Mission 770 Freedom (c. 1981)
The Mission 770 Freedom, also written as the 770F, was the 1981 MkII evolution of Mission's original 770, the loudspeaker that launched the company in 1979. Farad Azima designed it. The 770F was Mission's flagship model and is remembered as one of the first genuinely "affordable high-end" speakers, an alternative to the BBC-derived designs that dominated British hi-fi at the time.
It was a tall, narrow two-way floor-stander with an 8-inch (200mm) bass driver and a soft-dome tweeter crossing over at 3kHz. The cabinet was reflex-loaded, though Hi-Fi World described it as "actually aperiodic with a resistive port." It was finished in walnut veneer. The tweeter was reportedly capable of handling the full 3kHz crossover output, which kept bass cone excursion minimal and left the speaker well protected from overload. The design had trade-offs. The bass driver was "stretched to its limits," and the same review noted the bass is a little light at the very bottom, the midrange slightly forward, and the treble can be fierce on some recordings. The 770 appeared in the pages of Audio magazine in the mid-1980s, where its measured response was charted alongside the Mission 780 (Audio, September 1986, p.20). Careful placement was required, and it was not the most dynamic or transparent loudspeaker of its era. On the plus side, it had very low coloration, good solid bass, a clean open midrange, sweet extended treble, and excellent stereo imaging.
Documentation on the Freedom specifically is thinner than on the original 770, and surviving sources disagree on some figures. These are the most commonly repeated specifications:
- 2-way floor-standing loudspeaker, reflex-loaded (aperiodic with resistive port)
- 200mm bass driver; soft-dome tweeter (sources differ on tweeter size: 25mm vs. 28mm)
- Crossover: 3kHz
- Nominal impedance: 8 ohms (dips to 6 ohms)
- Recommended amplifier power: 15–100W
- Dimensions: sources conflict — 900mm high × 300mm wide × 280mm deep (Retro Vintage Audio) vs. 880mm high × 280mm deep × 300mm wide (Hi-Fi World)
- Weight: 17.5 kg each
- Finish: walnut veneer
Sensitivity and frequency response figures conflict across sources, 87dB vs. 90dB and 45Hz vs. 60Hz low-end extension, so they're left out here rather than guessed at. Production years are generally given as 1979-1982 for the 770 line, with the Freedom as the 1981 MkII version. A 1979 price of £115.95 each is recorded for the original 770, but it's unclear whether that carried over to the Freedom. No further design details, crossover component information, or market context have been traced.
eBay Listings
As an eBay Partner, we earn from qualifying purchases. This helps support our independent vintage technology research.
Related Models
- Mission 70 Mk IIs
- Mission 7000R
- Mission 701
- Mission 70MkII (late 1980s)
- Mission 732
- Braun AUDIO-1 (1965)
- Braun AUDIO-250 (1965)
- Magnavox Component Systems (1972)
- Acoustic Research AR (1967-1976)
- Acoustic Research 11