Did you know that Tannoy is the oldest loudspeaker company in the world? Tannoy was founded by Guy R. Fountain (above) in 1926 and has been making loudspeakers now for over 84 years. ‘Tannoy’ was trademarked as a name in 1928, and was located in London until 1975, when it relocated to Coatbridge, Scotland, where it still resides (the photo below).
If there is anything that is symbolic of Tannoy it is certainly the Dual Concentric™ speaker drive unit, which is one of the most important advancements in loudspeaker technology ever developed in the history of audio. Ronald Rackham developed the Dual Concentric™ speaker in 1948, called the Monitor Black, which brilliantly integrated a high-frequency compression horn driver unit into the same axis as a fifteen-inch direct radiating low frequency driver on one chassis.
Rackham also designed the Guy R. Fountain (GRF) and Autograph corner horn enclosures (diagram below) for the Dual Concentric™ driver units, which also quickly attained status in the music industry as high-performance designs. If Nobel Prizes were awarded for achievements in audio electronics, then Ronald Rackham would certainly be deserving of one for his contribution of the Dual Concentric™ speaker design – it is a positively brilliant musical device that has been highly revered by generations of music lovers.
The Tannoy series of Dual Concentric™ speakers and enclosures have impressed many music industry luminaries over the years, like Arthur Haddy, the chief recording engineer at Decca, who heard the Monitor Silver (successor to the Monitor Black) in 1951 and ordered it for the Decca studios in London. Dr. Dutton of EMI visited Tannoy in 1951 and heard the Monitor Silvers installed in the GRF enclosures, and was so impressed he ordered the combination for EMI’s Abbey Road recording studios. Kingsway Hall, the BBC, and many others, followed their example and ordered Tannoy Dual Concentrics™ for their recording work. Tannoy’s became so prolific in the music industry that there’s a very good chance that those beloved recordings you’ve treasured all your life were originally mastered using Tannoy Dual Concentric™ monitor speakers, and they will still be at their most authentic best when played back over Tannoys today.
Do you know where the name Tannoy comes from? Formely becoming a Materials Engineer it is a short for Tantalium Alloy which they used for capacitors. I read this in a loudspeaker design book from the fifties. The owner of TC Electronics group (2 m long dane with mad beard) told me he had met a Mr Tannoy when buing the company but it must be a assumed name a think.
Keep up the good work!
Best Regards
Lars
Transient Design, Sweden
Hi Lars,
That’s a great comment about Tannoy history – thanks for posting it. You got me to thinking about Tannoy history again, so I pulled out Julian Alderton’s book ‘The Tannoy Story’ (a great read by the way) to see if I could find out some more details along the lines of your post. As an aside, the Aldertons were close friends with Guy Fountain and his family (Guy was the ‘Mr. Tannoy’ referred to in your post), and lived by them in West Norwood in South East London in the 1920s. Here’s some interesting tidbits I came across:
Alderton cites the Marconi Company as being the leader in development of wireless transmissions in Britian in the late teens and early twenties, and says that in early 1920 they began experimental broadcasts of music (and speech), in particular Dame Nellie Melba, who created a lot of public interest in broadcasting. Then the government banned the transmissions later that year because of complaints that they were interfering with other transmissions important to the government. Amateur wireless enthusiests were outraged by this and 63 wireless societies petitioned the government to change its position, and it did, once again allowing limited transmissions towards the end of 1921, and by 1924 broadcasts of music had become very popular with the general public who listened to them on simple crystal sets, one of which was Guy Fountain.
Alderton goes on to say that the “accumulators” for the crystal sets had to be recharged at local wireless shops or garages, and apparently they used innefficient and expensive means to rectify the AC voltage in order to do the recharging. He says that got Guy and his brother-in-law (Walter) thinking about better ways to rectify the AC, and they experimented with electrodes made of tantalum and lead, and also tantalum and aluminum. He says Guy made wireless receivers that people were very impressed with (the first high performance Hi-Fi rigs?), and in an effort to make them more practical he thought about ways to power them directly from the AC mains. At first Guy purchased ‘dry rectifiers’ from Westinghouse, but in 1926 he developed his own tantalum alloy rectifiers, and began to manufacture them in 1927. Using a contraction of tantalum and alloy, Guy trademarked the name ‘TANNOY’ to describe the rectifiers in 1932, and by 1936 brochures gave the name of the company as ‘TANNOY’, so the transition of the company’s name became complete.
I summarized greatly the detail that Alderton provides in his book, and if you can find a copy it is well worth buying and reading.
Thanks for the stimulating comment and for stopping by!
Kind regards,
Jeff
I own a pair of corner 15” dual concentric Tannoys. They were used in a recording studio in NYC in the 60′s, and have many hit records orginally recorded on them. If we wanted to sell them, where would be a good place to start. Thanks.
Hi Steven,
Probably your best bet is to advertise them on Audiogon.com which is the world’s larges audio marketplace.
Kind regards,
Jeff
Steven. As an owner of a single Tannoy corner horn I would be interested in corresponding with you regarding your Tannoy system. Likely we have similar designs.
Cheers. Richard