The initial commercial interest of the company was in the world of public address, manufacturing a range of loudspeakers, microphones and amplifiers. Always at the forefront of the communications revolution, Tannoy developed a huge range of sound reinforcement products; equipment for sporting events, industrial complexes and projects connected with the defence industry.
Over
the years, Tannoy has continued to develop its expertise in many areas
where there is a requirement for high quality sound - most notably in
the area of broadcast, professional recording (both audio and film sound
track), and of course the company is renowned world-wide for its extensive
range of hi-fi loudspeakers.
As one of the largest European loudspeaker manufacturers, Tannoy has maintained its leading position within the industry through concentrating on innovative, high performance award winning products for use in the home and in a broad range of professional applications.
The company’s core technology, the Dual Concentric™ drive unit, is unlike any other driver available in that it places the high-frequency driver on the back of the woofer with the sound exiting right through the centre of the woofer cone. Although the original concept was pioneered several decades ago, the design has been constantly refined and updated. The design principle remains the same - maintaining perfect alignment between the high and low frequency devices and hence creating a true “point source” for the reproduced signal. By maintaining this alignment Tannoy has achieved near-perfect symmetry between the two separate signals and hence a flat phase response. It is phase response that contributes enormously to a speaker’s tonal character and to its ability to faithfully reproduce the source signal.
Over
recent years Tannoy has been at the forefront of developing loudspeakers
with WideBand™ performance. Adding a proprietary SuperTweeter, which
extends frequency response to 54 kHz, corrects the time or phase response
at the upper end of audibility, resulting in enhanced accuracy and ‘air’.
The result is improved clarity within the essential mid band area and
even enhanced definition of low frequencies; a benefit which is heard
clearly with any and all source material, regardless of bandwidth.
In January 2002 Tannoy merged with the TC Group - a holding company of several individual companies which now include Tannoy, Lab Gruppen, TC Electronic, TC-Helicon and TC Applied Technologies. With each company in the TC Group retaining its autonomy and individuality, the true purpose of the merger was to create a group with the necessary expertise, agility and market access to share research and development resources; this to take advantage of the ongoing trend towards convergence of digital, electronics and acoustics technologies in the audio industry.
The amalgamation of the core loudspeaker engineering strengths of Tannoy with, in particular, the DSP expertise of TC Electronic has led to the development of Tannoy iDP™ (Interactive Digital Programming) technology. iDP™ technology has been utilised within Tannoy’s Residential and Professional product ranges and provides a powerful digital solution to precision defined acoustics.
Eyris iDP™ home cinema and hi-fi loudspeakers and Ellipse iDP™ studio monitors incorporate a host of technology now at Tannoy’s disposal. DSP, networking intelligence and class D digital amplifiers, along with a fully re-engineered Dual Concentric™ driver and WideBand™ technology, combine to provide an exceptional level of performance and operation convenience.
The rich engineering heritage of Tannoy combined with the digital expertise of its partners within the TC Group, will ensure the company is well placed to meet the requirements of an ever more demanding market well into the future.