Floorstanding loudspeakers — Tannoy CHEVIOT

The Cheviot is the middle model of Tannoy's Legacy series, a modern build of the 1970s HPD-era floorstander, made by hand at the company's Coatbridge workshop in Scotland. It keeps the original cabinet design and look while using a newly engineered 12 in Dual Concentric driver, updated components and cabinet materials that were not available when the first Cheviot appeared.

Key specs that matter

The driver pairs a 300 mm (12 in) paper pulp cone with a twin-roll impregnated fabric surround and a 52 mm edge-wound voice coil, with a concentric 33 mm aluminium/magnesium alloy dome tweeter. The crossover point is 1.2 kHz. Frequency response is 38 Hz to 30 kHz (+/-6 dB), sensitivity is 91 dB (1 W/1 m), impedance is 8 ohms, with 20 W to 250 W of recommended power. Power handling is 125 W continuous and 500 W peak. The cabinet measures 860 x 448 x 260 mm tall, wide and deep, and each weighs 29 kg.

Engineering and use context

Tannoy's Dual Concentric principle places the compression tweeter at the centre of the bass driver, where the cone profile acts as a horn for the high frequencies. Both bands radiate from a single point, which keeps their arrival times aligned, and the horn loading gives the tweeter section high efficiency. Compared with the originals, the Legacy drivers use ferrite instead of AlNiCo magnets and omit the dust cap. The crossover has separate networks for the low- and high-frequency sections. The cabinet is braced and damped using Tannoy's Differential Material Technology, which combines materials of different density to break up standing waves, and a twin front reflex port loads the bass, which keeps the cabinet workable close to the wall behind it. Five gold-plated WBT terminals are fitted, four for bi-wire or bi-amp connection and the fifth for grounding. The finish is walnut veneer, and 8 mm spikes support the cabinet. Each pair ships with an owner's pack and a certificate.

Pairing

The high sensitivity makes the Cheviot suitable for modest valve amplifiers as well as larger solid-state designs. Tannoy intends it for medium to large rooms. Its width is well below the Arden's 602 mm, which makes the Cheviot the more practical choice for living rooms of 20 to 30 m2. The ground post can be connected to the amplifier chassis to reduce interference pickup in long cable runs.

Alternatives

Tannoy's Legacy Eaton places a 10 in Dual Concentric driver in a stand-mounted cabinet of the same series.