Battle over at What Hi-Fi

Elberoth said:
Tannoy speakers have been built by Diora - which is the biggest cabinet supplier in EU - for at least the last 15 years (maybe even more). They are build on the same floor as speakers from Gryphon, Elac, Dynaudio, Focal, Triangle, Piega, Burmester, Quadral, Canton, Fyne Audio and many more.

Diora is anything but a "garage" - it is a very modern factory with 150+ ppl employed, built in 2014 (the company itself has been making cabinets since 1977).

About the Company – Diora

I just happened to visit Diora today with one of the european hi-end speaker manufacturers (with products ranging from 10.000 EUR to 500.000 EUR), who is looking for a new cabinets supplier and have witnessed Tannoy cabinets beeing made there.

Here are some pictures I took today, mindfull of this discussion:

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BTW - it is funny to see Tannoy and Fyne cabinets beeing made on the same floor, just a few feets away.
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Now, that is what I call...data. Impressive mfg facility.

Thanks, Adam. Cheers.
 
lol - just 15% off full list price for B- stock leftovers of a line the seller has dropped. What a joke.

Elberoth - you are a true hero for shedding some real light on this mess. Thank you. And you didn't even endlessly self-promote your youtube channel for it? lol. Lots of jokers abound.
 
This whole story relates to conflict and splintering withing Upscale importing. Tannoy has just been taken along for the ride. Fyne does benefit in the end.
Tannoy does need to work on it's imaging and quality control. However, the US market is small potatoes for them compared to Europe and Asia, and my understanding is they are doing just fine. Tannoy and Rhythm will have a chance to develop and refine their marketing, and Fyne will do well with Upscale.
I was looking at new office speakers, and frankly all of this did make me take a pass on Tannoy for now. But I am interested in purchasing in the future.
Tannoy has had an issue with counterfeiting in the Asian market. Wonder if any of the photos could have originated from those sites, rather than actual factories as provided by Elberoth? In the meantime, the world will chug along, with much more significant problems than this one. And Tannoy is going to do just fine.
FYI, I called Upscale recently and spoke to them about some Eaton's. I spoke with a very sincere and helpful person. I recalled talking to him several years ago about Kensingtons. He still lovingly talks about Tannoy. It looks like they still have some old stock to sell, but I think there is still love for Tannoy in the trenches there.
 
Which Tannoy model has been counterfeited in Asia?

The smallest Tannoy's model from the Heritage series, the table-top Autograph Mini, has always been in fact manufactured in China (this model has never been made in Diora - it was too expensive for Tannoy).

Tannoy-Autograph-Mini-OW-im-Test-Breit.jpg
 
I like the fact, the the great people of China offer broad customization options, LoL.

Customization:
Customized logo: Min. order 2000
Customized packaging Min. order: 2000
Graphic customization Min. order: 2000
 
Puma Cat said:
Once again...

Transfer functions (and, all the loudspeaker is doing is performing a transfer function) are not influenced by the geographic location of where a product is assembled, but rather HOW effectively the Control Factors can mediate the functional response while being robust to the influence of Noise Factors (e.g. mfg. variance, materials variance, part-to-part variance, etc.). This is why good engineers do...DOEs.

A textbook of example of this is the only country that screwed up manufacturing Honda automobiles was Britain, with the disastrous Sterling automobile brand "venture". A case-history of what NOT to do.

QUALITY is NOT the result of WHERE products are made; it's the result of HOW they are made.
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I (sort of) got to see this for myself. Got stuck with a pair of Tannoy Kensington GR "Black Ash" limited edition that looked cool but sounded BAD. They were absolutely made in Scotland / Coatbridge; got the usual stickers and timestamps all over every part (cabinets surely made in Poland, as per Elberoth). I have lots of other Tannoys to compare with, here. These were just BAD. And much worse than the predecessor Kensington SE, which I used to own.

In an attempt to salvage these, I bought crossovers from Mainlytannoy, and those were a definite improvement over stock xovers - but result was too bright. Then bought a pair of made-in-China Kensington GR drivers off ebay, made for the normal Oiled Walnut (OW) edition with gold horn. These sound GREAT. Especially in combination with the Mainlytannoy crossovers.

So - "made in UK" is absolutely no guarantee of quality. It can be rather hit or miss. And the made-in-China Prestige drivers are actually great! They did these right. Very high look and feel of quality, too. You wouldn't be able to tell these apart from the made-in-UK drivers without the stickers.

I don't know what happened with the "Black Ash" edition Kensington GR. Its drivers have a silver horn (instead of the usual gold) which makes me speculate - perhaps these were leftover drivers from a run of Definition DC10A? That's another awful sounding Tannoy, btw. Maybe the silver-horn 10" drivers were tweaked differently, for some reason. But the internal crossover also sounds bad! Not sure why. These parts all measure fine, are wired properly, and have no obvious signs of damage or abuse.

Anyways, very happy now with my hybrid Kensingtons with made-in-China drivers!
There's also talk that the upcoming Autograph 12 model will sport made-in-UK drivers with an all NEW driver design, built by Volt Loudspeakers. So - that's interesting!
 
mulveling said:
There's also talk that the upcoming Autograph 12 model will sport made-in-UK drivers with an all NEW driver design, built by Volt Loudspeakers. So - that's interesting!
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As of now the Autograph models are sounding so poorly the US dsitrbutor is refusing to import them into the US (per people who were at the Bristol show and involved with it). Also Tannoy UK has notified all their remaining 5 employees (not counting the 2 CEO's they went through last year) about their clouded future (read between the lines). And the inventory that was built in China and shipped to the UK for the cloak and dagger routine was shipped back to China 2 months ago. Going to be fun to watch the tariffs take their toll on them. :)

And as for drivers being made in the UK, word on the street is they have an awful lot of unpaid outstanding bills to many people.
 
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Both Fyne and Tannoy was represented at Axpona. By represented I mean they were used in a room or display. I didn't ask details of who, what or where. Looked like Fyne was definitely represented by Upscale.

I recall the Tannoy I ran across sounded good. The Fyne I heard with more time I thought they were excellent.
 
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