a killer deal used (usually under 4K), and is basically the same as the Apollo monos (sans dark upgrades) - if you can handle its 200 lbs!

I’ve recently moved on from Rogue though - to VAC Signature 200iQ monos, which I like even better than the Rogue monos, good as they were. A used VAC 170iQ stereo amp would be well in your price range. Or maybe a used 300.1 Phi for close to your price - if you get lucky. VAC amps have always sounded great with Tannoys! Definitely look into them.

But also - for your budget, consider going for an upgrade of Tannoys - it’s fun to climb up their lines, past or present. You can almost get Churchills for that money, which are truly end-game speakers.
@oldschool1948 In that case where Legacy series are ruled out for width and/or WAF, check out Fyne Audio. A lot of Tannoy engineers started it up after Tannoy’s last ownership change (and a lot of outsourcing to China). Fyne speakers are all made in the UK and carry on the tradition of the dual-concentric, but with their own spin on things. They also have some sleek looking models that seem to have disappeared from Tannoy’s lineup. The F703 in particular look like they’d be amazing.

If I were you I'd probably have gone F703 and kept the NAD amps!