Tannoy TD-50
A model designation that turns up in the trade-show listings of the mid-1980s - and almost nowhere else.
Overview
The surviving documentation barely acknowledges the Tannoy TD-50 as a Tannoy product at all. The clearest mentions are in the exhibition previews that Studio Sound ran ahead of the professional audio trade shows in the mid-1980s. In those listings the "TD 50" name is attached not to a Tannoy loudspeaker but to a Tandberg tape machine. Studio Sound (May 1985, p.49) catalogued the Tandberg stand as offering "TD 50 ¼ in reel-to-reel 2-channel tape recorders," and the same designation recurs in the March 1985, October 1984, and April 1984 previews. Each time it is under Tandberg, never Tannoy. The Tannoy entries in those same previews describe "a selection of studio monitor loudspeakers, the Wildcat high level PA series and the SR840 professional power amp" (Studio Sound, May 1985, p.49). No TD-50 is among them.
That is all the period record will confirm. The archive's own fact sheet for this model carries no verified specifications, no production dates, no pricing, and no design details. It is flagged as unresearchable from the available sources. The trade-show listings suggest a name collision. Tandberg's TD 50 was a real, documented ¼-inch two-track mastering recorder. The "Tannoy TD-50" appears to be either a misattribution of that machine or a model so thinly documented that no surviving catalogue, review, or spec sheet has turned up to confirm it.
Collectors chasing a Tannoy TD-50 should be suspicious of the designation. The brand's documented professional line of the period ran through the monitor loudspeakers, the Wildcat PA series, and the Tresham amplification division. None of those carried a TD-50 badge in the trade press. Until a Tannoy service manual, owner's manual, or period review naming this exact model surfaces, the TD-50 is unverified as a Tannoy product. Anyone who turns up a cabinet, driver, or document bearing the name has something the archive would very much like to see.
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