All original legendary TANNOY GRF ENCLOSURE CORNER CABINET with SILVER DRIVER and SILVER CROSS-OVER

Ronald Rackham was also the designer of the GRF and Autograph enclosure. GRF stands for Guy R. Fountain.
Shortly after the introduction of the Monitor Black, the first GRF corner enclosures were built and equipped with the successor driver, the Monitor Silver. According to the book, “The Tannoy Story," by Julian Alderton, music industries greatest figures like Dr. Dutton of EMI Records and Arthur Haddy of DECCA Records heard the MONITOR SILVER installed in the GRF corner enclosure in 1951 and were so impressed that they ordered SILVER MONITORS for their recording studios. For decades, the SILVER MONITORS were used to monitor the mixing of tapes to be recorded on master records. Tannoy’s became so prolific in the music industry that there’s a very good chance that those beloved recordings you’ve treasured all your life were originally mastered using Tannoy Dual Concentric™ monitor speakers, and they will still be at their most authentic best when played back over Tannoys today.

I found an interesting post on the website, http://jeffsplace.me/wordpress/?p=108 which explains how Guy R. Fountain came up with the name Tannoy and how his love for music inspired him to find ways to improve the quality of reproducing sound.

Jeff says:
April 1, 2010 at 7:58 am
Hi Lars,
That’s a great comment about Tannoy history – thanks for posting it. You got me to thinking about Tannoy history again, so I pulled out Julian Alderton’s book ‘The Tannoy Story’ (a great read by the way) to see if I could find out some more details along the lines of your post. As an aside, the Aldertons were close friends with Guy Fountain and his family (Guy was the ‘Mr. Tannoy’ referred to in your post), and lived by them in West Norwood in South East London in the 1920s. Here’s some interesting tidbits I came across:
Alderton cites the Marconi Company as being the leader in development of wireless transmissions in Britian in the late teens and early twenties, and says that in early 1920 they began experimental broadcasts of music (and speech), in particular Dame Nellie Melba, who created a lot of public interest in broadcasting. Then the government banned the transmissions later that year because of complaints that they were interfering with other transmissions important to the government. Amateur wireless enthusiests were outraged by this and 63 wireless societies petitioned the government to change its position, and it did, once again allowing limited transmissions towards the end of 1921, and by 1924 broadcasts of music had become very popular with the general public who listened to them on simple crystal sets, one of which was Guy Fountain.
Alderton goes on to say that the “accumulators” for the crystal sets had to be recharged at local wireless shops or garages, and apparently they used innefficient and expensive means to rectify the AC voltage in order to do the recharging. He says that got Guy and his brother-in-law (Walter) thinking about better ways to rectify the AC, and they experimented with electrodes made of tantalum and lead, and also tantalum and aluminum. He says Guy made wireless receivers that people were very impressed with (the first high performance Hi-Fi rigs?), and in an effort to make them more practical he thought about ways to power them directly from the AC mains. At first Guy purchased ‘dry rectifiers’ from Westinghouse, but in 1926 he developed his own tantalum alloy rectifiers, and began to manufacture them in 1927. Using a contraction of tantalum and alloy, Guy trademarked the name ‘TANNOY’ to describe the rectifiers in 1932, and by 1936 brochures gave the name of the company as ‘TANNOY’, so the transition of the company’s name became complete.
I summarized greatly the detail that Alderton provides in his book, and if you can find a copy it is well worth buying and reading.

Thanks for the stimulating comment and for stopping by!
Kind regards,
Jeff

CONDITION:

There is something extraordinary about this particular GRF Enclosure; imagine, the seal proving that the fabric protecting the membrane of the driver was never removed is still intact! After more than half a century! See pictures #42 and #35.
The only thing which is not original is the little wooden foot or spacer on the bottom of the Enclosure in the back corner which was split in half during the move from the Mansion to the warehouse, see picture #46. A duplicate spacer has been fabricated to replace the broken piece. The utmost care has been taken to use the same screws and the same holes to attaché the space. I will include the broken piece of wood.

DRIVER AND CROSS-OVER:

Picture #6 shows the crossover unit which is mounted to the cabinet in its upside-down position. Picture #7 shows the label on the Cross-Over unit. For easier viewing, I turned the picture upside-down. The following writing is on the Cross-Over Unit label:

Both labels as well as the paint on the driver and the Cross-Over Unit are perfect or mint and free of any scratches or imperfections.

I have many other interesting items listed on eBay right now.

TANNOY GRF CORNER CABINET SPEAKER ENCLOSURE w. SILVER DRIVER LSU/HF/15L