Tannoy
Found this on an American site , don't know if it helps or just adds to your confusion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry Crane
Altec built the 604 Duplex Speaker, which is inside the Big Red. Did Tannoy build the cabs and load them with Altec 604's? I've been searching "the internets" and getting a lot of jumbled info...
QUOTES AND ASIDES...
The Big Speaker was made by Tannoy, a high-end British company which is still in business. The name came from material used in an early rectifier product in 1926 - "Tantalum-Lead Alloy." They supplied so much PA equipment that for a long time "Tannoy" was a generic word for the public address speakers in train stations, Army camps, and places like that.
After Altec invented the Duplex 2-way [err 1944], where a tweeter nests inside a woofer cone, Tannoy developed its own Dual Concentric line in 1947. Engineer Ronnie H. Rackham designed a unique setup in which the tweeter's horn development was continued by a specially shaped, and expensive, woofer cone.
These came in colors. First was the Monitor Black with a 1 kHz chassis-mounted crossover. In 1953 came the Monitor Silver, with 25 watts power handling and an external crossover. Next came the Monitor Red in 1957, now 50 watts, and the Monitor Gold in 1967. Finally came 1974's HPD ("High Performance Dual"), with more modern materials.
AND THEN
Altec continued improving the 604 through the years, and the drivers have been used in numerous variants, either in stock “utility†cabinets, custom enclosures, modified third-party designs (Big Reds) or with an alternate crossover such as Doug Sax's Mastering Labs model. The affinity for the 604 may have waned in the studio, but it later regained popularity as the basis for UREI's 811/813/815
so Big Speaker Monitor Reds and BIG REDS are different and hence yours and others confusion
we had 604e drivers in cab's we made from audio encyclopedia specs and then bought a pair or two of BIG REDS [altec drivers]
hope i helped you clear things up
Pete