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The Sonus Faber Lumina III is NOT a standmount speaker, it's a floorstander
Upon receiving Editor Jim Austin's assignment to review the Fyne F301's big brother, the F500SP, an upgraded version of the company's F500 model, I wondered if listening would reveal a house sound. Fyne's bookshelf speakers share a similar look, and similar parts and design. But, while the F301s cost just $425/pair and the base-model F500s, $849/pair, the F500SP will set you back $1995/pair in gloss black or white, $2295/pair in walnut. The F500SP's dedicated FS6 stands add $995/pair to the price.
Founded in 2017, Fyne Audio is the brainchild of several former Tannoy employees, including Dr. Paul Mills, the company's technical director, who was formerly the engineering director at Tannoy; and Max Maud, Fyne's sales and marketing director, who formerly served as Tannoy's sales manager. "SP" designates Fyne's "Special Production" speakers, which are made at Fyne's Glasgow factory by the company's "Special Projects" team, in contrast to the regular F300 and F500 lines, which are manufactured at Fyne Audio's Asia facility. The SP line adds features found in the more expensive 700 line to the 300 and 500 speakers.
There's a clear resemblance between some Fyne Audio speakersincluding the F500SPand some Tannoy speakers, the most obvious being the use of coaxial drivers, which Fyne Audio calls "IsoFlare." "Fyne Audio's IsoFlare driver is a point-source system whereby the bass/midrange driver shares a common center with the high frequency unit," Max Maud explained in an email. "[E] nergy is radiated isotropically with constant directivity following the flare of the driver cone. Sound is produced emanating from a single point." The F500SP utilizes a 6" version.
"Our IsoFlare point-source drivers are built around a custom-tooled, rigid, cast-aluminum chassis," Maud continued. The high-frequency unit's annular waveguide has "a computer-optimized expansion rate and geometry to provide flat frequency response and avoid internal reflections."
The Fyne website further elucidates the technology used in the 500SP: The 6" cone is "multi-fibre"; its bass reproduction is said to be enhanced by a "twin-magnet motor system"an additional magnet positioned behind the main magnet system "focuses otherwise stray magnetic flux into the voice coil gap to improve low frequency performance"and a composite-rubber surround, which Fyne calls "FyneFlute." This special surround is said to "reduce cone resonances at the driver termination."
The F500SP is a bass-reflex design with a port that opens onto Fyne's "BassTrax Tractrix diffuser system," which is mounted to the plinth to which the speaker is attached by four aluminum feet. The BassTrax Tractrix system "converts plain wave port energy to a spherical 360-degree wave front, integrating energy uniformly into the room."
At the center of the F500SP's coaxial driver is a "highly rigid," magnesium-diaphragm tweeter, which is energized by a neodymium high-frequency magnet. "The unique geometry of the high frequency unit's waveguide provides a flat frequency response and avoids internal reflections," Fyne says. That glossy waveguide is made of mild steel.
The tweeter's rear chamber "is vented through the magnet system," Maud explained. "This has foam damping to avoid reflections and lowers the resonant frequency for improved tweeter low-end performance." The IsoFlare driver is produced by "specialist subcontractors to our design," Maud said.
The F500SP's crossover utilizes "low-loss, laminated core inductors and audiophile-grade polypropylene capacitors." The F500SP provides two sets of inputsit's biwirableplus one unusual feature: a grounding terminal that allows you to ground the driver chassis to "eliminate amp or cable born[e] RF interference." The only other loudspeaker brand I'm aware of that offers anything like this is Audiovector.
The F500SP is a substantial-looking speaker, squat and hefty. The speaker's rear and front baffles are slightly rounded, which is said to improve the dispersion of the IsoFlare driver.
Max Maud told me the F500SP was voiced using a "CLIO measurement system and a wide range of partnering equipment in subjective evaluation."
Setup
Fyne Audio says that the BassTrax Tractrix diffuser ensures that the loudspeaker is "less critical of room positioning." Maybe so, but I found this speaker to be less forgiving than other small, ported speakers of near-wall placement. Siting them approximately 33" from the front wall, 59" apart, and 59" from my listening seat gave the most spatially appealing sound with a deep soundstage, open treble, clear mids, and strong bass. I didn't have the matching stands, so I placed the Fynes on a pair of 24"-high Sonus Audio speaker stands.
A 6' pair of Auditorium 23 speaker cables connected the Fynes to the Ayre EX-8 2.0 integrated amplifier, which, according to JA's measurements, should deliver a maximum of 107W into a nominal 8 ohm load. I also tried the Heed Audio Elixir, Parasound Hint 6 Halo, and Schiit Audio Ragnarok 2 integrated amplifiers.
For this review, I mostly listened to records with my Kuzma Stabi R turntable and Kuzma 4Point tonearm and the EMT TSD15 N Super Fineline moving coil cartridge. The output of that front-end was equalized and preamplified by a Tavish Audio Design Adagio phono preamp connected to those integrated amps via a 2m run of Triode Wire Labs Spirit II single-ended (RCA) cables.
Listening
I evaluated the F500SP with a variety of vinyl recordings, starting with a 1961 pressing of Hank Mobley's hard bop blowout, Roll Call (Blue Note BLP 4058). I also explored Nils Frahm's cerebral, treated-piano journey, Felt (Erased Tapes Records ERATP033LP), the 25th Anniversary remastered edition of Buena Vista Social Club (BMG WCV05025), John Coltrane's Ballads (Impulse! AS-32), Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis's 1958 mono kicker, The Cookbook (Prestige 7141), the 2020 reissue of Tom Petty's 1994 album Wildflowers and All the Rest (Warner Records 093624892991), and Symphonie Concertante Pour Violon, Alto Et Orchestre En Mi Bemol Majeur KV364/Concertone Pour Deux Violons Et Orchestre En Ut Majeur KV190 with Jean-François Paillard and the Orchestre J.-F. Paillard (Denon OX-7022-ND).
The F500SP is not a forgiving speaker like my Spendor BC1, which sounds great with any moderately powerful amplifier. Nor is it naturally warm and lush like my DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/96. The F500SP is precise but not analytical, resolving but not surgical, clean but not sterile. It extracted abundant detail from old recordings and made contemporary records sound full bodied, dense, deep, and quick.
The F500SPs seem to be low in distortion, which allows them to place each record in its unique place in time. 1950s mono jazz records cut at Rudy Van Gelder's Englewood Cliffs studio sounded zippy and energetic. 1990s electronic dance records pounded and pulsed, their spectral synths and robot drum machines sounding creamy and envelopingalmost feline. Modern rock records had plenty of bite and drive, with crisp snares and guitars, palpable vocals, and well-imaged, well-defined electric bass guitar. Reproduced by the F500SPs, music sounded meaty, visceral, and full bodied and proved capable of spinning a deep, wide soundstage with clear spatial relationships among instruments. It portrayed music with gobs of air and space when those qualities were on the recording, as on Frahm's Felt.
The F500SP reproduced bass instruments in convincing fashion; upright and electric bass, timpani, bass drums, low organ notes, viola, cello, and the like came across with coherent, leading-edge exactness, with no overhang or bass bloat. Some small speakers present a soft and spongy impression of bass. The Fynes produced actual notes down there: a taut, coherent bass message, though without as much weight as larger speakers (with larger woofers) can convey.
The Sonus Faber Lumina III is NOT a standmount speaker, it's a floorstander
The Sonus Faber Lumina III is NOT a standmount speaker, it's a floorstander
Fixed. Thanks for spotting the error.
John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile
Can't really see any reason to pick this over the similarly priced KEF R3. The only advantage I cans ee is tat the impedance/phase load seems a lot easier to handle over the KEF, so amplifiers not up to the task of powering the KEF could give more dynamics with this Fyne.
Hi
Agreed above. This physics.
First glance made me think about the famed historical Tannoy coaxial 'full-range' speaker units. No wonder, both the then Tannoy technical & marketing chiefs quitted to form their own loudspeakers company.
IMO, USD3,000 paired (including the indispensable matched floor stand) is way way too costly vs Tannoy Gold 7 6.5" coaxial driver POWERED (built-in 300W Class AB amp) monitor for only USD369x2 per pair !!!!!!!!
With such huge saving, I would go for Fynes alma mater: Tannoy UK.
With built-in biamp, the Tannoy Golde 7 will surely reproduce bass much much better !
Also, this review did not mention where the Fynes are built (hopefully in Scotland!). Not even shown at the back panel of the loudspeakers !!??
Am I a too smart consumer or a cheapskate or what ??
Jack L
Also, this review did not mention where the Fynes are built (hopefully in Scotland!).
We do say on the Specifications page that the Fyne speakers are "Designed, engineered, and made in UK." Scotland is in the UK (for now, at least).
John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile
Hi
Thanks for pointing out.
Jack
for the KEF R3 or LS50 Meta. I'd like to see a shootout between those three. Every time I listen to the Metas I wish I could afford them!
Unlike a 15 inch dual concentric Tannoy speaker measured by Stereophile may years ago, this Fine dual concentric has quite good high frequency dispersion. More high end dispersion than some dome tweeters such as those in Spendor.