Loudspeakers

Acoustic Energy made a great name for itself back in the late eighties and has gone from strength to strength ever since. Following a recent management buy out, the Gloustershire-based company has a renewed sense of momentum with various new speaker designs – several of which I have sampled – including the AE109 (HFC 425), a highly capable entry-level floorstander from its 100 Series.

The powered speaker market – where a stereo amplifier is built into one of the loudspeakers – has become an increasingly popular area with those seeking desktop music systems. US brand Klipsch is embracing the versatile sector, and the R-41PM is a small powered design that’s closely related to its R-41M passive loudspeaker.

You certainly can’t accuse Sonos of resting on its laurels. The company already dominates the multi-room audio market with its Play range of speakers, and it moved quickly to introduce the new Sonos One (HFC 433) last year, adding support for Amazon’s Alexa voice technology, and pitching it as the “smart speaker for audiophiles”. Now, barely six months later, it’s introducing the Beam, which brings Alexa smart tech to the company’s range of television soundbars for the first time.

When Monitor Audio first unveiled its Studio standmount loudspeaker at the Bristol Show in February, I was genuinely intrigued. Unlike pretty much everything else in the company’s extensive loudspeaker lineup, it doesn’t belong to a wider range of products but is instead a design that, for now at least, exists entirely on its own. It has no claims to multi-channel use or smart home integration and it surprised visitors to the show by debuting early, having been planned to launch at the Munich High End Show in May,but instead beingready in time to be on display at Bristol.

It’s all very well reading about loudspeakers that employ exotic materials and techniques in their construction, with special driver designs and radical ribbon tweeters, but most of us own models that are basically two or three moving-coil drive units in a fibreboard box with some acoustical damping and a shiny external finish. I’m quite fascinated by affordable loudspeakers.

Few hi-fi components read from a more conflicted job sheet than the standmount speaker. Put yourself inits place. Number one, you need to persuade your owner that, however tempting, being tucked away on a bookshelf isn’t that great an idea if you’re expected to give your best performance. Second, having avoided that dusty corner cosying up to Ian McEwan, the stout pillar you’re now perched on eats up as much floorspace as a floorstanding tower so, yes, the pressure’s on to deliver sonically.

A clue might be in the name, but to be honest, it isn’t much of a clue. Fyne Audio. Considerable pun potential apart, a manufacturer with a Scottish HQ seems a fair bet – not unlike legendary Scottish loudspeaker maker, Tannoy. More than just a coincidence? Absolutely.