Tannoy Cheviot Legacy Review

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Wam Bam
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Tannoy Cheviot Legacy

So I've had the Cheviots for a couple of weeks now and luckily I've been able to get in some nice long listening sessions. Just to say I'm no reviewer, just a hifi fan so I'm writing purely from my own experience and how I listen to music. I'm not going all charts and technical or going to talk about materials or drivers etc. There's plenty of better reviews online that give all those details so I'll leave that to the pro's. I've also written using my previous speakers, the Klipsch Cornwall IIIs as a comparison. I've noticed there's quite a few people out there who have owned both speakers or at least both brands and it might help to give some context if you know one or both of them.

My setup is Bluesound Node 2i (not pimped!) / Music First Classic Copper V2 Pre / John Howes Quad II's / Cheviots / RFC speaker cables / home made trolley stands, plyboard and rubber wheels.

A friend of mine who's a studio engineer came over and helped me try out some settings. We started with all bass ports plugged and the treble energy and roll off maxed to the top and bottom options just to see how it sounded (not great if you're interested). From there we worked our way through lots of combinations and ended up with one bass port plugged (the speaker on the right hand side as you look at the photo). This helped with some of the bass boom due to the corner position without taking too much of that nice bottom end out, still plenty of thump. We also took the treble energy setting to -1.5, we felt the top end needed a bit more and helped to liven things up a bit. We did try positioning the speakers closer together and very toed in and this gave a very intimate sound and improved vocal prominence and positioning but for me it was too much of a studio monitor setup. The whole sound became very narrow and it suited my friends studio mixing tastes more than mine. I ended up keeping the bass / treble settings but taking the speakers wider (about 3 meters apart) and only toed in a tiny bit. This brought back the scale and wider image without losing too much of that nice focused vocal sound.

My go to tracks for speaker testing are listed here with speaker/s preference for each song-

Zakir Hussain, Bela Fleck & Edgar Meyer - Babar - Cheviot

Marvin Gaye - What's happen brother - Cheviot

Steve reich & Pat Metheny - Electric Counterpoint - Cheviot

Nick Hakim - Cuffed - Cheviot

Tim Buckley - Look at the fool - Cheviot

Laurie Spiegel - Patchwork - Cheviot

John Grant - Pale Green Ghosts - Cheviot / Klipsch tied

Ry Cooder - Paris, texas - Cheviot / Klipsch tied

Ali Farka Toure - Soukora - Cheviot / Klipsch tied

The Comet is Coming - Summon the Fire - Klipsch

Muddy Waters - My home is the delta - Klipsch

Love Birds - Want you in my soul - Klipsch

Disclosure - Latch - Klipsch

These are my test tracks for all speakers I've tried over the last few years and between them cover a good freq range and the genres I like. The Klipsch is leagues ahead with something like Muddy Waters / My home is the delta. The live room sound the speakers give you is really spine tingling, genuinely as if you're in the studio with him. It's the same with The Comet is Coming / Summon the Fire, just an incredibly exciting and large scale sound that conveys that wild energy of the band, the saxophone sound in particular . When I give the Klipsch something not so well recorded like Tim Buckley / Look at the fool the Cheviots really sound better, much more flattering, much smoother. Nick Hakim / Cuffed is a complicated track, modern yet sonically messy and the Klipsch struggle here, too harsh, too cluttered. The Cheviots work so much better with this song and seem to put all the frequencies in the right place and still find some air and space in the song. Marvin Gaye / What's happen brother is a pretty smooth recording but with the Klipsch could be a touch too harsh for me, with the Cheviot the overall sound is much more appealing and more fitting to the style. I've always focused on the glockenspiel on this track when testing speakers as it gives me a good indicator of what's happening (no pun intended) in this freq range as well as detail and imaging. For you glockenspiel fans I can reassure you it sounds excellent on the Cheviots, just the right amount of brightness and detail without bleeding my ears.

After owning the Klipsch Cornwalls for the last couple of years the sound of the Cheviots was very different, not better just different. The Cheviots win in the mids especially with vocals but the Klipsch do scale far better especially with live recordings. My problem with the Klipsch is what they do well they do very well but they are not all rounders for my listening tastes. They can also be a bit fatiguing after a few hours due to the slightly harsh top end and I would often end up listening to what the Klipsch did well and not always what I wanted to listen to. The Cheviots are not as crazy and as exciting as the Klipsch but so far I struggle to find a music genre they can't deal with, genuine all rounders.

My personal finding is the Cheviots allow me to have much longer listening sessions without fatigue and also open up a wider range of music genre and even more importantly recording quality options. I miss some of the sonic madness of the Klipsch and if I could I would have kept both but finances (and space!) don't allow me. My only question mark with the Cheviots is I would have liked a bit more in the upper treble but I'm wondering if I got too used to the Klipsch in that area. I think if you have enjoyed Harbeth speakers (I have, C7es3) but want a more live and exciting sound, less slippers, then the Cheviots would work well.

From a practical point of view the Cheviots are big but by no means massive, surprisingly thin in depth. Maybe I'm comparing with the Cornwalls which were massive so most speakrs will now seem small. Looks may not be important to everyone but I like good styling. The klipsch are probably slightly more attractive in a Danish sideboard / furniture kind of way (many times I had to stop friends putting their coffee cups on top of the speakers) but I like the looks of the Tannoy. Suitably retro for me but there's been some nice touches added in the new legacy version while still keeping the original look.

So far I've only run the Cheviots with the Quads and I'd like to try them with a valve amp with a bit more power, something like the Mcintosh 252 and also a class A like the Sugden A21. Rather than try the speakers with amps I could never afford both of these amps are choices I might be able to buy (second hand!).

Not sure if these speakers are lifers but they're going to be with me for at least a few years. I think my next jump will be a total change and I'll go ATC SCM100A actives but it's a serious price step up so who knows...

Cheers, Simon.

Here's a photo with the new trolley stands, I normally have the speakers a bit wider than this and for listening sessions I find grills off is a better sound. For you Klipsch fans I have also added the video of my old Cornwalls in their new home. A guy who owns a radio station bought them from me and will use them in his bar area. Click on the image to go to the film on flickr.

Screenshot 2020-10-05 at 09.36.19 by Paul Grant, on Flickr

Screenshot 2020-10-22 at 15.15.27 by Paul Grant, on Flickr

IMG_5708 by Paul Grant, on Flickr
 
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Snoopdog

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My first ever pair of hifi speakers, together with Technics SU3500 integrated amp, Technics direct drive tt, and Technics cassette deck, back in 1976!

 
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hifinutt

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Great write up . I do find the tannoy legacy range superb for non fatiguing listening sessions . They have amazing imaging . It would take a great deal to prise mine away from me . Even a high end verity audio might struggle .

Sound great with so many amps including silbatone, sugden, bel canto , Joe Henry, lavardin, msn, thrax , firebottle monos, and so many others have got the tannoys singing . Probably the a21se was one of the best but thrax enyo was incredibly good !!!
 
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Turn it up!

Wam Bam
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Thanks, glad you enjoyed the review. In the end i had to sell them as I've moved back to the Uk and dont have the space anymore. Bought a very nice set of Marshall Choong speakers off a fellow Wammer in Brighton where I'm now living. I can't see myself having the space again for speakers like the Cheviots or Cornwall’s so it was great to have them for a couple of years. I’d really like to try a pair of active ATC next, just something very different.
 
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Turn it up!

Wam Bam
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Simon
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Update to the story. I mentioned my next step would be actives and it has been. I would have liked to go down the ATC active route but in the end just too pricey so bought a pair of Genelec 8020C. I liked them so much I immediately sold them and upgraded to the 8040B. I reckon for hifi listening (can’t talk for studio monitoring) the 8040B are the sweet spot of the range. Style wise a long way from my usual wooden furniture look and sound wise very different to the Cheviots and Klipsch. Amazing amounts of bass for such small speakers and I’m loving the ultra clear definition sound which is surprisingly very un fatiguing. I would not describe them as warm but certainly not harsh. Not sure on the next step but I think I might stick to the active world for now.


IMG_3747.jpeg
 
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