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Tannoy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tannoy Ltd is a British manufacturer of loudspeakers and public-address (PA) systems. The company was founded as Tulsemere Manufacturing Company in London in 1926.
The name Tannoy is a syllabic abbreviation of tantalum alloy, which was the material used in a type of electrolytic rectifier developed by the company. The brand had been trademarked by 10 March 1932, on which date the Tulsemere Manufacturing Company was formally registered as Guy R. Fountain Limited.
It became a household name as a result of supplying PA systems to the armed forces during World War II, and to Butlins and Pontins holiday camps after the war. Tannoy is now based in Coatbridge in Scotland, and is part of the Danish-based TC Group. Tannoy is famous for its "dual concentric" speaker design which places the tweeter behind the center of the bass driver.
The term "tannoy" in colloquial British English is used generically to mean any public-address system, and although the word is a registered trademark, it has become a genericised trademark. The company's intellectual property department keeps a close eye on the media and will often write to publications who use its trade name without a capital letter or as a generic term for P.A. systems, in order to preserve its trademark.
- A Tannoy is mentioned in the Clash song "What's My Name".
- Alderton, Julian (2004). The Tannoy Story. Edward Gaskell. ISBN 1-898546-58-4.