What amp for vintage Tannoys?

Dave163

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Hi, I have a pair of vintage Tannoy DC2000 dual concentric floorstanders. Awesome sound but the cheap old amp that I was using seems to have belly up (totally dead, overheated, nasty smell and it was already on its last legs before Christmas).

Can anyone recommend a decent amp for the Tannoy, I'm willing to go second hand if necessary, up to around £250? The spec says 10 to 150 WPC with nominal impedance of 6 ohms and minimum impedance of 4 ohms if that's any use.
 
No replies yet on this forum, but I had a look in Richer Sounds who have the Yamaha AS500, Marantz PM6003, Cambridge Audio AZUR 550A, Denon PMA510AE and Onkyo A-9155 within my price bracket. However, the sales guy took one look at the spec of my Tannoy speakers (nominal impedance of 6 ohms and minimum impedance of 4 ohms) and said they don't make amplifiers for such speakers any more! Also he said the speakers needed to have more power than the amp, and none of the above amps goes above 100WPC, the speakers say anywhere from 10 to 150WPC. Will be playing entirely classical (organ) music.

Really confused....any advice?
 
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Yes, the salesman in Richer Sounds wants to sell you some speakers too.

You could easily drive your speakers with any of those amps. As it says on the speakers "recommended amplifier power 10 to 150wpc". Don't worry about the impedance, 6 ohms will make them slightly harder to drive than an 8 ohm pair, but they have a high-ish sensitivity of 92dB which will offset this.

The Yamaha, Marantz and Cambrige Audio and well known and well thought of. So take your pick.

By the way if you are using a turntable the Cambridge audio does not have a phono stage.

I would go for the Yamaha. It is the most expensive though.
 
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the sales guy took one look at the spec of my Tannoy speakers (nominal impedance of 6 ohms and minimum impedance of 4 ohms) and said they don't make amplifiers for such speakers any more! Also he said the speakers needed to have more power than the amp

I've never heard such a load of cobblers in my entire life. I'd expect to hear bulldust like that from Currys or Dixons but TBH I'd expect better from Richers!
 
Weeell I'd say your fine within reason, but Organ music thats got a lot of LF in it and coincidently the old amp went belly up in smoke? How high a volume do you listen at normally? I would think Organ music is going to work the lower frequencies more and thus the speakers will be hitting the lower impedance figures more often thus forcing the amp to supply more power.
 
I suppose it could be a problem at very high volumes. But I would think a decent modern amp like the ones listed would be fine. Any way its an easy fix, if the amp gets too hot turn it down a bit!

By the way the Yamaha has a high/low impedance switch on the back. You could set this to low to be ultra safe. It is also rated at 85 WPC which is plenty.
 
Thanks a lot chaps, my old amp was a cheap 8 channel amp off Ebay that I bought just to set me off. I think the problem was it was supposed to be fan cooled and I was very impressed at how quiet the fan was...duh clearly the fan wasn't working! As mentioned above my listening has as wide a frequency range as is possible to get and for the bass I use an XLS200 sub fed from the high level signal. I don't listen at high volumes. The Tannoy speakers have dual concentric cones and sing with absolute precision so need a nice clean signal.

I have also been looking at used equipment. I have seen lots of amplifiers described as power amps e.g. Sony TAN55ES, but I'm unclear whether I'd also need to get a preamp too. I should add that my signal source is an M-audio soundcard from my computer which is sufficient to drive a pair of headphones but obviously it can't power a pair of speakers without amplification.
 
I think you could just use a power amp from your soundcard. As long as it was a normal one if you know what i mean! Naim's for example need a Naim preamp.

The yammy amp has a sub out so would fit you setup and you can plug other sources into it. Somthing you cannot do if you just buy a power amp.
 
TAN55ES would do you good as you could plug it directly into you a line out put - it has a level attenuator on the front of it.

I have 2 in my system which are bridged - sound fantastic :)
 

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