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New Mission 770!

h.g. said:
Was the Linton launched in 65 still being sold when the 770 came out in 78? I am not disputing the price difference given the old established UK companies were all pretty much going out of business at this time due to prices and volumes from healthier times. The new UK audio companies were a lot more savvy in terms of marketing and pricing enabling them to make better headway against the Asian products.



Can you explain the reasoning? I thought the video said the IAG factory in the UK was going to be new? I can see that made in the UK will go down well in Asia in terms of marketing allowing a higher price but a new factory here compared to a new factory in China shouldn't be much different particularly given the direction UK industry is likely to be going. Lost infrastructure will mean things like decent wooden cabinets will be more pricey though so it won't be quite the same. Of course if they don't intend to manufacture and sell close to the volumes of the Linton then the price could be pretty much anything particularly if they opt for heavy audiophile marketing. But with what the Mission brand means today?



If they do choose to sell at a high price it will be interesting to see what they do about the cone. Large resonant cones have largely disappeared from the market for reasons of technical performance. A few still survive in retro speakers like Audio Note, Harbeth and the like and so will they go for retro sound as well as retro looks? Interesting stuff.
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I presume the cost of labour in China is less than the UK and I agree that the 'made in England' tag will enable IAG to push up the price even further.
I may be wrong but I believe B & W and KEF both produce their premium models in the UK and the lower priced models in China.
So it could be that IAG will market the 770 as a premium product and jump at the chance of upping the price.
I hope I'm wrong as £2000 is absolute maximum for me for anything but I fear they'll be a lot more.
 
nostromo said:
I hope its better than the original. It was the alternative to the Kef 104ab in my time, the Kef was miles better then.
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That's interesting, I wanted 770s in 1980 but settled for Kef Celestes instead (£100). Still have Celestes and still sound great (8" paper cone, infinite baffle).
Wharfedale Quad Mission meeting your FAVOURITE HIFI SPEAKER designer - YouTube
PC compares it to the Lintons - I can't imagine from this interview the 770s will be more than £2k.
 
57charles said:
So it could be that IAG will market the 770 as a premium product and jump at the chance of upping the price.
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A company will only get a high price for a modest sized 2 way if potential customers associate the brand with high quality/prices. For decades now the Mission brand has been associated with about the cheapest speakers you can buy that have some sort of recognisable home audio name. If IAG want customers to pay a high price in any sort of numbers they will need to change what the Mission brand means to consumers. Perhaps they are going to seek to do this but moving a long established lowmarket (if that is a word) brand upmarket has got to be a major challenge. Pretty much the only reason Chinese companies used to buy struggling UK home audio companies was for their brands.

Some posters to the thread clearly associate the particular 770 model with a significantly higher quality than the current brand would seem to represent. There would seem to be something to work with but how much given the video has clearly stated it is not a 770 but something different but in the "spirit" of the 770?

57charles said:
I hope I'm wrong as £2000 is absolute maximum for me for anything but I fear they'll be a lot more.
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The Linton offers decent value as a 3 way speaker. If you are among those that like the distinctive retro look then it has few competitors. IAG get to shift a fair few. Not sure the Linton associations help a lot at least here in the UK.

Due to being a 2 way with a large cone the technical performance of the 770 is going to be compromised. To get a high price it will have to tap into strong audiophile appeal that enables other high priced retro speakers to sell albeit I suspect in fairly modest volumes. The current Mission brand doesn't seem to help in this respect at all. It will be interesting to see if they seek to turn some of the technical performance issues like resonating cones into audiophile features. The listening not measurements spiel could be hinting at something like that but then again most audiophile talking heads tend to bang on in a similar vein.
 
david ellwood said:
When you consider what Devore sell the Orang Utans for the skys the limit for a basic two way these days.
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But only to a tiny subset of home audio enthusiasts with fairly high disposable income who value things in a very particular way. These are pretty cheap things to manufacture being essentially an old fashioned budget configuration (but with relatively high marketing costs I would presume). As the market gets more crowded and the old codgers like me that associate this characteristic sound with their youth die off...
 
Way , way back in the day, I compared the 770's, Spendor BC 1's and some Rogers? on the end of Meridian amps. Really liked all but then heard Meridian M2's and bought them instead.
Still love them 40 odd years later though relegated to 2nd system.
Memory serving, not for the M2's, I would have had the 770's.
 
I had the good fortune to audition the Meridians A/B with 770s and also preferred the Meridians, I would likely have bought them but part of the amp circuit failed during the dem. Really liked them but concerns about reliability postponed investment and led me ultimately to the flat earth side where I've remained for almost 40 yrs. Had Briks for 34 years and at my age unlikely to change!
 
PerF said:
Was the original 770 a successor to 737 ?
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No the 737 was a cheaper model made a several years later but probably overlapped the last year or so of the 770.
There was then the 770S which is to be avoided and had radial strengthening ribs on the (black) cone.
After that was the 770F or "Freedom" which was very good but quite different to the original. Greater subtlety and refinement, more BC1 like, but not quite the mega dynamics and huge SPL ability of the original white face ones (hi fi Choice reckoned they could take 500WPC of direct injection bass guitar!).
There was also a 780 "Argonaut" which was basically a taller 770F with twin bass units and most impressive... Stunning dynamics I seem to recall!
 
Mission's first products were the 710, 720 and 730 range. These 3 models were all they made. Their next product, and the one that really made their name, was the 770. The very first used Chartwell polypropylene woofers and all later ones used SEAS versions which had a much larger voice coil and centre dust cap.
770's are a bit of a minefield as loads of versions were made beyond the MkI, MkII etc.... in effect there were MkII v1, v1.1, v1.2 etc etc but they kept quiet about the fact that the ones you read a review on last month or were bowled over by at a hi fi show could be different from this months production.... Caveat emptor!
 
Si74 said:
Way , way back in the day, I compared the 770's, Spendor BC 1's and some Rogers? on the end of Meridian amps. Really liked all but then heard Meridian M2's and bought them instead.
Still love them 40 odd years later though relegated to 2nd system.
Memory serving, not for the M2's, I would have had the 770's.
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The most likely Rogers model then would have been the original Studio 1. I bought a pair second hand around 84 I guess and quite liked them but they didn’t work great in the room I had though with some perseverance I’m sure I could have got better results. Sold them to someone local and after setting them up in his larger room they sounded great!

Always had an itch to scratch with M2’s but never got round to them. A couple of pairs gave popped up over the years but always found an excuse not to go for them. Main one being they’ve usually sat in a garage and the lovely wood finish was scratched to hell.

These latest 770’s certainly look interesting though the flared black port looks proportionally too big after living with the originals. I suspect IAG will pitch them pretty high cost wise but I’d be interested to hear a pair.
 
Arkless Electronics said:
No the 737 was a cheaper model made a several years later but probably overlapped the last year or so of the 770.
There was then the 770S which is to be avoided and had radial strengthening ribs on the (black) cone.
After that was the 770F or "Freedom" which was very good but quite different to the original. Greater subtlety and refinement, more BC1 like, but not quite the mega dynamics and huge SPL ability of the original white face ones (hi fi Choice reckoned they could take 500WPC of direct injection bass guitar!).
There was also a 780 "Argonaut" which was basically a taller 770F with twin bass units and most impressive... Stunning dynamics I seem to recall!
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The thing is all iterations of the original 770 were very good. These new versions may be cheaper and below par hence the ‘in the spirit of’ or could be rather good and reflect how much a speaker of the same capabilities as the original will cost you new these days and be above £2.5k. Either way I’m in no hurry to sell my ones- horses to water n all that :)
 
Ptah said:
That's interesting, I wanted 770s in 1980 but settled for Kef Celestes instead (£100). Still have Celestes and still sound great (8" paper cone, infinite baffle).
Wharfedale Quad Mission meeting your FAVOURITE HIFI SPEAKER designer - YouTube
PC compares it to the Lintons - I can't imagine from this interview the 770s will be more than £2k.
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Enjoyed that video. Surprised to hear they designed/iterated over a 100 crossovers to get the one for production just right. Measurements were just a check after the listening tests were made. Interesting to learn he listens to Billy Eilish.

On the 737s at the time (or soon after the 770s), these I recall were slightly smaller and lower cost but had a punchier bass, they were good fun speakers. As I recall I found the bass had a particular note no matter what track you played...it put me off ported designs in the end, but they were impressive and very competitive at their price point. .. Both the 737 and 770s were a little too bright in the treble for my taste. Very iconic speakers in their day for new entrants into the hifi genre.
 
My Dad and I each had a pair of Mission 710s at around the same time as the original 770 was on the market. They were great.

If the bass unit surrounds hadn't rotted in a long period of storage, I'd probably still be using them
 
Just watched the video, the finishing on that speaker looks cheap. No way they're selling for 2k a pair. Sitting on the shelf unsold at 2k more like.
 
Past memories still hold my feelings about the 770s.
I was looking to move on from a pair of Kef 104s and listened to the 770s at Westwoods in Oxford.
They sounded 'bright' and rather brash to my ears, compared with the 104s.
Then I listened to Spendor BC1s. What a revelation. Smooth and 'open' with a sound which sounded like real music.
I was playing bass guitar in a folk group at the time.
My initial thoughts were that the Missions would be fine for rock music and the like.
Not my sort of music.
The Spendors were purchased and I never looked back.
I understand why people like the 770s.
We all like different speakers...
 
sq225917 said:
Just watched the video, the finishing on that speaker looks cheap. No way they're selling for 2k a pair. Sitting on the shelf unsold at 2k more like.
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Listened to the soundstage interview and it was interesting to hear how the audiophile/subjective process seemed to operate with respect to audiophile/subjective loudspeakers from the time. Most involved seemed to be journalists and/or sales/marketing rather than people with an engineering background. Journalists at hi-fi publications were involved before the 770 was released. Were they paid consultants does anyone know? It was and interesting time during the squeeze after the stereo boom with many ex-home audio journalists admitting they were actually lifelong enthusiasts for motorbikes, cars, computers, probably cameras (not a personal interest) and other similar consumer goods.

From what I can tell the speaker is likely to be a competent modern one to the extent allowed by the retro configuration. The tweeter is larger and capable of operating significantly lower in frequency which would reduce some of the character from a large resonating midwoofer. The midwoofer cone is a stiffer mineral filled poly likely to be heavier with better bass extension and lower efficiency. Crossover no real information. Cabinet is CLD but with cheap non-stiff materials MDF and chipboard. The chipboard seems odd but might be a marketing hook. The MDF is probably the easiest cheapest material to work with. Bracing the baffle suggests engineering competence as does CLD rather than extensional damping. It seems like a decent modest cost cabinet. For a 2 way like this the front port will have issues. They have clearly made efforts and have likely tuned the port differently but we will have to wait and see the level of midrange leakage, chuffing, resonances, etc...

Interesting topic and hopefully soundstage will get one to measure and we can get more of a handle on some of the design decisions. It looks almost certain to be a better speaker in terms of technical performance compared to the original but the level of audiophile performance achieved remains to be seen. If sold around the price of the Linton I would expect it to do OK but I wonder about the looks. Some car audio and cheap consumer products have a similar look with strong colour/s and the brand/model in very large writing. Perhaps they will put the writing on a sticker that can be removed. I presume it won't have a grille.
 
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