Clear savings: Hifi products now available % at up to -57% in the outlet

You knew that you don't always have to pay the full price for everything. Many other fashion retailers also have a kind of outlet section where you can find both new and slightly used, in good condition products at a significantly lower price than the original recommended price. Here are some current examples from the selection at Kruunuradio in Helsinki, for example!

Headphones for home, office or even the studio

French company Focal has been a respected manufacturer of audio equipment since 1979. Since its founding, its core areas of expertise have included the manufacture of high-quality speaker components and speakers, but its headphone ranges have also raised the brand’s profile.

Currently, Focal’s headphone lineup is divided into home, mobile, and professional headphones; the Listen model appears in virtually every category with minor variations. Its wired Listen basic version was released as early as 2016, but due to its simple and functional design, it is still widely available.

The earphone has a closed design, a folding structure, a glossy surface, and is equipped with leather ear pads. The comfort is good thanks to a good fit and a reasonable weight of 273 grams. The speaker features a 40mm mylar-titanium element, the headphones impedance is 32 ohms, the sensitivity is 122 decibels (1 kHz / 1 Vrms), and the THD value is <0.4 %. The repeat band extends from five hectares to 22 kilometers per hour.

Headphones are now available % at a 32% discount, priced at 169 euros.

You can read more about the Focal Listen product family of headphones in this article.

New era surround speaker system

Current soundbars can certainly create quite impressive sound in different situations, but their surround capabilities should be approached with a certain degree of caution. Surround sound is actually synonymous with multichannel audio, and the proper reproduction of this requires a box resting on a TV stand to often not completely conform to the space, even though it may create a certain sense of presence.

True multi-channel audio requires separate audio channels and speakers for their playback. In its most traditional form, this means a package consisting of two front speakers, two rear speakers, one center speaker, and one subwoofer, which forms the so-called 5.1 channel system.

The Focal Sib Evo 5.1.2 speaker system, which won the EISA award in 2017, is not just a traditional 5.1 system; the addition of a second number in the combination also means compatibility with the Dolby Atmos surround sound that has gradually become more common in recent years. In cinemas, the Atmos sound is reproduced not only from the walls but also from the speakers mounted on the ceiling; however, Focal has saved home theater enthusiasts from cumbersome installation and has fitted the Sib Evo’s Atmos speakers with four-inch wideband drivers that, when properly positioned, create the illusion of vertical sound.

The Atmos speakers in the set can be placed, for example, on a wide TV stand at a height of at least 75 centimeters, about two meters apart from each other (depending on the listening point and the room), and the center speakers between them. The satellite speakers, on the other hand, should be placed at a sufficiently high height, at least a good meter away from the listening point and a couple of meters apart from each other. The subwoofer can be placed a little more freely, for example in front of the sofa to the right.

The outlet price of the Focal Sib Evo 5.1.2 is 1,190 euros.

Read here how the speaker package performed in our test!

Quality sound from Scotland

Fyne Audio is a young Scottish loudspeaker manufacturer that can be considered to have emerged through globalization. When the well-known Scottish loudspeaker brand Tannoy was sold to the acquisition company Music Group and the Tannoy factory in Scotland closed down, many employees also left the company. As a result, in 2017 a group of former loudspeaker designers and experienced employees from Tannoy decided to establish Fyne Audio. Therefore, the Glasgow factory was opened in 2019.

Fyne Audio, despite its young age, has already received recognition in several industry magazines. The manufacturer has four model series; F1, F700, F500 and F300, of which the F300 is the most affordable basic series, starting with the F300 floorstanders priced at 245 euros and ending with the F303 floor speakers priced at 849 euros.

The F500 is Fyne Audio’s most affordable model series, featuring a coaxial placement of the tweeter in the center of the bass-midrange driver, which is familiar from Tannoy (and also from KEF). The F500 stand speakers are quite compact in size, if not for some tiny speakers at all. However, they can still fit in a bookshelf, provided the depth of 32 centimeters is not an obstacle. The bookshelf placement is also quite possible because the tweeter’s reflex tube is not located behind the speaker but at the bottom, and it opens using a kind of directional mechanism to allow air to flow more easily and thus avoid the possible back-pressure from the reflex tube and prevent interference with the reflex drive. Fyne calls the solution BassTrax. The F501 floor speakers also have a similar structure.

The loudspeakers also share a 150-millimeter diameter IsoFlare Point Source coaxial speaker element. It is a bass mid-range driver with a 25-millimeter titanium cone tweeter in the center. The crossover frequency between the elements is relatively low at 1.7 kilohertz and the filtering is done with an asymmetrical 12/6 decibel per octave crossover slope. The bass mid-range driver has a fiber-reinforced plastic composite cone and a rubber suspension with special symmetrical grooves that are said to reduce distortion and improve the linearity of the reproduction. A similar solution has indeed been used by Tannoy and KEF for a long time.

The larger F501 floor speakers, which are over 90 centimeters high, have the same elements: a 150 millimeter IsoFlare Point Source coaxial tweeter and a 150 millimeter bass driver that supports playback and extends downward, with the frequency range limited to 250 Hertz at the top. This is a so-called 2.5-way configuration.

Both models, the F500 floorstand speaker and the F501 floorstand speaker, are now on offer at outlet prices: F500 590 euros pair (-21 % from the recommended price) and F501 1 250 euros pair (-16 % from the recommended price).

Read our recent review of the Fyne speakers here!