John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Although their prices are starting to reach silly levels, I've always liked the way Altec and Tannoy duplex speakers sound. A pair of Altec 604s or Tannoy Gold monitors has always been on my wish list, but I don't have a lot of experience working with either of them. (I do have a good bit of "casual listening" experience with both lines.)

I know that neither model can match modern speaker specs, but I just like the sound of these things better than anything short of mega-expensive super monitors. My thought is to match up the old Altec/Tannoy model with a pair of small modern nearfields in the hope that the two pair will give me a balanced outlook. Has anyone out there done much work by switching back and forth between modern nearfields and some great old monitors?

I guess that what you like in theese speakers is that they are efficient, so with less transient distortion and smaller power amps, and they worked quite good(for that period)with tube amps.

To match the sound of the new monitors you should look a new high efficient coaxials 12" or 15", because harmonic distortion and bandwidth was not their strong point.

I switch between ns10's and tannoy little golds ( 12" dual concentric )
The large monitors have plenty of fine detail, plus they sound huge for mixdown playback. Great for laying down guides in control room when tracking the kit.