The Sonus Faber - De Hifistudio in Weerdinge

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The Sonus faber (f140,000) We bring you an exclusive full review of Sonus faber's extraordinary new flagship loudspeaker Review: Keith Howard, Ken Kessler, John Bamford & Paul Miller Lab: Keith Howard igh-profile car makers have RIGIIT: The clamshell cabinet stands over been doing it for y€ars: 1.7m tall with substantial aluminium caps creating special editions top and bottom which clamp the enclosure. whose desirability is only via an intemal steel bar. Total driver sharpened by a strictly limited oroduction run. Hi-fi manufacturers complement is seven, with two behind - particularly speaker makers - are Let's begin our tour with thqe driver picking up on the idea in increasing complement. lf we ignore, for the numbers. Cue the Sonus faber: a moment, the little two-way symbiont new flagship from the doyen of that nestles within a niche in the Italian speaker manufacturers, whose TSF's back panel, there are five main f 140,000 asking price will be coughed drive units in a three-and-a-half-way by a maximum of 30 well-heeled configuration. Low down in one side buyers, this being the total number of panel is the largest of them, a 15in oairs that are to be sold. subwoofer with a sandwich cone of But hang on a woven nano-carbon minute: isn't this skins and a Rohacell speaker cared the 'KiCkS, SlamS foam core, made to Sonus faber's ffi::TJ',1iffil"'.":,, and thrusts never specification by preview of it was Audio Technology published caught the Sonus in our of Denmark. lt September issue faber unawares' handles only the last year it was, and very lowest audio you'll still find many web pages referring to it thus. But in frequencies below 80H2. has an 1 a communiqu6 from ltaly circulated in the autumn of 2010 the name was changed to something less ambiguous: 'The Sonus faber' (which l'll abbieviate to TSF henceforth). Fenice, it seems, is a name to which someone else owns the rights. NOVEI, DESIGN This eoisode will have been an unwelcome glitch in Sonus faber's lavish marketing strategy but it matters little: the former Fenice is such an extraordinary loudspeaker, and has such novel design features, that there's no mistaking it whatever its handle. And no gainsaying the sledgehammerblow visual impact of this behemoth, which measures over 1.7m tall and weighs a staggering 305k9 (yes, each). 'l cm diameter voice coil whose former is part aluminium, part Kapton, and is reflex loaded by a large rectangular port that exhausts at the foot of the front baffle. Meanwhile, a three-position level control allows the subwoofer output to be adjusted to suit different rooms. Next as we climb the frequency range are two front-mounted 1Oin woofers, the lower of which is slightly uptilted towards the listener, whose natural roll-off forms the high-pass element of their crossover to the sub. Also made by Audio Technology these too have sandwich cones although this time with paper skins and a syntactic foam core (a hi-tech polymer containing tiny hollow spheres called microballoons). 24 I www.hifinews.co.uk I FEBRUARY 2011 Floorstanding three-and-a-half-way loudspeaker Made by: Sonus faber SPA, ltalY supplied by: Absolute sounds Telephone: 0208 971 3909 web: www.sonusfaber.com; wwwabsolutesounds.com
... : :-. : Having used Sonus fabers since their inception, I reckon I've tried 2O models and lived long'term with six- The sound has always seduced me. Sonus faber speakers came to our attention because they looked like no other. But the ethos is the same as with ltalian supercars: if a Lamborghini's performance didn't match the other worldly styling, the car would be a ioke. Sonus fabers always sound as good as they look Yes, there have been occasional cul de sacs,like the astonishing, but Powerhungry Extrema. Or so I thought: upon hearing the new flagship, I was reminded as much oJ that speaker's chunky' robust bass as I was of the Stradivari's delicacy or the Guarneri's authentic midband. Rest assured: this new behemoth is pure Sonus faber, in every sense. Kr( Again they are reflex loaded a dome tweeter and small but this time. by twin, rear- cone driver using the same firing ports. They cross over in diaphragm material as the turn, quite early but gently, at front-firing midrange driver - is 25gHzto the 6.5in midrange recessed into the TSF's back unft, built by Norwegian driver panel. lt can be rotated bY 45o manufacturer SEAS using Sonus each way horizontally and has faber's own chassis design. its output adjusted via two This incorporates three rings nearby rotary controls, one of aluminium and a basket labelled'soundstage depth' made of a gunmetal alloy used which varies the output level in for large artillery pieces in five steps including off, and the WW1. All are machined from second labelled'soundstage solid, their combination acting azimuth'. This constitutes the to damp structural resonances. Sound Field Shaper sYstem [see A paper cone was chosen for box-out, p26l and is the subject this critical frequency range of one of three patents filed bY because it delivers a fast, Sonus faber in relation to the dynamic, lifelike sound. TSF's design. The other two patents RINGTWEETER relate, firstly, to the comPlex lmmediately below the cabinet construction and midrange unit is a 25mm the use of industrial machine ring tweeter, manufactured experience to decouPle it from by Scanspeak of Denmark, the floor, via its four comPliant which unusually combines a feet. Sonus faber uses a neodymium magnet and a clamshell method for building samarium cobalt magnet in the TSF's cabinet, which is iis motor system, the latter clamped between the huge, being incorporated because it machined-from-solid aluminium enhances sould quality. cap that tops the enclosure Together the midrange and the two-piece aluminium driver and the tweeter are base (both of which can be mounted on a sub-baffle that either hand polished or black is compliantly isolated from anodised) by a tensioned steel the rest of the cabinet and bar that runs top to bottom. equipped with a mass-damPer The cabinet sides, which to ouell vibration. have a complex curvature So far, so large and that pays homage to the lYre lavish - but mostly (instrument of the gods), conventional. There's are formed from an Okoum6 a surprise in store plywood, Okoum6 being an round the back, African tropical hardwood' though, where a little reflex- whose properties allow the loaded two-way speaker - with ply to be bent into the I FEBRUARY20ll I www.hifinews.co.uk | 25
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The Sonus Faber - De Hifistudio in Weerdinge

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