Tannoy

Tannoy is perhaps the best regarded loudspeaker brand in the world. Few companies’ products have such a profound impact on our lives that their names enter the Oxford English Dictionary as generic descriptions for their inventions. Tannoy stands as the single audio brand to achieve this accolade, for its success in developing early public address systems and then continuing its reputation for pioneering audio solutions. The word Tannoy is synonymous with sound, appearing in the dictionary as: ‘a communications system with loudspeakers’.

In London, in 1926, Guy R Fountain perfected a new type of electrical rectifier for use with early radio sets. His rectifier consisted of two dissimilar metals held in a special electrolyte solution. One metal was Tantalum and the other an alloy of Lead.
So successful was this invention that Guy Fountain founded a British Company called Tannoy (a contraction of the words ‘Tantalum’ and ‘Alloy’). Tannoy began to diversify and soon became highly regarded in all aspects of sound reproduction.