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Way back in 1992 I read a review in the US magazine "Stereo Review" of the tiny Tannoy 603. The reviewer claimed it had some of the best imaging heard in their listening room and gave it stellar marks. I was looking for something fun to buy so I mail ordered a pair from a dealer in Kitchner, Ontario. They arrived along with a pair of matching 24" Tannoy speaker stands. Nice. But during this period I was seduced by large floor standing speakers and surround sound, and given their small size (13" high) and low efficiency (86db/1 watt) the Tannoys seemed a little out of place. Their sound never clicked for me and didn't have the detail and dynamics I liked so I packed them away.
Fast forward to 2017: my winter project was to revamp my smaller salon system which was made up of a Dynaco ST-70, Hafler 110, and Denon DCD-2900. During the process I stumbled across an old 603 review I had never seen which recommended to not only take off the speaker grill, but also the mesh cover over the tweeter. This never occurred to me as I thought the mesh on the tweeter was fixed but it popped right off, surprisingly held in place by the magnetism of the tweeter.
The original box
An interesting faux marble inlay on top
and on the speaker stand.
BELOW: Tannoy designed the 603 for "bi-wiring" using a slide-out jumper to separate the tweeter and woofer. Bi-wiring is an interesting concept in which two sets of speaker wires are run from same speaker jack on the amplifier to the speaker. The concept is to reduce resistance along the speaker wires and allow the drivers to respond without interacting with each other. Sharp eyes will spot that I mixed up the colored posts.
BELOW: I opened it up to see if anything needed to be upgraded. Tannoy advertises it as having a "High-quality minimalist crossover network". This is an understatement.
Van Den Hul wiring is used and the yellow "PW" 2.2uf/160v capacitor is a quality polypropylene made by ICW of North Wales which is surprising on an entry level speaker from the early 1990s. A 2.2ohm 9w resistor pads the tweeter output. Using a single cap gives the tweeter a 6 db slope while the ported woofer has no crossover. This is not a bad design but the crossover itself is very sloppy with the leads twisted together and hot-glue slathered on. Considering the attention Tannoy spent on every aspect of this speaker including the bi-wiring feature I find it puzzling that the crossover construction is so haphazard. It was advertised as a 'minimalist' crossover so I guess I cant complain.
Without the mesh grill over the tweeter after only a couple of weeks I somehow nudged one of the domes and created a small dent(!) This was easily fixed by lightly pressing duct tape into the dent using a fingernail and ripping it out sideways. But this crease caused me a layer of anxiety about loss of response, imaging, and sonic aberrations that may not even be audible. Advice about whether or not a creased/fixed metal dome is sonically intact is very conflicting. So rather than obsess I emailed Tannoy support and here was their response: "That dome is what reproduces the sound but a small crease or mark will not affect it. It will only be the look that would be any reason to replace it. If it was me I wouldn't worry about it. It will not affect its performance." So there you have it, the vendor says not to worry about it.
Still not satisfied I did an evening of critical listening and decided that at some frequencies such as on acoustic guitar I could detect moments where the imaging on that side seemed to drift for an instant. This was barely perceptible and likely inaudible to anyone else and maybe I was fooling myself. But I decided the repaired crease bothered me regardless.
On a whim I contacted Tannoy who replied that their NJ warehouse actually had one replacement 603 Tweeter still in stock. I ordered it and a few days later I was the proud owner of what may have been the last new 603/605/607 MK1 tweeter on the planet, or at least in North America. The box was undated and dust free.
BELOW: the tweeter looked new, no dents. It went in with no issues.
CONCLUSION
Tannoy rates this speaker as 60-30khz which is unusual in terms of treble response. Anything above 18khz is going to be inaudible and many CD players have filters in place above 20khz to block infrasonic noise created by its circuitry. But knowing that Tannoy designed their tweeters to exceed the old 20khz standard is very welcome.
The end result is that Tannoy's asymmetrical cabinet design, solid construction, and quality parts paid off. Even with such a simple crossover Tannoy appears to have tuned the cabinet response properly. With the grill and tweeter mesh off I found this speaker transformed from what I remembered. The treble has an open crystalline quality with no etching or hyper detail. Imaging and subtle details in the music are pinpoint and surprisingly musical and realistic. The ported bass is musical at low to moderate levels but not deep or strong. In other words this isn't a party speaker its better for a quiet listening room. Its strength is to create a palpable musical tapestry between the speakers for music like jazz vocals and acoustic guitar. I added a Polk subwoofer which brought out the bottom end and made them shine even more.
This pair of uncommon 30 year old Tannoys are now the speaker of choice in my salon system. The bi-wiring, polypropylene caps, and factory spikes on the bottom add a fun bit of tweakiness and make listening to this inexpensive speaker a lot of fun. I'm glad I held onto them.
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