The Fluance Signature Series Floorstanding speakers represent a decent value priced large speaker.

With unique styling and a decent driver complement for its price this speaker works well with a wide variety of music and gear. Careful placement is crucial with these large and heavy speakers.

Fluance Signature Series Hi-Fi Three-Way Floorstanding Speaker - Design

Highlights

Fluance Signature Series Hi-Fi Three-Way Floorstanding Speaker

  • Lifetime Warranty.
  • Free Shipping.
  • Well equipped 3-way 4 driver speaker.
  • Audible compression at high volumes.
  • Placement critical.
  • No exposed fasteners for the drivers.
  • Cabinet design reduces parallel surfaces.
Introduction

Fluance is an internet-based Hi-Fi company located in Niagara Falls Canada. They offer a range of home theater speaker systems, Bluetooth enabled music systems, and even turntables. As with most online speaker companies they offer in home trials with free return shipping. Surprisingly they offer something almost unheard of in any retail industry, a life-time warranty.

FLUANCE FLOORSTANDING SPEAKERS REVIEW SPECIFICATIONS
DESIGN:

3 Way – 4 driver floorstanding speakers

LOW FREQUENCY TRANSDUCER:

Dual 8” drivers with Polypropylene Butyl rubber surrounds

MID FREQUENCY TRANSDUCER:

Single 5” Woven Glass Fiber

HIGH FREQUENCY TRANSDUCER:

Single 1” Neodymium Balanced Silk Dome Ferrofluid Cooled

MAXIMUM RATED AMPLIFIER POWER:

200 Watts RMS

FREQUENCY RESPONSE (MANUFACTURER):

35 Hz – 20 kHz

SENSITIVITY:

89 (2.83V @ 1M)

NOMINAL IMPEDANCE:

8 Ohm

CROSSOVER FREQUENCY:

530 Hz / 2600 Hz

ENCLOSURE TYPE:

Bass-Reflex, Dual Rear-Firing Ports

INPUTS:

Dual Gold-Plated Five-Way Binding Posts, Bi-Wire and Bi-Amp Capable

DIMENSIONS:

47.27” H x 10.9” W x 15.4” D

WEIGHT:

62.4 lbs

FINISH:

Walnut or Black Ash Vinyl Veneer

MSRP:

$699.99 (USD / pair)
$944.99 (CAN / pair)

Company:

Fluance

SECRETS Tags:

Fluance, Floorstanding, 3-way, Dual Woofers, Fluance Signature Series Hi-Fi Three-Way Floorstanding Speakers, Loudspeaker, Life-time Warranty, Floorstanding Speaker Reviews 2017

Not only do the Fluance Signature Series Hi-Fi Three-Way Floorstanding Speakers come with this life-time warranty they also clock in at only $699 USD / $944 CDN per PAIR. Is it possible to build and sell a high-quality and great sounding pair of speakers for $699?

Design

Fluance Signature Series Hi-Fi Three-Way Floorstanding Speakers - Mid-Tweet

The Signature Series Hi-Fi Three-Way floorstanding speaker is both the largest and most expensive speakers offered by this Canadian based online HiFi company. Expensive is relative, at only $699 a pair (plus shipping), and make no mistake they are large. They stand at over 4 feet tall, with flared sides and a sloping top. Despite weighing in at over 60 lbs per speaker they could benefit from more internal bracing as knocking on the sides results in a hollow sound. The boxes are constructed of MDF finished with black ash or natural walnut vinyl veneer.

The front baffle is made from 1.25” MDF with beveled edges and painted piano black. The pair come with user installed outriggers which are well-built and stabilize the speaker effectively.

Fluance Signature Series Hi-Fi Three-Way Floorstanding Speakers - backside

On the backside there are dual ports with flared exits mounted behind the dual 8” woofers and below the binding posts. The binding posts look heavy-duty yet are hard to tighten. The rounded edges do not lend themselves to being tightened easily, which if used with bare wire or spades is essential. My Blue Jeans speaker cables with locking banana plugs fit well enough.

Fluance Signature Series Hi-Fi Three-Way Floorstanding Speakers - front-full

The front baffle holds 4 drivers, a 1” balanced silk dome ferrofluid cooled tweeter with a neodymium magnet, a 5” woven glass midrange in Kevlar-yellow, and dual 8” woofers. Each driver has no visible screws as they are hidden behind plastic caps that gives the front baffle a very smooth and polished look. The dual woofers are in a shared box that is internally separated from the midrange and tweeter.

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Fluance Signature Series Hi-Fi Three-Way Floorstanding Speakers - woofers

Subjective analysis of the design indicates some cabinet resonance that could be solved with some well-placed bracing. The drivers were reported by Fluance to be custom made to their specifications. The yellow woven fibre midrange looks like the B&W midrange driver used in the 804s. The crossover points used (530Hz / 2600Hz) means that driver does not contribute to much of the audible spectrum.

Setup

For this review, I setup the speakers in my large open living room. I placed the speakers in the same location as my (much smaller) Totem Model 1 Signature stand mount speakers. This puts the speakers 4’ from the side walls, 7’ from the front wall with 10’ between them. Unlike my Totem speakers the Fluance Signature Series speakers required significant toe-in to give the best center image. The setup for these speakers was identical to the MartinLogan Motion 60 floorstanding speakers I reviewed in 2015.

Ancillary equipment comes from two separate systems. In the main system which is mostly used as a 5.1 music and video system contains a high-power 5ch power amplifier (250w / 8ohms), the Parasound Newclassic 5250v2, a Marantz AV7005 processor and Intel based HTPC. The second system is a bare-bones Raspberry Pi music streamer with a HiFi Berry i2s dac feeding a Luxman m117 amplifier (60watts @ 8ohms).

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Listening

Cowboy Junkies

Cowboy Junkies “The Wilderness”

For this review, and all my reviews, I used a wide selection of different sounding music. From exceptionally well-produced folk-rock We Are the Selfish Ones by The Cowboy Junkies, to some southern hip hop, with some Bluegrass thrown if for variety. Using a wide range of music helps determine if these speakers excel at one type or many, and better discover the strengths and weaknesses of the Fluance Signature Series floorstanding speakers.

Up for first consideration is the beautifully sounding We are The Selfish Ones found on the Cowboy Junkies 4th and final entry in their Nomad Series, The Wilderness. When reproduced correctly what emerges is both a dynamic and haunting recording. Lead vocalist Margo Timmins’ voice stands front and center and has excellent tonal quality. Unfortunately, with the Fluance speakers the drums are lost in the mix and unbalanced with the snares being too forward. The bass guitar comes in with depth and presence and is well reproduced by these large multi-driver speakers.

Dead South

Dead South “Good Company”

Nothing quite compares to the banjo for dynamic range and impact, and The Dead South’s In Hell I’ll be in Good Company from their 2014 release Good Company certainly delivers. And excellent track that uses minimal instruments, gritty vocals and excellent lyrics to create an infectious track that can easily highlight and expose flaws.

What stands out with the Fluance Signature Series floorstanding speakers is there ability to reproduce the human voice. Not only did they excel with the strong and beautiful Margo Timmins from the previous track, they also are more than capable of reproducing harmonic melodies from three gravely Saskatchewan back-country men. Accompanied by a cello and banjo this track strips away most everything but the raw sound and this is where the Fluance did present some flaws. At higher volumes, the banjo had some audible compression and fell behind the vocals, while the cello managed to stay clear and defined at higher levels.

Kodak Black

Kodak Black “Painting Pictures”

Now these are big speakers with the capability for big bass. Dual 8” drivers and an F3 of 35Hz surely these speakers can play more than just folk-rock. Southern hip hop has many sub genres and one of the more interesting sounding genre is known as Trap music. This incorporates odd time division hi-hats, heavy synthesised kick drums and layered beats.

Why the lyrics and content may not appeal to all listeners the well produced and clean beats created by Metro Boomin and Southside allow one to test the bass capabilities of any speaker. My reference system uses dual MartinLogan Depth i subwoofers and a single Velodyne 12” mounted in my attic firing into my listening room. That system is tuned to produce ruler-flat bass down to 15Hz. To test the Fluance Signature Series Floorstanding speakers all subs were turned off and the speakers were run full range.

First thing that I noticed is that the multi-layered bass lines were clear, defined and had impact. Although they could not reach the same depth as my reference system they easily produced the bass lines and complexity. The vocal track was not lost in the bass and had its own defined space. Timing and pace was well presented and overall these speakers could handle this type of music.

Wailin Jennys

Wailin Jennys “40 Days”

Here is a track that has the potential to raise the hair on the back of your neck. The vocal harmonies of the Wallin’ Jennys excellent cover of Neil Youngs Old Man is one of those tracks that grabs your attention and holds on.

Through the Fluance Signature Series Floorstanding speakers the tracks midrange beauty was slightly muddied at higher volumes. Compared to my reference Totem Model 1’s the overall sound was warmer/bloated with less clarity and definition. The accompanying acoustic guitar was well balanced and was well placed within the soundstage.

Conclusions

Big sound in a big package, THE FLUANCE SIGNATURE SERIES FLOORSTANDING SPEAKERS are a bargain with their low price and lifetime warranty.

Likes
  • Dual 8” drivers
  • High power handling
  • Sturdy outriggers
  • Small price
  • Big sound
  • Bigger warranty
Would Like To See
  • Better cabinet bracing
  • More balanced bass/midbass

The Fluance Signature Series Floorstanding speakers certainly provide a serious value. Pound for pound these speakers provide a serious amount of hardware for a low price. These speakers do well at high volumes, and can take significant power. While they are large and heavy Fluance did save some money with the cabinets, using a lower priced finish and going light on the internal bracing has made the sound suffer somewhat.

While not in the same league as the MartinLogan Motion 60XT speakers, or the Bryston Mini T’s, the speakers still play well with all manors of music. Big sound, big speakers and a big warranty combine to make a decent value for a large floorstanding speaker.