Fyne Audio Speakers

Fyne Audio was founded in 2017 by former Tannoy employees. Among them is audio guru Dr. Paul Mills, the company’s technical director, formerly engineering director at Tannoy. With Fyne, he is able to undertake projects and develop technologies that would not have been possible with the old management.

Dr Mills has been at the forefront of loudspeaker design for decades, becoming one of the industry’s most respected figures since the early ‘90s. Bringing this unrivalled blend of heritage, experience and engineering knowledge to bear on a project close to his heart, Fyne Audio launched its premium Vintage and more affordable Vintage Classic loudspeaker series.

Fyne have gone for a ‘no compromise’ execution of retro style meets modern engineering built in the UK with ‘timeless style’. The plywood cabinets are hand finished in exquisite, oiled walnut veneers, set with unique burr walnut inlays and finished with gold anodised metalwork throughout. They certainly exude quality. Products (other than the lower price points) feature handcrafted cabinets of superb quality built by a cabinet specialist in Poland. The drivers and crossovers are hand-built in Scotland. During the design process, Dr Mills selected his favourite high-end components, from brands such as Claritycap, Van den Hul, WBT and a number of smaller UK companies. A Glasgow-based engineering company undertakes the metalwork for the Tactrix Cones, plinths and trims, while the overall build process is now done in-house at the Fyne factory in Scotland. Such quality has to be factored into the overall cost, not to mention tax and the margins made by distributors and retailers. Those cabinets are truly a sight to behold: the walnut veneer, burr walnut inlays, gold anodised metalwork trim and plinth style top panel. Gorgeous, simply gorgeous, and a striking statement of ‘timeless’ aesthetics.

The single drive unit used is worthy of special note, being a point-source system where the bass/midrange driver shares a common centre with the high frequency unit. The idea is that, with constant directivity following the flare of the driver cone, sound is produced as if emanating from a single point in space, providing outstanding time alignment across the audio frequency spectrum and class leading stereo imaging, even off axis.

Rather than a simple reflex vent, with plastic tube inserted, Fyne have used their Basstrax downward-firing port system in its most advanced and highly-tuned format to date. It was originally applied to horn loudspeakers in the 1920s, brought right up to date by Fyne Audio over the last five years. Designed as an integrated part of the rigid birch ply cabinets, the lower chamber bass energy is vented downwards onto a large, Tractrix profile diffuser cone that turns the energy into a 360-degree spherical wavefront. This maintains a 90-degree angle at each intersection of the expanding wavefront, in an effort to avoid reflections, and creating a smoother bass response in-room. The result is that the Vintage loudspeakers are much less critical of room positioning than most ported speakers.