I recently got the chance to listen to the long-awaited new centre speaker from Fyne Audio.
The all-new F57SP-6 is a hybrid designed speaker of the F500SP & F700 series, hence its name, using 700 series drive units and crossovers inside the 500 series cabinet to create a performance centre speaker to match both ranges.
I had been asking Fyne Audio about a better centre speaker than the 500C that had been available, as this was only designed to match the standard F500 range and was left behind with the advent of 500SP. The two centre speakers that Fyne have created are the perfect solution to the problem, with a 6" version at £1499.00 and an 8" version at £1999.00 in black and white, and the premium walnut finish in our pictures is available at 15% extra cost on either speaker.
So with the more compact speakers in the ranges, the 6" version will work well with the F500SP, F501SP and the F700's or when space is limited, and then the 8" version can run with F502SP, F701's F02's and above.
For the purposes of testing the new centre the rest of the system was as follows: Denon AVR-X3700H, Fyne F501SPs as main L&R, Fyne F500SPs as rears, a REL T/9x for subwoofer duties and my KEF T101s for Atmos duties.
Moving on to listening to the finished article, I fired up one of my favourite Netflix shows, "Drive to survive". Shot in 4k with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack, it's full of colourful dialogue and great effects for the races using the soundtrack very effectively. The new Fyne centre compliments the other speakers perfectly and give a cohesive and solid soundstage. When the content calls for movement across the package, the seamless panning from speaker to speaker is superb and very fluid.
Flicking over to a movie, using the film "Battleship" which is a pretty mediocre film but with a good soundtrack and the particular scene used in our YouTube video has a great audio track and is lots of fun. With the sounds of ACDC's "Thunder" underpinning the action of the skeleton crew releasing the USS Missouri from its dry dock (it really is the USS Missouri in this scene on one of its rare restoration runs), this system rocks along with effortless pinnache, dealing with the scale of the anchor chains being cut and the huge 16" guns being fired to the roll of the waves against the hull as it rides through the waves on course for its date with an alien battleship.
I am truly impressed with how well thought out this new centre speaker is and how well it works with both the F500SP and F700 range, and very much look forward to hearing the 8" version.
Available in early 2023, this will be a great addition to our demo stock in our showroom and certainly compliments the rest of the Fyne Audio range, allowing them to now be a fully capable AV system at pretty serious budget levels.
If you would like to get on the waiting list to hear this centre speaker, give us a call on 01507499047 or send an email to humans@expressiveaudio.com and we will let you know when it is in the shop, run in and ready to be listened to! In the meantime, you can pre-order the F57SP-6 or F57SP-8.
Season's greetings
John | General Manager
Watch our demo and first impressions video of the Fyne Audio F57SP-6:
