Fyne Audio F1-8 Bookshelf Loudspeaker (pair)

An 8″ IsoFlare driver with down-firing bass port and 91 dB sensitivity.

 

“Everything the F1-8 touches turns to music.”

 

Fyne Audio’s F1 Series is the flagship line which represents the pinnacle of Fyne Audio’s long-standing audio experience and engineering expertise. This no-compromise series of high-end loudspeakers uses Fyne Audio’s most advanced point-source driver technology

The F1 Series is designed, manufactured, hand-finished, and tested at Fyne’s headquarters and manufacturing facility in Glasgow. The F1 Series truly represents state-of-the-art UK hi-fi loudspeaker design.

IsoFlare Point-Source Driver

Fyne Audio’s signature design is a point-source system whereby the bass/midrange driver shares a common center with the high-frequency unit. This coaxial design provides outstanding stereo imaging even off axis. Because sound is produced from a single point, it comes off the speakers in a truly spherical and time-aligned wavefront. This preserves the harmonic structure of complex instruments and vocals, recreating the true acoustic sound field from a loudspeaker that is far less dependent on room location.

The F1 series IsoFlare drivers, the high-frequency unit features a highly rigid 3” titanium HF diaphragm for smooth and unstressed performance, with a massive Neodymium magnet incorporating a vented rear chamber to place low-frequency resonance well below the crossover region. This enables a very low 750Hz crossover point for the most realistic rendition of vocals. The HF driver uses a high-power handling edge-wound aluminum voice coil on a Kapton former with pure copper shorting ring for lowest distortion. Its unique IsoFlare annular waveguide has computer-optimized geometry to provide linear expansion into the room for the smoothest frequency response.

On the low-frequency section, a multi-fiber paper cone gives natural sounding midrange and extremely clean transient behavior even at concert realistic SPLs. The twin roll fabric cone surround (floorstanding models) and FyneFlute surround (standmount models) effectively terminates cone energy without time-smearing, remaining cohesively integrated to the HF driver irrespective of listening volume. The high-power LF motor system uses a giant ferrite magnet with a rectangular copper voice coil on aluminum former for class-leading power handling. The complete F1 series IsoFlare driver is built into a rigid cast aluminum chassis to eliminate unwanted vibrations and coupled to the cabinet’s internal bracing spars through a semi-compliant bonding material for exceptional damping at the driver/cabinet interface.

Bass Trax Tractrix Diffuser System 

The patent pending BassTrax Tractrix profile LF diffuser system is a complex yet refined approach to bass loading and reflex porting. It incorporates a twin cavity cabinet design with a tuned waveguide port firing downwards from the reinforced lower panel of the cabinet. This loading technique broadens the tuning frequency to reduce cone excursion and acts as a damping system that blocks potential standing wave resonances produced by the main internal port between cavities.

The lower cavity bass port vents downwards onto the BassTrax Tractrix profile diffuser. The unique, mathematically derived tractrix profile 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. The result is seamlessly uniform LF integration into the room and a loudspeaker that is far less critical of room positioning.

Crossover Design

The F1 series crossover is a no-compromise design, hand-built onto vibration-damping fibreboard panels using the world’s finest electronic components and cables and fine tuned to deliver truly class-leading performance. Leaning on decades of premium loudspeaker design experience, the design team refined the component list through finite element analysis, and computer modeling as well as measurement and critical auditioning by Fyne’s top engineering and acoustic personnel.

The component roster includes low-loss LF laminated core inductors, non-inductive thick film resistors and Claritycap’s highest grade HF polypropylene capacitors. Neotech ™ PC-OCC internal wiring provides highly transparent signal transfer, connecting to the loudspeaker cable through WBT Nextgen™ gold plated bi-wire terminals. Once fully assembled and tested, every F1 crossover is Deep Cryogenically Treated. This super freezing and slow thawing process relieves microstresses in components, wiring and solder joints, maximizing signal transfer and delivering greater transparency to the sound.

Further F1 series refinements include a fifth earth terminal that grounds the driver chassis to prevent radio frequency interference effects from masking fine detail. For seamless room integration, HF output controls are available on the front baffle of F1 series models, offering user adjustment of high-frequency energy and presence.

The F1-8

The F1-8’s hand-crafted cabinet is supported on a compact machined aluminum plinth that houses Fyne’s state-of-the-art BassTrax LF diffuser. Surrounded by FyneFlute rubber surround, the F1-8 features an 8″ (200 mm) IsoFlare low-frequency driver mated to a 25 mm magnesium dome compression tweeter to create a point source, time aligned transducer delivering pure isotropic radiation across the entire audio spectrum. Hand finished with care at Fyne Audio’s UK manufacturing facility in stunning real walnut veneer with burr walnut inlay, the F1-8 is the pinnacle of UK Hi-Fi loudspeaker design distilled into a sumptuous compact bookshelf speaker design. 

The F1-8 offers +/- 3 dB Presence adjustment in the 2.5kHz to 5.0kHz range.

Specifications

Type: Two-way, downwards firing port, with BassTrax Tractrix diffuser

Sensitivity: 91 dB

Nominal Impedance: 8 ohm

Frequency Response (-6 dB typical in room): 33 Hz-34 kHz

Driver: 1 x 7.87″ (125 mm) IsoFlare point source driver, multi-fiber bass/ midrange cone, FyneFlute surround with 25 mm magnesium dome compression tweeter, ferrite magnet system

Crossover Frequency: 1.8 kHz

Crossover Type: Bi-wired passive low loss, 2nd order low pass, 1st order high pass

Dimensions (HWD): 18.5″ x 11″ x 17.4” (470 x 280 x 441 mm) 

Weight: 33.5 lb.