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Old Mission speakers

zippy said:
Mission 770 were 'Marmite' speakers. those who had them, loved them, but after an initial set of good reviews the reviewers turned against them for some reason.
I had them, and loved them.
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As I have said many times before, ‘each to his own.’
I heard them in Westwoods, Oxford, and they didn’t appeal to me,
as I was a dedicated BC1 owner by then.
 
zippy said:
Mission 770 were 'Marmite' speakers. those who had them, loved them, but after an initial set of good reviews the reviewers turned against them for some reason.
I had them, and loved them.
Click to expand...
Reviewers follow their own fashions. Sometimes this follows marketing spend in magazines, other times the bean counters cut corners and quality suffers. Mission had a reputation for random and poorly implemented changes during production.
 
Mission 770's were IMHO one of the best speakers around at the time and would probably show up many modern £3k speakers. They easily beat my Heybrook HB3's and were the equal of (but different to) my Spendor BCII's.

I heard them maybe half a dozen times in dealers and at shows when they were a new product and on every occasion was completely stunned by how good they were.. every other speaker I heard in direct comparison sounded a muddy confused mess in comparison. They also had rave review after rave review...

As is so often the way I couldn't afford them at the time but got to own the "dream speaker" of my youth years later, about 1990 or so when they would have been 8-10 years old... I wasn't disappointed and used them daily for at least 10 years.

Pros: Very clear, clean, and transparent. Sound "fast". Great bass in every way, about the best compromise of extension, tightness, slam and power handling in the bass I've yet come across in a ported speaker of its dimensions. I recall a "hi fi choice" review in which they were amazed that they apparently took 500W of direct injection bass guitar! Excellent dynamics. Very good imaging. Will go amazingly loud without stress for a 2 way speaker of its size.

Cons: For me only one con but it did rather grate on me at times... They can be a bit "edgy" in a certain region of the treble. The crossover consists of just an inductor for the bass unit (so first order) and then a more conventional 2nd order network on the tweeter. The woofer was designed to roll off naturally at the top end and so a very simple, non power sapping and dynamics robbing crossover could be used. However this failed to properly attenuate some lower treble from the woofer and it did still respond in this area.... I'm guessing this is the mechanism anyway but the result is that they can be a bit "in yer face" in the 5 - 8KHz region... "edgy", "wirey" would be other adjectives for it. Now don't get me wrong, this wasn't hugely obvious or anything but because they sound so good in every other area, once you've noticed it.... It would go pretty much unnoticed with top quality recordings but was worst with those crap 80's pop early digital and hyped top end and sibilant recordings, George Micheal stuff being about the worst example I can think off!

Overall I think they largely succeed in their design brief of being a Spendor BCI that goes loud, with good dynamics and tight bass, whilst keeping an impressively transparent midrange.... pity the top end slightly spoilt things...

There are many iterations of the white front 770's with only small visible clues as to what type they are... maybe 4 or more... First ones have small dust cap on bass unit , there are small changes to the positioning on the baffle of the drive units height wise etc.

I have read stuff about them having "slightly ponderous bass", "sounds obviously ported bass" etc but the ones I have couldn't be any further removed from this sort of description, so either some iterations are indeed much less good in this area or many people are not positioning them correctly or using them with good enough ancillaries.

Oh and remove the fuse! They have to go on an open stands as the input terminals and fuse are on the bottom panel. There is a 2A fuse fitted as standard and removing it then bypassing the holder makes a surprisingly big difference!
 
The tiny port and the measured curves that are readable in the old review show that the port was not doing much. Reviewers have a bad habit of just looking at a speaker and getting their reviewing by numbers book out. It has a port so it "MUST" have overhanging bass
 
In a very small room in my house I have a pair of 760i speakers connected to a Denon PMA 250iii amp in an actual bookcase. Until my son recently went off to university there was a turntable attached which he 'acquired' with a set of active speakers. Now connected is an old Sony CD player sporting a Burr-Brown PCM54. Only played occasionally now since my main system is elsewhere but I have very fond memories of the combination. Unfortunately I can't compare against other Missions but I always thought the sound was really warm and pretty dynamic. From memory way back in the early 90s I remember them being highly recommended despite being towards or in the budget category.
 
Always wanted to hear a set of 767`s

No love for the 753`s?
A freind had a set in the 90`s They imaged very well, we scooted his 29" TV into another room and were very surprised at the way the room kinda dissapeared on some recordings.
Something by the Orb iirc made the room feel like it was 2ft deep with water and droplets raining everywhere, pretty cool at the time. They went pretty loud too, that Telarc CD with the T-Rex stomping through the jungle, the speakers sounded like they were going to explode but took it in thier stride!
 
Became Cyrus eventually, I recall that it was a model name originally, the Mission Cyrus amplifier, but there was offshoots into NXT flat panel speaker technology and big investment from them in this I believe.. I don't know the full story...

I thought them about the most truly innovative company around in their early days, what with the 770, the 774 arm, sorbothane, some nice amps designed for them by Stan Curtis and a while later some great VFM budget speakers such as the 700 and 70.
 
Arkless Electronics said:
Became Cyrus eventually, I recall that it was a model name originally, the Mission Cyrus amplifier, but there was offshoots into NXT flat panel speaker technology and big investment from them in this I believe.. I don't know the full story...

I thought them about the most truly innovative company around in their early days, what with the 770, the 774 arm, sorbothane, some nice amps designed for them by Stan Curtis and a while later some great VFM budget speakers such as the 700 and 70.
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I still have a Mission 774 arm, bought in 1979 !
 
Arkless Electronics said:
I recall a "hi fi choice" review in which they were amazed that they apparently took 500W of direct injection bass guitar!
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Sorry, you're going to have to explain that for me. Where does the 500w come from?! If a bass guitar has been DI'ed for recording purposes it would have gone straight into the recording desk (maybe via a DI box) and not through an amplifier.
 
Eh? From an amplifier. I fail to see how such a simple concept as playing 500W of bass guitar into a speaker can cause you so much confusion!
 
Arkless Electronics said:
Eh? From an amplifier. I fail to see how such a simple concept as playing 500W of bass guitar into a speaker can cause you so much confusion!
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Not confused so much as bemused. So you're saying Hi Fi Choice conducted their review of the speakers with a 500w amp then - have I got that right?
 
berty bass said:
Not confused so much as bemused. So you're saying Hi Fi Choice conducted their review of the speakers with a 500w amp then - have I got that right?
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Yes, the book says they used a 500 watt amp. They also say that the 770s handled 150 watts of that. The booklet says they used BGW amps.
 
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