Fyne Audio Vintage 10 speakers
I have long been a fan of dual-concentric, high-efficiency loudspeakers, which really complement amplifiers such as my Audio Note Meishu Tonmeister single-ended valve amp, but I have so far never had the opportunity to try one of Fyne Audio’s Vintage range at home. The underlying rationale behind the Vintage range is to combine strongly traditional aesthetics with modern-day, leading-edge acoustic engineering using the latest technology and materials.
The range comprises four models: top of the range is the Vintage 15 with its 15in dual-concentric driver, then there is the Vintage 12 (12in driver), the Vintage 10 under consideration here, and the tiddler of the range, the compact Vintage 5 with its 5in driver.
Although Fyne Audio only came into being in 2017, its founders can lay claim to a long history in the hi-fi industry, with technical director Dr Paul Mills, a well-known and respected figure in loudspeaker design, having more than 40 years’ experience. He was formerly technical director at Tannoy for 30 years, and he and several fellow directors left that company when it was taken over by Philippines-based Music Tribe. They set up Fyne Audio, as MD Anji Sosna put it at the time, “to keep all the experience and know-how of audio and loudspeaker manufacturing in Scotland”.
The Vintage 10 at 104cm tall, 46.8cm wide and 48.9cm deep is one of the largest speakers I have used in my 20ft x 12ft listening room, and I have to say that they look and feel like a quality product, with their beautifully walnut-veneered, radiused birch ply cabinet. All of the metalwork is manufactured for Fyne in Scotland and looks a million dollars in its classy, gold anodised finish. It is all put together in Fyne’s Glasgow factory, which also houses their R&D and warehousing.
A Flare for design
At the heart of Fyne Audio’s speaker range is its a dual-concentric Isoflare driver, which is made in various sizes from 5in up to 15in for its various sizes and prices of speakers. The Vintage range builds on the technology developed for its award-winning F1-10 and F1-12 models. The Isoflare units use a point-source system whereby the tweeter is located at the centre of the bass/midrange driver, which means their acoustic centres are in the same place. Fyne says this provides perfect time-alignment where everything remains phase-coherent, no matter how much you move off-axis.
Dr Mills explains that with a conventional, separate tweeter and bass/midrange, it is only accurate at one point in space as the two path lengths are different, which can cause phase errors that interfere with the harmonic relationships of the instruments they are trying to reproduce.
The Vintage 10 has a 10inch Isoflare unit with a large 75mm titanium dome compression tweeter at the centre of its multi-fibre paper bass/midrange cone. Paper was chosen after Fyne tried many alternatives, but found that paper offered the most natural sound. To avoid any potentially detrimental resonances, Fyne have used a custom-tooled cast aluminium chassis. The units also feature the company’s Fyneflute roll surround, whose ridged structure is said to improve transient response.
The tweeter has a vented rear chamber in its large neodymium magnet, which places its low frequency resonance well below the crossover region (750Hz), while its light, but rigid titanium dome pushes its breakup mode “well above the threshold of human hearing”.
The computer-optimised, annular waveguide is said to help provide a flat frequency response and avoid internal reflections. The low crossover point means that much of the human vocal range is handled by the tweeter. The crossover is hard-wired and mounted onto fibreboard with a special mastic to minimise vibration. It features low-loss LF laminated iron-core inductors, non-inductive thick-film resistors and high-grade HF polypropylene capacitors. The whole crossover is then cryogenically treated in Fyne’s own deep cryogenic treatment chamber. This is said to relax stresses in the materials and solder joints and I have also read that such treatment can improve the crystalline structure of metals.
The high-density birch ply cabinet is reflex port loaded using a twin-cavity system that broadens the tuning frequency to reduce cone excursion and block standing waves. The Basstrax Tractrix profile diffuser, as previously used in the 1920s by Voight, converts the plain wave energy into a 360-degree wave-front, which is said to make room positioning less critical.
Vintage meets valves
To check out what the Vintage 10s could do, I slotted them into my system with the aforementioned single-ended 300B valve integrated amp, CDs played on an Audio Note CDT-Five transport and DAC 5 Special combo and vinyl taken care of by an Audio Note TT3/PSU3/Arm Two/Io1 turntable package with S9 step-up transformer. I used the Vintage 10 bi-wired using Audio Note copper cables. On the mains, I used a Musicworks Reflex Ultra G5 mains distribution block with Revive Ultra II mains leads.
Fyne suggest placing the speakers around 19in from a rear wall and 39in from sidewalls, but in my room they were fine just 17in from both. The Vintage 10 offers two adjustments – ‘treble energy’ on the rear panel, which gives a ±3dB tweak between 750Hz and 20kHz, plus a ‘presence’ control on the front baffle that gives ±3dB between 2.5kHz and 5kHz in that critical band that covers the human voice. In my system and room, I ended up with treble energy at -1.5 and presence at -1. That gave by far the best balance in my room. I found these adjustments useful, so don’t be afraid to experiment.
So, would the Vintage 10 with its 94dB sensitivity prove the perfect match with my Meishu valve amp that I was hoping for? I started with a track from jazz pianist/singer/songwriter Ben Sidran that I know inside out, namely Didn’t All Come True. Straight away, I was impressed by how open and expressive his vocal was and by the sheer detail, delicacy and dynamics of percussion and drumkit. Cymbals had a delicate ring and drum strikes were dry and snappy. The bass line was weighty, tuneful and drove the track along well, especially when the it gains momentum and speeds up as it progresses. The Vintage 10s really got me involved with the track and I had a big grin on my face by the end of it.
I then moved on to a much simpler track, Red Lights in the Rain byCanadian guitarist/singer/songwriter Stephen Fearing. It is a very simple recording, just him and his Manzer Cowpoke guitar, so there’s no place to hide. The Vintage 10 captured his vocal very well and allowed me to hear each inflection and nuance of his very polished and characterful style, while his guitar came across with good leading edge detail. He has a great range in his voice and the Fynes handled it without adding the hard edge or sibilance I sometimes hear on lesser speakers. But what the Vintage 10 also captured well was the body and weight of his guitar and how he slapped the body with his hand.
Next I put on Sun Pillars from pianist Fergus McCreadie, I was impressed at how the Vintage 10 conveyed the texture of the snare on the intro but also the delicacy of the cymbal line. McCreadie’s piano was very open, with lots of space around it, and had good weight in the lower registers and I could hear just how hard he was striking the keys. The double bass was deep, focused and nimble with the Fynes providing great insight into David Bowden’s technique. The Vintage 10 conveyed the tempo and sheer energy and exuberance of this excellent performance from the trio with ease.
Another track I often use to put speakers through their paces is guitarist Larry Carlton’s cover of Minute by Minute, on this track the Fynes conveyed the piano on the intro well, while Carlton’s acoustic guitar had good bite and presence. Drums were tight and explosive and that driving, sinuous bass line really moved on the Vintage 10, which conveyed the rhythm and impetus of the track very well indeed. Backing vocals were also nicely defined and separated. So, another excellent performance.
I played more and more of my favourite tracks, from guitarist Peter White, sax ace Dave Koz, trumpet legend Miles Davis to John Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen, and the Vintage 10s took it all in their stride.
Tweet success
Fyne also supplied me a pair of their Supertrax super-tweeters, priced at £3,499. These are an omnidirectional design that Fyne went for because they felt that a standard forward-firing tweeter would “beam like a torch”. They believed an omnidirectional design was needed because they had noted that a high proportion of the sounds we perceive are reflections from the surfaces in the room. And because that reflected energy from an Isoflare driver has the same harmonic structure as the direct on-axis energy, they felt an omnidirectional super-tweeter would match best.
I used to dismiss subwoofers in my youth because I didn’t feel I needed more bass. Then I found out that adding a subwoofer improves the sound throughout the entire frequency range, improving vocals and even cymbals. Fyne say a lot of this is due to a reduction in phase errors and that their super-tweeter brings similar benefits and better preserves the harmonic relationship between instruments. They also point out that recent research has shown that most instruments have energy above 40kHz, including sibilants in speech.
The super-tweeters simply sit on top of the cabinet, connected to the speaker terminals on the rear panel and are intended to be set back from the front edge of the speaker by the distance specified in a table in the instructions, depending on which Isoflare driver is used. In the case of the Vintage 10, this is 100mm.
The one thing that hit me straight away was that the super-tweeter did not suddenly give me oodles more treble or make the sound brighter. On Norah Jones’s I Don’t Know Why, what struck me immediately was that the harsh glare I was getting when she really belts out a note disappeared when I connected the super-tweeter. Piano too was more delicate and open with more space around it. Indeed everything seemed better focused and defined.
I then tried Being with You by George Benson, and found that the string backing was more open with more space around it and the Fender Rhodes piano was sharper, better focused with better leading-edge sparkle. Benson’s beautifully lyrical guitar line was better voiced and when his fingers really got moving, the addition of the super-tweeter gave them more solidity and fluidity. Cymbals and hi-hat were also better defined. It wasn’t more forward and bright or sparkly, everything just sounded more real and better focused. The Supertrax tweeter is also provided with a level adjuster giving ±3dB and I found that in my room and system +1dB was just right.
Fast and fun
The Fyne Audio Vintage 10 certainly won me over with its many charms. It was fast, dynamic, energetic, fun, well balanced, detailed and allowed me to listen into the music to hear what each individual musician was doing. And when you’re a big jazz fan like I am, that’s super-important.
From the subtle and nuanced trumpet of Miles Davis to the energetic and powerful sax of players like Dave Koz, David Sanborn and Eric Marienthal and soulful vocals from the likes of Randy Crawford and Aretha Franklin, the Fynes took it all in their stride and were always enjoyable and eminently musical.
They are beautifully finished and, with their gorgeous, oiled walnut veneer and solid walnut trim, really do look like a piece of quality furniture. I thought they looked great. Retro is very much ‘in’ these days and you don’t get more authentically retro than this.
The Vintage 10s made a great combination with my Audio Note valve amp. Add the super-tweeters, and they get better still for a price that some may think nothing of spending on some decent cables. I loved my time with the Vintage 10 and recommend them enthusiastically.