Why price of Tannoy speakers from online retailers in UK is cheaper than in US

Well they are made in UK, so the North American distributor must be taking their cut. You can get a brand new pair of black-ash Kensington GR from Upscale Audio for $10,800, which is a great deal. I like the natural oak finish, but $7.2K is a hell of a premium to pay for a wood finish.

The problem, so to speak, with the direct sale model is that most of the companies doing it are small and haven’t been building speakers for very long. They can’t touch the long-established brands like B&W, Focal, Tannoy, etc in accumulated R&D and manufacturing know-how. They can’t match the economies of scale. Their cabinet designs tend to be more simplistic (I’m not talking about just making the outside of the box a really pretty finish). They usually have to outsource critical parts like drivers, rather than building from scratch and truly optimizing as a whole for their own builds. They’re also not able to throw the money at very exotic builds and materials like a Magico.

I’ll buy a Tannoy all day over any direct-sale speaker. Just wish the prices hadn’t gone up so much recently (e.g. Canterbury GR jumping from some 27K list to 36K in the last year).

Tannoys do tend to show up used for great deals - they’re not always posted, but you’ll find a great deal on Kensington GR/GRF-90/Canterbury GR if you’re patient. The GR versions of the pepperpot/alnico drivers are what you want - they really are better. Then you’ve got to vet the seller as trustworthy, and ensure they ship freight (don’t even thing about standard UPS/FedEx Ground services) and use all original factory packing. But you’ll save a veritable boatload of money! The trouble is finding an avenue to service if you need it. The most likely part to fail is the little 2" tweeter diaphragm that bolts on to the back of the large driver unit - it’s actually very easy for almost any tech to replace IF you can get that part. They were like $200 each in the SE days, and were available for sale online. Not sure about the new GR parts.

I’ve not dealt with the "Son Ultime" guy, but his posts have shown up in Facebook Tannoy groups, and his chop looks really cool! Looks like a serious Tannoy lover & dealer - I wish there were more of those. My dealer is "The Audio Company" just across the block from me in Marietta GA; I'm one of the very fortunate few with a Tannoy dealer so close :)