Fyne Audio Vintage Classic X

A thoroughly modern performance housed in an olde-worlde wrapper

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It is easy to underestimate a speaker like Fyne Audio's Vintage Classic X. They look like they have been time-warped from the 1970s, with a huge, wider-than-deep walnut-covered cabinet and lovely adjustable dials to fine-tune their tone. We suspect a large proportion of worldwide sales will be down to the rather contrived aesthetics, and that's perfectly okay with us. Retro is certainly in at the moment and these speakers play that card as well as any piece of hi-fi we have come across in recent years.

Yet, for those not taken in by the Fyne's retro charms, it would be wrong to dismiss these floorstanders as something of a novelty solely for those who yearn for the past. That would undersell the product significantly, as if you look past the appearance you will find one of the most charming speakers available for the money.

Fyne Audio may be a young company, having been founded in 2017, but the people behind the brand have worked in the industry for decades. That experience is evident in how this product has been engineered. At its heart is the company's trademark Isoflare point source driver array where the tweeter, in this case a 75mm titanium-dome compression design, sits in the throat of the 25cm multi-fibre (posh paper) mid/bass unit.

There are many advantages to this kind of design, ranging from more consistent dispersion and better time alignment between the drivers to improved integration. The unusually large tweeter allows a crossover point that is unconventionally low at 750Hz - most conventional rivals push that up to between 2-3kHz range - and this has benefits in allowing the bulk of the midrange to be delivered by just one drive unit. The promise is of a more seamless and coherent sound in that all-important frequency region.