It may be Fyne, but is it refined?
Speaker package | £10,999 | whf.cm/F8SPAV
The centre channel is often the most overlooked speaker in a surround-sound system, but we find it to be the component that can make a speaker package coherent, elevating it from a collection of boxes to a fully fledged immersive home cinema set-up. Tasked mainly with handling dialogue and usually flanked by larger, more powerful speakers, a centre speaker needs to be able to hold its own, despite restrictions in cabinet shape and position, which is often close to a wall or screen.
With the Fyne Audio F8SP AV surround sound speaker package, the brand brings together two of its most formidable floorstanders from its SP (Special Production) range, which soups up existing products with a wishlist of the company’s high-end innovations.
In this case, the front left and right are a pair of the domineering F502SP, while the rears are the more manageably sized F501SP. These are joined by not one but two of the brand’s F3-12 subwoofers.
For the first time, Fyne has produced two centre channels designed to partner with both its F500SP range and the more expensive F700 series. The new centre speakers use F700 internal components within an F500SP MDF cabinet. This package includes the larger model, the F57SP-8, featuring 8in (20cm) drivers and an adjustable Auxiliary Bass Radiator to modify its low-frequency performance. It all sounds very impressive, but can it hold this system together?
Even bass performance
Individually, the F57SP-8 centre speaker costs £2000, while the front F502SPs are priced at £4800 a pair, and the surround F501SPs are £3500. With the F3-12 subs costing £1000 each, the entire 5.2 system would set you back around £12,300 if purchased separately. But Fyne has suggested to its distributors that the F8SP AV bundle retail for approximately £11,000, representing a tidy saving on this otherwise pricey package.
As with the rest of Fyne’s premium models, all the full-range speakers in the F8SP AV pack use the company’s IsoFlare drive unit arrays, where the tweeter is positioned in the throat of the mid/bass unit to provide accurate time alignment, consistent dispersion and improved integration between drive units.
In the F502SP, the array uses a 25mm magnesium-dome compression tweeter coupled with a 20cm multi-fibre mid/bass cone and a dedicated 20cm bass driver. The driver surrounds boast a pie-crust style indentation known as FyneFlute, which uses an uneven surface to control unwanted resonances.
This 2½-way system is augmented by a downward
