Tannoy Monitor Gold 12RS - Full Restoration & New Balmoral Style Cabinet Build

[Gerard124]

In early June, I made the decision to have my Tannoy Monitor Gold 12RS fully restored and new cabinets built.

I purchased the Golds around 10 years ago along with the original crossovers, strangely only one of the crossovers had been worked on previously (a re-cap and the other was untouched).

Cosmetically, the driver’s had the usual doping stains - in addition ‘teenagers’ had applied greasy stains whilst partying several years ago – the drivers really didn’t look good!

I contacted Frank (@cooky) re the work and sent him pictures of the state the drivers were in.





The teenagers handy work was giving Frank cause for concern; however, we needn’t have worried . . .

I drove over to Frank’s place with the drivers, discussed the options and decided on the following work:

• Drivers - clean up and cone surface refurbishment.

• Crossovers – we decided against new crossovers and to recap the originals where necessary.

• Terminals: Swap for new binding posts.

• Cables: Purchase and fit Gold plated ‘new build’ 4 Pin Tannoy speaker plugs with new wires.

I contacted Fraser (@fraserking) a cabinet maker and long-time friend of Frank’s to ask if he would consider building some new cabinets and Frank made a start on the drivers . . .

First up, the cones and dust caps were coloured. The rubber surrounds were cleaned, and rubber restorer applied. When cleaning the rubber an incredible amount of tobacco stain came off – these obviously belonged to a heavy smoker in the past.



Frank needn’t have worried the results he obtained were excellent, and the drivers were now looking great, Night & Day:





Next up the crossovers, Frank found capacitor mismatches, here’s a picture of opened crossovers before re-cap.



So new Clarity cap ESA were fitted for HF, and to preserve the use of electrolytics Alcaps were fitted to the bass section.



New Jantzen speaker terminals were fitted to replace the poor-quality original binding posts. The diagonal corners of crossover bodies were secured with Allen bolts, 2 brass bushes transferred from other crossover so they matched and new velvet applied to bases. New crossover cable with gold plated Tannoy 4 pin plug fitted. New crossover cable with gold plated Tannoy 4 pin plug fitted.





The existing gaskets did not look good and were too tall.





New gaskets were needed, Tannoy ones are no longer available, and regardless a lower profile was sought for any new replacement. In addition, the existing clamp screws protruded quite high, and any new arrangement needed to deal with this. Frank’s solution was to build a new thinner gasket out of two layers of 3mm gasket. To stop the clamp screws causing any bumps in the top face of this thinner gasket cuts were made in the underside of the lower layer.

The new completed gasket, in this photo you clearly see the work Frank has done restoring the rubber of the surround on the 12" Gold RS.



The HF drivers were stripped, cleaned, and re-aligned.







​

All tested and good frequency match found for Tanoy’s – ignore response below 1kHz, drivers in free air.





Great work by Frank and all now ready for Fraser King . . .