DIY Tannoy Westminster Royal - tutorial

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Official Court Jester
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I have a pair of the original Westminsters -- do you know if the internal layout is the same?

dunno ; send them to me ( shipping on you) and I'll check

:clown:

seriously - in first post of tutorial/presentation - FFL wrote that boxes are made from original plans , with few changes , made because of tiny differences in some boards thickness

I resume - mm here and there .....
 
Hey, Zen: Thanks for sharing the link - that is an awesome project!

I have a pair of the original Westminsters ...

David (or others, too): What's your impression of the sound of the Westminsters? Have you ever had the opportunity to compare them to the Arden or Berkeley (ported) systems, and if so, how do they stack up? I've read somewhere that the Westminsters used the HPD/385 Dual Concentric drivers, but that they had a different surround than the standard half-roll foam type. Is that evident in your specimins?

Thanks to a friend of mine who has been praising the sound of Tannoy Dual Concentrics for as long as I can remember, I recently gave in and acquired a pair of HPD/385, and am now deliberating a cabinet design. I've always yearned to build a pair of Jensen Imperial cabinets - might those be a good match for my drivers? Any suggestions/opinions would be welcome!

Regards,
Wilf
 
Hi, Wilf

Mine use the half roll foam surrounds (which need replacement) and the "pepper shaker" phase plugs. I would characterize their sound as dynamic and full-range with a few subtle colorations, but overall a very nice effort. They are very efficient and go low but I found them to be somewhat hard to position and they do get pretty directional in the treble range. Despite what some have recommended (low power SET amps), I got the best results with low powered SS -- the AKSA 55 works well.
 
The Tannoy Westminster driver is a bit different to suit the horn application.
They did change to the ceramic magnet for a while, but have reverted to the Alnico for the current version.

I do wonder if the active filter version would perform even better!.
25W into 8ohms for the treble driver and 200W into 4ohms for the bass/mid driver.
 
in this case you don't need many watts for proper dynamic reserve ;

besides that - it's much easier to find/make decent 50W amp than 200W one
Hi,
it is certainly cheaper to build one 50W into 8ohm amplifier and no active filter stages than to build 25W into 8ohm and 200W into 4ohm amplifiers and the active filters and EQ to try out whether any improvement is possible or even required.
 
Hi,
it is certainly cheaper to build one 50W into 8ohm amplifier and no active filter stages than to build 25W into 8ohm and 200W into 4ohm amplifiers and the active filters and EQ to try out whether any improvement is possible or even required.

Tannoys pepper pot drivers need a bit of treble eq to get a flat response.
The passive xover contains a notch filter to remove some 'horn honk' and a 6dB/oct boost from about 5-6k up.
AFAIK the tulip drivers need neither.
 
Tannoys pepper pot drivers need a bit of treble eq to get a flat response.
The passive xover contains a notch filter to remove some 'horn honk' and a 6dB/oct boost from about 5-6k up.
AFAIK the tulip drivers need neither.
Hilberink gives some clues to what might be required for EQ in an active set up.

I'm not sure but I think the Westminster has also reverted to the pepper pot throat.
 
Hilberink gives some clues to what might be required for EQ in an active set up.

I'm not sure but I think the Westminster has also reverted to the pepper pot throat.

Yes, I know. I have been a member of his Tannoy yahoo group for a number of years now.
For a few years the Westminster was using tulips but the entire top of the range has reverted to pepper pots and AlNico magnets.
Guess it is a bit like the appeal of swiss watches over quartz ones: The tulips are better really (not needing any eq) but they look cheap and are cheap to make (the wave guide not the whole driver!) but it is nice to know that someone sweated over drilling all those little holes in the pepper pot.
The advantage of AlNiCos is debatable but with Tannoys it does make sense.
At least with the old ones as I've never seen one of the new ones I can't say anything about them.

PS: Lockwood Audio can recone foam-surround HPDs to either Monitor Gold spec, which does change T/S parameters, or the new 'hard-edge' cone which does not.
Either way it spells the end of surround rot for good!
 
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