Anybody heard of Falcon Acoustics?


This British company makes a speaker line with lots of similarities to the IMF speakers of the 60s, 70s, and 80s.  I used to have a pair of IMF Monitors which I thought were great speakers.  I regret selling them.  Falcon makes a speaker called the IMF 200, which has many similarities to the old IMF speakers.

Have any members of the Audiogon community heard these speakers from Falcon Acoustics?  What are your thoughts on them?

hifinut51

I’ve owned the IMF 100 and the Q7. Falcon makes outstanding speakers. Nice bang for the buck! The kits are a piece of cake if you want to save on the price!!

https://www.falconacoustics.co.uk/kits-cabinet-parts-accessories/imf-completeathome-loudspeaker-systems-falcon.html

Falcon’s clones of old classics are terrific sounding.  I like their version of the BBC monitor LS3\5A.

They are really nice,  perfect near field speakers .   Very inefficient but if you are buying these I doubt you are cranking them up.   

In New England you can find them at  Natural Sound in Framingham MA. 

     I bought the guts for a pair of LS3/5As and 2 KEF B139s from Falcon, back in 1981.

     Built them (with some cabinet mods) as an actively bi-amped, mains/sub system, per the March 1980, Speaker Builder Magazine article, written by Siegfried Linkwitz.

     They were an outstanding company, back then.

     

Irving M. Fried (IMF), an American by the way, will certainly live forever through his brilliant designs for transmission line speakers that are still in production (somewhere) after almost 70 years. The new IMF 200 looks like it still uses Falcon's version of the original KEF elliptical driver. I'd describe the sound but... it was way too long ago!

But I liked them a lot, I remember that. Good luck!

That is weird because a year or so ago they had a pair in their showroom.   Maybe a consignment?   

The Falcons that you are looking for ( IMF 200) is sold factory direct only. Jerry Bloomfield is the owner. I have talked with him when I ordered Falcons . He will give you the total price including the shipping cost to your location. There is no tax or VAT charge if you are located in the USA. You should send him an Email and he will answer any question that you have!

Falcon speakers were found at dealerships until a little more than a year ago when they changed to a direct sales approach.  

 

@larryi

That’s not true, Falcon has always sold factory direct. The LS3/5a was the only model that was sold non factory direct. MoFi sold the MoFi LS3/5a!

That is probably correct.  The LOS3/5a was sold through dealers, with MoFi acting as the distributor.  That did not last long, and it seemed a bit unfair to dealers who showed the speakers to customers, promoted the speaker, and then shortly thereafter, had the rug pulled out from under them.

@yogiboy Falcon dealers were also able to sell RAM models.  I had several of the RAMs on hand, as well as LS3/5a models.

Timbrel or Tabor, Anyone?

OK, so back in the early 80s, I found a Falcon Acoustics catalog, I think, available via a Stereo Review advertisement. I managed to get a copy - it was a spiral-bound type catalog, maybe 1/4" thick, at best.

There were two kits in which I was interested: one was the Tabor and the other the Timbrel. I opted for the latter and purchased the components from Falcon. I built the kits using 3/4" Baltic birch.

The LF / MF driver was a 6.5" "bextrene" driver, with a 25mm or so voice coil. The high end was handled by what was likely a Peerless or SEAS tweeter - that classic rectangular plate (with chamfered corners) and a soft dome. 

As far as the crossover is concerned I *think* it was a symmetric 2nd order. I say this because I distinctly recall the phase of the HF driver being wired 180 degrees out of phase, although for some reason, I recall mention of a 3rd order for the top, though not necessarily for the LF/MF...which is a puzzlement in its own way.

Anyway, I have written Falcon and they basically said that they could not help me. You see, I had these on the back doors of a van that I used to drive, powered only by the aftermarket cassette deck. They were low sensitivity - maybe 83 dB/W/m - but to my ears, they were quite good, and reasonable down to 50 Hz or so. HOWEVER, one day, my brother borrowed said van, and "temporarily" removed the speakers from their perches for some outdoor gathering - you see where this is going - long story longer they were left outside, in the pouring rain, and get this, facing upward.

Not long after, I had the opportunity to pick up a pair or Mordaunt Short Pageant, Series II (which I still have suspended above my pool table) at cost, so I replaced the Timbrel with the MS Pageant II.

However, I have always wanted to rebuild the Timbrel, but as I mentioned, the folks at Falcon say they cannot help me out, which was a bit of a let down.

Oh, one more thing about the crossover...I could swear that at least one of the inductors had a core - not something obvious like iron, but something iron-related. I think there was a dropping resistor for the soft dome HF driver as it was roughly 6 dB higher sensitivity than the LF/MF driver.

ANYWAY...if anyone knows of this speaker and has pics, or even more useful information for my quest, I would really appreciate it. I can't recall what the Tabor looked like or which drivers it comprised, but yeah, I'd love to rebuild those Timbrel.

Thanks in advance,

Mark Alan Jay