Where is Tannoy Made Stirling

Letter from Shenzhen (22-13): Where is Tannoy Made? Stirling

If you have read M Surdi's Tannoy articles, you would have read intimations that there are many questions on where Tannoy's Prestige series is made. Well, guess what, he just alerted me to the latest Ken Micallef Stereophile Review of the Stirling Pretige Gold Reference. While I thank Ken for providing a lot of details on the company, I particularly appreciate him asking all the questions, but I can't help but feel that Kevin Deal is not completely upfront with his answers. There is a new factory in Scotland??? Why doesn't he tell us where it is and give us a pic or two? And cabinets have been made in a Poland factory for decades - that is also kinda new to me, but I'm not surprised. Well, well...I personally have never liked secretive companies...and the current management of Tannoy definitely disappoints.

Back to the Stirling. The current Prestige series has been around, and I have heard this loudspeaker (slight difference in previous iterations) in a previous home visit (briefly here). And one of my good friends in HK had long used the slightly larger Turnberry (one model up) though I have never written him up for some reason.

One thing that should be kept in mind. As I have mentioned in my Canterbury articles, it takes forever for these HE (hard-edge) surrounds to free up and for the sound to blossom. That certainly happened to me, and my Turnberry friend. The time that Ken had was likely too short for the Stirling to fully blossom. Ya, the treble energy controls help during the break-in period. this kind of mechanical break-in takes a lot longer than electronic ones.

Last, decades ago there was the old Stirling. A picture is seen below. It is not as tall as the current one, and the baffle is garnished with cork. To prop it up, there is a matching base pedestal. I think it's very nice. They used to be seen quite a lot in HK second-hand shops, but no more, likely all mopped up by mainland China buyers. Note that that period used foam surrounds, which inevitably deteriorate over time.