The MoFi SourcePoint 888 Tower Speaker Brings the Bass!

After the commercial and critical success of the MoFi SourcePoint 10 and SourcePoint 8 stand-mounted speakers, it was only a matter of time before celebrity loudspeaker designer Andrew Jones added to the lineup by creating a SourcePoint floorstander for MoFi Electronics. The new SourcePoint 888 ($4,999/pair) aims to “expand an immensely successful loudspeaker series and meet the needs of a wider variety of customers,” according to the company. The name SourcePoint 888 comes from its use of three 8-inch drivers — one 8-inch midrange driver housing the concentrically-mounted tweeter, and two all-new 8-inch woofers mounted below. Though not a huge speaker, the 42-inch-tall SourcePoint 888 is 12.6 inches wide and over 16 inches deep, making it appear somewhat chunky compared to more svelte competitors like the KEF R5 Meta or GoldenEar T66. That said, the SourcePoint 888 is attractive to my eye, and its proportions are certainly more in line with expectation than those of the unusually stout-looking SourcePoint 10. Jones introduced the new speaker at the recent Axpona audio show in Chicago, in the context of a very a simple system including the HiFi Rose RA180 Integrated Amp and a streamer from the same South Korean brand. MoFi is marketing the SourcePoint 888 as a great all-rounder, “intended to appeal to music lovers of every stripe — and to play every kind of music.”

Whether you prefer relaxing or aggressive fare, acoustic or electric material, or listen to a broad scope of eras and artists depending on your mood, the SourcePoint 888 will play it all without prejudice.

— MoFi Electronics

MoFi Goes 3-Way!

After the two-way SourcePoint 10 and SourcePoint 8, Jones is back in his comfort zone with the three-way SourcePoint 888. The new tower carries over those bookshelf speakers’ unique twin drive magnet structure, paper pulp cone, and concentrically-mounted 1.25-inch soft dome tweeter, but here the 8-inch concentric driver only plays down to about 130Hz. Below that, two newly-developed dedicated 8-inch woofers take over low-frequency duty, relieving the concentric driver from the task of producing deep bass and affording the SourcePoint 888 “exceptional bass extension and dynamics,” according to the company. MoFi also says that the speaker’s three-way design allowed Jones to tweak the 8-inch concentric driver so that it could be “fully optimized for midrange and treble performance, therefore providing more sonic transparency.” The three-way crossover reportedly minimizes the audibility of out-of-band anomalies, helping to produce smooth on- and off-axis responses.

My goal for the SourcePoint 888 is to enhance the technology and sound quality of the SourcePoint 8 and elevate it to an even higher performance level.

— Andrew Jones

The new 8-inch paper cone woofers reportedly use dual opposing neodymium magnets in an assembly that employs a short coil in a long magnetic gap. Jones says that this configuration results in a magnetic field that is entirely uniform throughout the gap, providing a very linear and precisely-controlled force for driving the cone. (The woofers in his mega-expensive TAD speakers were built with this same short-coil, long-gap design.) Jones says that the dual opposing magnets can lead to difficulties in the assembly process, and so MoFi had to build custom jigs to ensure a smooth manufacturing process. All three 8-inch driver assemblies operate in individual, isolated chambers that have been sized for optimal acoustic performance. The construction of these chambers added two vertical braces and three horizontal ones, dramatically increasing the stiffness of the dual-ported cabinet. This in turn helped to further reduce cabinet resonances. The cabinet’s front baffle is an impressive 1.5 inches thick, and the side walls are ¾ inch thick. It’s no wonder, then, that each speaker weighs nearly 100 pounds.

Most drivers, particularly for cost reasons, are long coil in a short gap. The theory is that, as long as the coil is much longer than the gap, you’ve got linear movement. Well, you actually haven’t. Because the coil picks up fringing flux, so there’s never a linear force region. There’s a linear flux region, but there’s not a linear force region. …When you do short-coil, long-gap, as long as the coil is in the gap, both the flux and the force are constant.

— Andrew Jones

Jones says that one potential downside of the short-coil, long-gap woofer configuration is that it’s difficult to get enough flux in the gap using just one magnet. Hence, the dual-magnet approach for the two woofers, which run in parallel, with equal cabinet volumes and equal port tuning. The overall impedance of the SourcePoint 888 is 6 Ohms nominal, with a minimum impedance of 4.5 Ohms. That’s notably lower than the SourcePoint 8, which has a nominal impedance of 8 Ohms, with a minimum of 7, but Jones says that the new tower is still “relatively easy to drive,” with a sensitivity rating of 87dB a 2.83V 1/m). “It’s not a killer low impedance like some speakers,” he said. Fans of the SourcePoint 8 will find that the 888 offers the same sound balance throughout the midrange and treble, but with added “bass oomph,” according to Jones, who says the speaker is tuned down to 32Hz. The MoFi SourcePoint 888 will be available in Q2 of 2024, in your choice of satin real wood Walnut or Black Ash veneer. A satin white paint finish has been shown in pictures and may become available at a later date. Check with your favorite authorized MoFi dealer, like our friends at Audio Advice.

More information: MoFi Electronics SourcePoint 888

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