As I was not present I cannot judge, but I am very sure a system with Horns Symphony and my 211 amps can be set up to work.
I have used 211 amps to drive much more demanding speakers as these with success. Of course personal tastes always also play a role,
Hi Thomas (I'm also Thomas, by the way) let me first say that your room at Munich last year was one of my highlights, we spent some time playing with mono. Unfortunately a stereo + mono pair of your phono stages wasn't in budget or they would have been top of my list.
I've owned Tannoys in some shape or form since the early 80s and in particular have had classic 'vintage' Tannoys from when I got back into proper hifi in the mid 00s as the kids grew old enough to know not to trash my gear. I've had others but mainly focused on 12in and 15in Monitor Series, mainly Golds and HPDs, in all sorts of cabinets from factory to custom (including Eaton, Chatsworth, Cheviot, Lancaster, GRF, Lockwood Major and Universal, Canterbury and Autograph). There are differences between the various eras of the Monitor Series - late 1950s to early 1970s, before the core dual concentric design was changed radically by Tannoy to follow fashion in power amplifiers, not least that the models before the Gold - Black, Silver and Red - are 16 ohm - but being dual concentric designs in more or less the same basket, they share more than they differ.
Why do I like them? Well they just sound like music. They fill the room, the aren't fussy about on or off axis, my wife can sit at to side and mark exam papers while listening, and not miss out unduly. You can engage with them and listen deeply, or you can let them wash over, either way there are no nastyness or edgyness or irritations. The dual concentric approach is so coherent musically that I sometimes find it hard to listen to multi-driver non-concentric speakers now.
In the last decade or so of focusing on optimizing Tannoys, I've had more than 50 amplifiers through, of all stripes - from flea power single ended 45, 2A3, 300b and SIT, to various sizes of OTL, to giant Krells and Levinsons, push-pull valve amps to big buck Kronzillas to Nelson Pass home projects. I have some limited experience of later Tannoys (and some of what I say below applies, up to a point, to some of these). However I have, I think, quite a lot of specific first hand knowledge about the various Monitor Series speakers and cabinets, including the most common custom options.
Power is not really the issue with this early era of Tannoys. It's about a balance of competing factors. The 15in cones, and to a large extent also the 12in versions, are quite hard to start and stop. Golds are happiest with about 15-20w, but can sing perfectly well with 10w of valve power, so long as it's push-pull. HPDs in general tend to need a bit more, at least 20w upwards to 40w or even 50w, again usually push-pull. In my experiece, what all Tannoys of this era need, in my view, is a respectable damping factor. Not masses of damping - indeed that's why I've found often quite highly regarded muscle amps like the Krell KSA100, can sound dull with vintage Tannoys - overdamped. The sound seems best with a middling sort of damping factor, high single figures to maybe 20 or 30. Beyond that, the life can get progressively sucked out. This applies as much to solid state as to valves.
At the other end of the spectrum, the vast majority of single ended amps I've tried have disappointed, occasionally by having no bass at all, but more usually by having too much woolly, overhanging, vaguely placed or boomy bass. This I have come to believe is due to the high output impedance (low or close to non-existent damping factor) of your typical, no negative feedback single ended amp (often designed by faith rather than by measurement, it seems), which simply can't control the cone properly at the same time as drive the compression tweeter in the centre. Not all 211 amps are the same by any means and I would love to hear a pair Thomas Mayer 211s into my 12in HPDs ... the Silvercores were actually the first single ended amp that convinced me it could be done effectively. I'm sure they aren't alone.
Anyway I found the most straightforward fix for vintage Tannoys is a top notch push pull valve amp - some of the best results I've ever had were with Radford (the sweet little STA25 in particular) and Leben (660p and especially 1000p). Even an old Beard 35w EL84 power amp sounded pretty good. It doesn't take a huge amount of cash, generally, to get them to sing. Then you can focus on getting the front end right. (I hasten to add there are some pretty poor push-pull valve amps out there at the moment, not least a raft of poorly done Chinese amps using recycled, barely-understood circuits from 1950s DIY magazines).
Any time I make a post like this, recounting my conclusions from a decade of at times quite intense practical experimentation, I come across people who tell me they love their Tannoys with 8w of single ended whatever; I never quite know what to make of this as any time I've tried it I've been disappointed. But each to their own and I suppose it was keeping an open mind on the topic that allowed me finally arrive at the Silvercores. I'd like to know how they measure, for curiosity, but Christoph doesn't publish anything on the subject.
