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The days of the great British audio industry have long gone, with many of those that linger on relying on manufacturing in the Far East.

Maybe WHF could introduce a 'Britannia Award' to celebrate those rare products that are British owned, designed and manufactured.

bristollinnet said:

The days of the great British audio industry have long gone, with many of those that linger on relying on manufacturing in the Far East.

Maybe WHF could introduce a 'Britannia Award' to celebrate those rare products that are British owned, designed and manufactured.

The exceptionally fine gear is still made in Britain. Just like the exceptionally fine American or French gear. China is not invited to those parties.

i always had a litle afair with british speakers , my first set were Celestion ditton ,1970 model (i think they are british) after wharfedale made think again about buying british brands, wharfedale till today have almost perfect speakers, but as two other brands before they sent their production to China, it was the end of two good brands , Celestion and KEF, i remenber asking for the Celestion concerto but in the store the owner told me "i have here the KEF concerto they are the same , and i notic e no diference between both, bought neither,

earlier in mid 80´s i bought the Mission 761 4ohms how incredible they sounded ,with any amplifier but at the time i was using 70´s amp.´s ,i think everybody know the huge diference between what brands released in the 70´s and the change for less quality sound starting in 1980 ,

in some brands it was felt like they were joking with clients as some brands like sansui went so low in quality as all others but some more than others ,

after buiying the mission 761 i got the catalog and notice that a system all Mission was released and i only had good material from the 70´s but i tried the mission cyrus, now i´m not sure but i don´t know if only says mission or mission cyrus amplifier, the turntable, the tuner and the cd player maybe a couple of years after as i had only 2 cds and records had good sound quality ,

later to find ,.better sound and buy these days cds were built from a diferent material ,a lot better but when going to buy a cd i would notice two new albuns i had to have and instead of one cd ,i would buy two lp´s and ordered them from Gema records in England ,

thiner vinil but better covers and the sound was more dynamic, the portuguese albuns were also good not so filled with high´s and 140 grams (only weighted one some 7 years ago as i notice they were selling 180 grams vinyl records) .

Also had the 761 already, bought the stands and a extra pair the 707, later the Argonaut model or 780 ,i couldn´t be more satisfied allthough the amplifier had no tone controls and depending on the production of the Lp some albuns were laking a litle treble or bass so i felt it wasn´t that compatible , i ended up a couple of years after selling it all to a friend already with the cd player ,

decades after he was one of those that almost don´t touch the components to not dirty it ,it still looked very good and he tells me he´s going to buy a new system and selling the mission this in the 2000´s already i said to him that i would want it for me,

off course paid almost nothing compared to what he had paid to me but never the less it sounds very good ,
i have it with the 761 as this speakers are really good and with stands , not much speakers had better sound in stands but the 761 were one of them as the 79 Technics SB-F3 with a metal chromed tripod,

some say this speakers aren´t that good the don´t have this or that but only one problem bad amplifiers couldn´t fire them ,any before 1980 receiver or amplifier till 90 watts handle them with perfect stereo image, i think they are incredible good

but had them with 74 pioneer receiver with better sound than the catalog ones from 74 ,refering to the ES-2000 system from pioneer that was in building quality above any catalog components ,also the sound was better but 30 watts maximum ,allthough they had avery clean and loud sound,

at the time i bought not only british brands as others european brands as i discovered that european not only british had a lot more sound quality than any 80´s japanese brand in all components, this not refering to top end material ,as it were still good and expensive