The MFV 3 "Made for valves" Loudspeaker

Designed to bring the best out of your valve amplifier!

The vast majority of hi fi speakers available today are made for powerful transistor amplifiers, which are often very power hungry and can be a difficult load to drive for valve amplifiers. This is especially true of smaller stand mount and bookshelf speakers where huge amounts of midrange and treble are “dumped” in order to increase the relative bass output.

It has been our goal for a long time to make a high quality loudspeaker especially for valve amplifiers. We have been very pleased with our £2,500 MFV 1 speaker, but have used our experience to design and manufacture an almost identical speaker for under £1,000.

Smaller speakers require expensive stands, with less than “satisfying” bass performance, so we decided to make the cabinet larger to eliminate this. The “footprint” remains the same and the additional cost is small. For example many loudspeaker designs use a four ohm bass unit, working on the premise that the amplifier power will double going from eight to four ohms. This of course does not happen with valve amplifiers; therefore the sound balance will be wrong.

A well designed efficient loudspeaker with a more constant impedance will give vastly improved performance in terms of volume level, solid bass and may even improve the life of your output valves as you will not be pushing them so hard.

The Icon Audio MFV 3 (made for valves) Loudspeaker.

Icon Audio valve amplifiers have a reputation for excellent performance and build quality, but we are aware that they are not always matched to ideal loudspeakers thereby not optimising the sound.
Following the success of our Lowther based PM6 loudspeaker and requests from customers we decided to develop a loudspeaker suited to more powerful push-pull and SE amplifiers. This has taken several years of research and many hours of listening tests. The MFV 3 is guaranteed to perform well with valve amplifiers.

Due to its efficiency 15 watts will achieve an excellent volume ideal for large orchestral works in a large room. Higher powers will further improve performance, as bigger valve amplifiers will have lower source impedance and have greater headroom. The MFV 1 is also an ideal partner to lower powered SE valve, transistor or hybrid amplifiers. 300B 9w SE amplifiers for example have a breathtaking immediacy and dynamics.

Specifications and Features

• Slim front profile only 21cm wide (8.25in)
• Small footprint for their size
• Designed for valve amps of around 9w to 90w
• Designed in Leicester UK
• Double ported for extended bass performance
• High 92 db sensitivity
• Easy to drive load
• Simple crossover for minimum colouration and easy driving
• Audiophile inductors and poly prop caps
• D’Appolito based design
• Long grain loudspeaker quality MDF for minimum cabinet colouration
• Choice of Cherry or Walnut veneers
• Bi-wire design (links provided)
• Supplied with black matt plinth incorporated
• Supplied complete with spikes
• Shielded magnets for minimum magnetic field
• Supplied with attractive front cover
• 25kg. each W 21cm. H 109cm. D 35cm
  
Specification and price subject to change. E & E O

Downloads

For full details of this product (including pricing, options and delivery details) pls download the PDF.

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