Taking inspiration from the old ways can give great results
View online review whf.cm/Mission770
We love classic old hi-fi. Give us a chance to hear an original pair of Quad ESL-57 electrostatic speakers, Krell’s first power amp, the KSA 100, or an early Linn LP12 and we simply wouldn’t be able to resist. A huge part of the appeal of these products is about nostalgia, of course. Compared with the very best we can make today, each of that legendary trio would struggle, though it’s important to note that they would still charm due to their innate specialness.
But what if you take such a classic design as a base, and then execute it with the full might of current technology and the benefit of improved technical knowledge gained over the decades? JBL has already managed to do just that with the excellent L100 Classic; and it’s a formula that Mission has followed with the resurrected 770.
The late ’70s originals were instrumental in establishing the speaker brand. Mission’s founder, Farad Azima, was impressed by Spendor’s BC-1 monitor but wanted a more upbeat, involving sound and the 770 were the result – a large two-way standmounter with a 20cm polypropylene mid/bass unit mated to a 25mm plastic-dome tweeter through a relatively simple crossover. The cabinet was made of heavily damped chipboard, echoing the BBC-inspired thin-wall construction of the Spendor.
Mission has been more faithful than JBL in sticking to the original’s appearance, right down to the white front baffle with its distinctive and rather unsubtle branding between the mid/bass unit and port. The resemblance between the 770 generations is unmistakable. But rather than go for the BBC-inspired route of cabinet design, Mission has chosen a more modern approach by making the speaker panels a twin-wall sandwich of high-density MDF and particleboard, bonded by a layer of damping glue. The two layers help control each other’s resonances and together (with the glue) form a rigid structure. This construction should avoid the excess richness and slightly loose bass that can result from the original method.
While Mission has stuck with the same size of polypropylene mid/bass cone as the original, the one used here is a thoroughly modern design with an open, rigid die-cast chassis and carefully honed motor system. The polypropylene cone is mineral-loaded and carefully shaped to aid rigidity. This cone is then married to a low-density nitrile surround to control any resonances. The tools available to a speaker designer to optimise performance are so much
