advertisement


Mission 770

I’ll put the Krell on them when I get to.

The differences I’m noticing, which I think are pretty obvious, may be partly because they’re in different rooms. But certainly last night I was absolutely bowled over by the feeling of space they gave on this recording


41M7HG59ASL.jpg
 
The speakers have Velcro spots all around the baffle, so I’m guessing they were supposed to be covered with some sort of grille. But what? 10mm foam is so transparent you can see the logo right through, 20mm foam seems too thick to me to fit, though I’ve not tried. Did they have a cloth grille in some sort of frame? All the online pictures I’ve found show the Mission branding loud and proud.
 
Just foam, brown in colour and chamfered at the edges. An inch or more thick IIRC. Like most foam artefacts long rotted away.... same with the two per speaker on my Heybrook HB3's
 
just used an inflation calculator to work out how much they were new in today's terms.. £1600

Amazes me that they don't seem to regarded as a sought after classic in the same way as say ESL57, BC1, ES14, LS3/5A etc etc.
 
Arkless Electronics said:
just used an inflation calculator to work out how much they were new in today's terms.. £1600
Click to expand...

I don’t think inflation calculators work at all well with audio, I’d expect them to be rather more expensive than that. I recall them being expensive at the time. A similarly sized BBC box, which admittedly has a far more complex (thin-wall ply screwed baffle etc) and expensive to make cab, is about £3.5k or more these days.

I suspect they are quite a hard speaker to get a good sound out, my memory is not dissimilar to Bob’s of a rather boomy and obviously ported speaker, though the magazines raved about them. If you really do need to throw something of A370 or Krell class at them it would explain it somewhat. I only ever heard them with Naim upstream.
 
The one's I have and the few others I have known friends to own have been quite the opposite of what a few in this thread have said. They have the best, fastest, tautest bass I've heard from a ported speaker of the size.

It seems there were several factory updates on top of the mark I, II III etc which they never advertised so it is possible there are some boomy ones out there I guess.

They do need a really good amplifier. They are an easy load and average efficiency but very revealing.
 
They certainly are a much easier load than my other speakers.

There's a recording which has constantly defeated me, it's really obscure, it's basically one man playing a viola da gamba in some pretty complicated music, and he plays "objectively", I've tried many many times to enjoy it on the ESLs and even the JR 149s but every time my mind wonders, the music becomes a sort of annoying noise.

As soon as I put it with the Missions, it's like there's that sense of room, like a real presence of the person playing, or rather, me being transported to where he's playing. And I loved it, I enjoyed the music for the first time.

Obviously Tony's right. And obviously Jez is right. And obviously I'm right. Go figure.

61vpG0FeU8L._SS500_.jpg
 
We all know how easy it is to make a speaker boom, in my experience of the 770 its not a 'fault' I've come across both back when I had my first pair and the pair I own now. The bass is tight,fast and goes loud and lower than it really should given their size. They sounded great on a NAD 2150 pre/power back in early 80's and are sounding as good now on a Quad 240/306.
 
Arkless Electronics said:
...
Amazes me that they don't seem to regarded as a sought after classic in the same way as say ESL57, BC1, ES14, LS3/5A etc etc.
Click to expand...

Maybe because I recall most of the hifi reviewers turned against them and after initially recommending them, they decided they weren't really that good.

They sounded good to me, in my system.
 
Arkless Electronics said:
but very revealing.
Click to expand...

This is maybe what’s at the root of the disagreement. What I’m finding is that although the bass is indeed tight and fast, on some recordings it’s strange sounding. My feeling is that it’s particularly unforgiving in this respect, if the recording’s good, the bass is good too; if the recording’s less good, the bass is not so good. Of my three systems it is the best at imaging and « texture », it is the most thrilling like live music is thrilling, and the least forgiving in the way I described, though how much is due to other factors I’m not yet in a position to say, I’ll do some swapping around over Easter maybe.
 
mandryka said:
As soon as I put it with the Missions, it's like there's that sense of room, like a real presence of the person playing, or rather, me being transported to where he's playing. And I loved it, I enjoyed the music for the first time.

Obviously Tony's right. And obviously Jez is right. And obviously I'm right. Go figure.
Click to expand...

Excellent. The thing with speakers is so much is about finding a pair that fits with both your taste, room and chosen listening level. No right answers and if I gave the impression of being negative towards the Missions then that was pretty dumb. I’d actually like to hear a pair again as it is so long ago I can’t remember much! They certainly had a great reputation and I’m basing much of my opinion on borrowing a friends pair and trying them in my bad sounding rented room that didn’t work with anything larger than Kans!
 
Arkless Electronics said:
Can't say I found anything even remotely similar with mine as far as sounding different or wrong or anything.

Along the lines of what "Firemoon" is saying, I found their greatest strengths to be amazing dynamics, slam, speed etc when driven by a big amp (I mainly used a Musical Fidelity A370 with mine). Excellent power handling and ability to go loud cleanly for a speaker of its type and size. That they combine this with good transparency and pretty low colouration generally made them the dog's bollocks for me for many years.... lots of other speakers came in and were quickly humiliated by the 770's! Rogers LS7's were good but had nothing like the same ability to go loud and offer big dynamics.

Ultimately for me their big flaw that led to Spendors gradually taking over as my daily speakers was that although low colouration in general there is (with mine anyway) a hardness/harshness in a specific frequency range around or just above the crossover frequency that can make them really unforgiving of, as a good example, 80's digital recordings. Deliberately bright and sibilant stuff like George Michael recordings (the worst offender I can think of!) could take the enamel of your teeth from 30 paces!
Click to expand...

Well after half a day with Spendor SP1s I can see where you’re coming from in a way, the Spendor sound is more refined and sweet I think, warm. However, as I have them set up, they do not have the extraordinary imaging and sense of texture (the texture of horsehair bow on catgut string) that I was getting from the Missions, and which made the Missions so incredibly involving.

But it’s early days yet obviously, and I can tell that the Spendors are to be savoured.
 
I just saw this revived thread today & by coincidence was offered a Mission 770 based system two days ago (770 > NAD C272 (very good power amp) > NAD C162 pre > NAD C542 CD player) "€750 starting price". I'm not interested so did not go to see & hear, but before settling with my Sonabs, I'd definitely have been interested in the 770s, as well as the power amp (I'm not familiar with the pre & CD, but see they were well reviewed).

The system is here in Amsterdam, btw !
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top