Over the years, we have published a number of do-it-yourself speakers but the JV60 has easily been the most popular and long-lived.

Now there is this new system, still using Vifa speakers but with bigger (8-inch) woofers and a teensy little Vifa D26 dome tweeter. In fact the tweeter looks so small and insubstantial that you'd wonder how it could possibly stay with the pace set by the two big woofers. Yet it does it easily, due to some fancy technology which we'll get to in a moment.

And while home theatre systems seem to be all the go at the moment, these JV80s are equally suitable for a high-quality stereo system or as the front speakers in a high-quality home theatre system. In fact, the bass response of the JV80s is so good that you can dispense with the subwoofer in a home theatre system.

What's more, we would go so far as to suggest that you dispense with any centre speaker as well. But we're getting way ahead of ourselves...

Specifications Power rating 100W (typical program) Type 2-way, Bass Reflex with two ports Impedance 8Ω Frequency range 30Hz to 20kHz Crossover 3.5kHz Linkwitz-Riley Sensitivity 91dB/1W at one metre (on tweeter axis) Protection Polyswitch PTC thermistor