You love your iPod, you love music, you love things that look cool. Thought you did. So, according to speaker makers Ferguson Hill it makes sense to blow the better of £500 on a pair of speakers for your iPod and a further £275 on a subwoofer. But is it all a bit excessive or worth the outlay? We get listening to find out.
The FH007 is a powerful five-piece system has design at the core of its beliefs, it’s even being sold in the Conran shop, consists of a pair of horn loudspeakers and two spherical bass units together with an integrated full range 16w amplifier.
The speakers are made from moulded cast acrylic giving them a transparent design and according to Ferguson Hill, this means the speakers creates the illusion of space preventing rooms and desktops from looking cluttered.
In practice and we would have to agree. The front speakers, which are surprisingly large, don’t actually look that large and the clear football-sized rear speakers can be tucked out of the way.
The good news is that the system once connected sound stunning. It’s crisp, well balanced, does lack some bass, but overall well, just, amazing. Everyone we showed was impressed, even the neighbours 5 doors down the road who could hear perfect tunes wafting down the street.
Well that’s it then, 9/10 job done thank you for reading. Well not quite.
While the sound might be impressive, there are some fundamental issues that we’ve got with the FH007 and the optional extra subwoofer, the FH008.
The first is that the cables, all done via pre-wired phono or line-in jacks aren’t very long. The rear speakers are just a couple of metres, they aren’t even longer than the front speakers, making it impossible to get any distance from the front of the system.
Then there are the connections. It might be how the system achieves the sound, but if I’ve just paid £800 for a combined speaker system and subwoofer, the last thing I want to see is some solder round the back. A casing to cover this "industrial" look would have been nice, if not to make it look pretty, but merely to just to protect it.
While we are on subject of connections, the Ferguson Hill FH007 lacks in all areas. Really only giving you phono or line-in, it severely limits what you can use these for. iPods, MP3 players, computer speakers and that’s about it. Those looking to utilise this as a home cinema system will be disappointed. There is no optical and no HDMI support.
Then there is the lack of a remote to change the volume.
As for the subwoofer, an optional and much needed £275 extra, its performance matches the speakers, but it’s large, very large, and you’ll have trouble hiding this out of the way.
Veredict
Like the iPhone, the Ferguson Hill FH007 and FH008 annoy us. Why? Because on the one hand they are so great, the sound is amazing, and on the other you they fall short in so many areas.
If it was based on sound alone we would be recommending this to all audiophiles up and down the realm, however its not, and so really they are one to approach with caution.
Price £FH007 £495 FH008 £275 (Compare prices)
The good Sound
The bad Expensive, short cables, no optical sound input, no remote control
System Specification
2 Horn speakers 8 Ohm Horn H 43cm W 27cm D 18cm
2 Bass speakers 8 Ohm Bass Sphere 20 cm diameter
Integrated Amplifier 14 cm cubed, Bi-amped class A/B, 16 Watts times four into 8 Ohms
Frequency response 75Hz – 20KHz +/- 5dB
