Fyne tuned

David Vivian wonders if a hot-rodded version of Fyne Audio’s original floorstander has the required sonic change of gear

- David Vivian

A young loudspeaker company can dream of endless innovation, but it can’t hope to roll out freshly designed new products forever. With proprietary tech, model span, and price boundaries established, there comes a point where the potentially open-ended process of evolution begins. For Fyne Audio, the launch in 2020 of the F502SP we’re reviewing here was its very own ‘return to go’ moment.

From a standing start in 2017, the fledgling operation, formed by key personnel from a recently bought-out Tannoy, hit the ground running and extended its portfolio to seven model lines in under two years – remarkable, and certainly enough ‘all pockets’ breadth to stand comparison with veteran British rivals like B&W, KEF, and Monitor Audio.

Echoes of Tannoy were, perhaps, inevitable and nowhere better illustrated than the point-source IsoFlare driver that has been utilized in the F500-series from the beginning. The series designs also showcased an advanced type of downward-firing BassTrax ‘tractrix’ bass refl ex-port, the name referencing a mathematically derived, cone-shaped diffuser that outputs more evenly than a conventional port and is less fussy about speaker positioning.