Vintage Tannoys

Ok update time.

Looking inside the cabinet revealed that the crossover was held onto the front baffle by those little plastic spring loaded posts use for circuit boards. These were intact and the bumping around had simply bounced the crossovers off the posts. One cap had also become detached in transit. With the cap resoldered and the board re-seated everything seems to be working as it should and a quick FR measurement gave the same results for each speaker.
My room has a nasty bump at 40hz and i noticed from the FR plot on the LGMs that they were -3db at 50hz and -8db at 40hz which bodes well for not over-exciting that room mode. Aperiodic loading pulls the 40hz figure to -10db.

So to the sound.
Compared to the Chesters these are a few increments better in all respects. The smaller Chesters actually go lower in the bass but the LGMs have it for agility and definition in this region. Big, clean, pitch coherent and effortless. These speakers love old reggae and dub, those rough n ready old recordings come across with bags of atmosphere and presence.
Vocals are nice and open and the soundstaging properties of the 10" unit in the Chester are taken a stage further. In this respect they are neck n neck with the Quad ESL for accurate lateral placement.

So, bashed cabinets apart I'm mightily impressed and on the basis of today's listening I predict that these will be staying put for a good few years.
There are bigger and better Tannoys for sure but I have absolutely no ambition to explore them for the foreseeable future.

Now the pron as promised. Shots at the end show the cabinet damage:

 

Rob,

I'm glad the damage is only cosmetic. You can tell they are related to my SRM10Bs , everything from the bass port to the pepperpot looks the same, (perhaps slightly scaled up? given the bigger driver size). Only the taps for adjusting the bass and treble response look different. I'm sure you'll enjoy them (for a long while, I hope).

 

Cheers Dev, I'm sure I will.

The adjusters look like Michell 4mm speaker plugs but with a thread on them. You screw them into the hole to make the adjustment. All very shinny and bling

Not sure I'm confident to do cabinet restoration so I'll probably get some quotes for professional restoration with/without re-veneering.

Then again, most examples of these speakers have seen heavy handed pro use so this pair (only used domestically) are probably quite clean despite the damage.

 

Looking good! Shame about the damage, but its cosmetic so no sound quality issues I guess.

What are those stands, Rob? I am looking for something similar for mine, as yet unsuccessfully.

 

Yup! the cabs of my DMTs are, shall we say, well used despite only being of '96 vintage.

 

Hi Neil,

Those are very special stands

Take one pair of Target MR high mass stands.
Take one pair of Mana Sounbases.

Drill holes into the Mana base board corresponding to the speaker base dimensions (I did it for the smaller Chester) and bolt the Target uprights to the board - mass fill to taste.

John Watson would be proud eh

 

Ah, home made jobbies!

Guess I'll have to get something custom made for mine. probably will cost me more than the speakers!

 

IIRC Audio Note did a large base four pillar stand for their medium sized stand mounts. Might be worth a go.
That's probably what I'd have done but I had the Mana bases sitting doing nothing and they only cost me £50 the pair.

 

Very cool. I think the damage adds a little extra character to what are already very interesting speakers.
The information about the bass is most interesting. The really big Tannoys I've heard have been tuned very differently. The approach taken with the LGMs sounds very practical well thought out.
Question, are these relatively easy to find in the UK?

 

The bass is pretty well judged to cope with near wall proximity and general room gain - as you say, sensible for the intended purpose.

The cabinets are nice and strong with two internal braces running around the walls diving the panels into thirds. Don't know what the wadding is that lines all the walls - looks like crumbly stale white bread; hope it isn't

Not sure how easy this particular model is to find but the broader series - LRM/SRM/SRM10B/LGM/SGM etc come up often enough. Given they were pretty common in studios through the 70s and 80s there must be plenty knocking around.

 

Hey Rob,

Just seen your restored cabs and grills on the Tannoy forum; they look great, I really like the choice of grill cloth, classy .

Dave

 

What is the URL of the Tannoy Forum?

 

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/tannoy/messages?o=1

I think you have to join yahoo and the group itself to view the posts, but I may be wrong.

 

Thanks for the comments Dave.

A little wood filler, some touch-up repair sticks, soy sauce ( ) followed by a couple of coats of walnut oil made them look a lot better.

I was fortunate to find the cloth as a guy had bought several rolls of NOS speaker fabric and was selling off the last few yards.

Here are the pics for those not visiting the Tannoy user group:

 

Cheers! I'll wander over and have a look.

 

Looks great Rob!

 

Excellent job Rob.

 

Thanks chaps.

What with all that walnut oil they smell good enough to eat

 

Wow. Those look fantastic - like new. It makes me want to re-furbish my Lancasters.... Alas no skills and no time.

 

Sadly, if you look very closely or run your hands over the the cabs you can still detect the damage but they look great from about 2 feet or more distance.

Tannoy seem to use Walnut veneer on pretty much everything so perhaps just give the Lancasters a good rub down with some walnut oil on a rag - it'll probably freshen them up.