This is Living Fyne

A Guide to Our Newest Speaker Line

We welcome this British point-source specialist to Upscale Audio.

Point-source or coaxial speaker drivers have a devoted following because of how they time align, resulting in a pure bubble of sound that delivers all the harmonic complexity of instruments and voices.

Fyne Audio was started by a group of employees (engineering, marketing, and sales were all represented) with long careers at Tannoy. The goal was to take point-source drivers (and their matching cabinets) as far as possible with state-of-the-art materials and engineering.

Fyne Audio speakers share three main technologies developed in-house by a team with decades of premium loudspeaker design experience. Fyne Audio's fine components are refined through finite element analysis, computer modeling, and measurement, but also through critical auditioning by Fyne’s top engineering and acoustic personnel.

Here are some main aspects of the Fyne line:

IsoFlare Point Source Drivers: These use titanium or magnesium compression tweeters surrounded by multi-fiber mid/bass drivers with the whole built into a rigid aluminum chassis. You get 5", 8", 10", 12", and even a 15", depending on the model.

BassTrax Tractrix Diffuser System: Based on a twin-cavity cabinet design with a tuned waveguide port firing downwards onto a tractrix profile diffusor maintains a true 90 degree angle at each intersection of the expanding wavefront, so converts plain wave LF energy into a horizontally expanding spherical 360-degree wavefront with no loss of total energy.

Crossovers: Fyne Audio pays great attention to component selection for its crossovers, using only the finest parts. After testing, the entire crossover is cryogenically treated. All speakers offer Presence adjustment (+/- 3 dB in the 2.5 to 5 kHz range) and bigger models also offer high-frequency adjustment, both via a beautiful hand-crafted knob on front.

The Fyne Range

The Fyne Audio catalog is deep, covering many levels of hi-fi, home cinema, and custom installation speakers, but for now, we'll focus on the top three lines of the hi-fi range: F1, Vintage, and Vintage Classic.

F1: The Fyne Point

The F1 is Fyne's flagship range, the speakers to consider when expecting reference performance from a highly optimized hi-fi system. It features a mini-standmount, a standmount, and three floorstanders.

The mini-standmount, F1-5, uses a 5" IsoFlare mid/bass driver with a 19 mm magnesium dome compression tweeter. It stands just a foot and a half high and, with a small sub, can form the front of a truly lively, engaging system with pinpoint imaging.

The F1-8 and F1-8S are a standmount and floorstander based on the same 8" IsoFlare driver with 25 mm magnesium dome tweeter. The standmount is 18.5" high, offering reference sound with the legendary imaging and speed of smaller cabinets. At 3.5 feet high, the F1-8S is the entry point into Fyne's most optimized floorstanding designs.

The F1-10S and F1-12S are the tip of the Fyne spear. At this level, the tweeter switches to a 75 mm titanium compression driver, with a 10" and 12" mid/bass driver, respectively, for each model. The finest Fyne, the 12S, weighs in at 158 lb. and goes down to 26 Hz.

The contemporary cabinet design uses heavyweight birch ply with walnut finishing, supported by a heavy aluminum plinth. The component roster for the crossover includes low-loss LF laminated core inductors, non-inductive thick film resistors, Claritycap’s highest grade HF polypropylene capacitors, and Neotech ™ PC-OCC internal wiring.

The F1 series is designed, manufactured, hand-finished, and tested at Fyne’s HQ and manufacturing facility in Glasgow.

The Fyne Wine: Vintage Series

Fyne's Vintage Series addresses the huge boom in mid-century modern aesthetics combined with modern materials technology. As Fyne puts it, "Back in the day, never sounded so good."

This range comprises the Vintage Five, a mini-standmount, and the Vintage Ten, Twelve, and Fifteen. As you might guess, the model numbers are the mid/bass driver sizes in inches. A 19 mm magnesium dome on the Five gives way to a 75 mm titanium dome on the other models.

The stunning cabinets are what this series is all about. These sumptuous designs include hand-built and finished walnut veneers, burr walnut inlays, gold anodized metalwork trim, and a plinth-style top panel.

The EQ control is handcrafted to offer pure analog luxury. Under all this beautiful trim is a heavyweight, twin cavity birch ply cabinet, with sides formed into contoured curves, designed to optimize mechanical performance and reduce standing waves.

A Fyne Time: Vintage Classic Series

Fyne's Vintage speakers are timeless and perfectly crafted but are also out of budget for many people. The Vintage Classic series brings this aesthetic to a broader audience with retro rectangular cabinets finished in traditional real wood veneers and beautifully contrasting black finish baffles. The Vintage Classic speakers save money by replacing the neodymium magnets of the higher product lines with ferrite magnets. Cabinets are made from high-density fiberboard with walnut veneers and extensive internal bracing.

The range kicks off with the Classic VIII SM, a 21" high standmount with 8" mid/bass (again, the numerals in the model name give us driver size), and a 25 mm magnesium dome tweeter. It continues through the Classic XIII, X, and XII, with a 75 mm titanium dome tweeter slipping in at the X and XII levels.

In terms of aesthetics, Vintage Classic is not at all a step down from Vintage; it just sits in a different space. Just look at that metal front panel with the frequency graphs, the metal badging, and cloth grille, taking us right back to the early days of recorded music playback when this technology was more akin to magic.

AudioQuest Promo: 'Wall to the Ball' Noise Dissipation

One reason we try to get people to stick to one cable and power brand across their system is that these components are specifically designed and voiced to work together. The AudioQuest Niagara power conditioners are best used with all AudioQuest cables, especially from wall outlet to conditioner. "It's just like plumbing," says Garth Powell, designer of both Niagara and current AQ power cables, as he describes how he has carefully designed the system to grab induced ground noise and drain it all in the opposite direction from the audio signal.

To help you get all your piping sorted out, AudioQuest has a new Complete Noise Dissipation Promo running until January 31, 2024. (Yes, another year is upon us!)

The AQ Noise Dissipation Promo

Until January 31, 2024, buy a Niagara 3000, 5000, or 7000 and get a credit towards the purchase of a matching (or better) AudioQuest power cable.

Here are the credits you will receive towards a power cable, depending on which Niagara you purchase.

Niagara 3000: $550 towards Monsoon or better.

Niagara 5000: $1,295 towards Thunder or better.

Niagara 7000: $2,700 towards Hurricane HC or better.

Note that you must use the credit for the matching AudioQuest cable, or better, you cannot apply the credit to a cheaper cable and use the balance elsewhere. The baseline for this offer is a 2m Monsoon. If you choose to, say, get a 1m version of the recommended cable, the difference will not be available to you as credit.

You can, and we greatly encourage you to, use the credit as an opportunity to get an even better cable. Because it's the pipe in the system that carries the most... well, water, the cable from the wall to the power conditioner is the most important one, by far, in your system.

AudioQuest Niagara 3000	AudioQuest Niagara 5000	AudioQuest Niagara 7000
$3,900.00	$5,900.00	$11,000.00

A Tube Preamp and Solid State Amp in One Box?!

Is it possible to get an actual dual mono all-tube preamp and a dual mono world-class solid-state amplifier in one box? Not just a couple tubes for voltage gain. A real preamp running six 12AU7s, with point-to-point wired with Swiss silver-plated oxygen-free copper, Swiss tinfoil capacitors, Japanese custom-made Takman resistors, and a host of the finest parts built with one thing in mind: Sound.