Not to derail the thread but I thought some people might be interested in my impressions of Sonus Faber's foray into the budget speaker market.
In a PM the other day to another member on the site here I mentioned that I was back on the prowl again for a set of speakers and he responded that maybe I should give the Sonus Faber Venere 1.5’s a demo locally. He has a friend who owns a pair and knowing my sonic preference for rich detailed highs he thought I would like them. He prefers a more neutral laid back sound. So it goes on the list.
You can’t but be intrigued, with what looks like Spock’s ears, initially. Say what you will about Italian engineering but there is no denying they know design … la bella figura as they say; a beautiful figure. Some find them tacky but half the show is the looks for others. I’ve learned that a speaker’s aesthetics are meaningless when it comes to its sonic qualities, being an owner of the KEF LS50’s, which I initially thought were the ugliest speakers I’d ever seen. The reviews were encouraging and in my price range. So I figured what the hell.
I hooked up with a local dealer after visiting the Sumiko web site, Sonus Faber’s US distributor and off we go. They are sharp looking, in every sense of the word. They do draw your eye and hold it; they demand to be admired. He warms up the tube amp and says, have at it, I’ll be back in 15 minutes. Cool. Put in my reference song/cd and sit back. They’re good, really good. Male vocals are there in the forefront and unmistakably crystal clear and the dome tweeter is to die for. This is the best and I mean one of the best dome tweeters I have ever heard. Being a Focal owner with a beryllium tweeter, which I consider the best tweeter of any design/material, I’m impressed. No sibilance or ear fatigue like some other over-driven dome tweeters. They present a good soundstage, not a great soundstage but more than acceptable for a bookshelf speaker its size without a subwoofer. But the beauty of my reference song, Jellyfish’s “Bedspring Kiss”, is that it contains all the elements for testing a speaker. Deep lows to gauge bass reproduction, crystal clear strings, searing highs and fast and cutting transients which tax a speaker’s ability. And this is where the Venere’s failed for me. The bass was a bit bloomy to compensate for its physical limitations, even with the front ported reflex port or maybe because of it. I don’t know. I had to assume that the SF engineers targeted consumers who would not be pairing the speakers with a subwoofer, hence the artificial oomph in the nether regions. My other disappointment was with the mid-range presentation. As I stated previously, vocals are brought out brilliantly without colorizing them but everything else in the mid-band region though is relegated to the back of the bus. Backup singers, accompanying strings and what-not from the mid-band range seem like an afterthought and are quite a bit recessed, which to me rob the music of its fullness. I found myself screaming at the speaker that the backup singer’s microphone level needed to be turned up. Another shortcoming of the speaker is the less than stellar performance with high-end female vocals. I’m not technically proficient enough to tell you where the high-end dip occurs in the frequency range but it was disconcerting and distracted me at times during the demo.
My overall impression is that this is a speaker designed & engineered for budding audiophiles who want it all; looks, moderately sized room filling sound, clear vocals but with a limited budget and no plans on adding a subwoofer or a center channel speaker for HT use. In that respect I would say it’s a rousing success. This is the perfect speaker for an office application or apartment dwellers with limited living room space and no plans on adding a subwoofer, since the neighbors might object or the need to purchase an additional center channel speaker, since vocals are prominently presented and would be more than acceptable in a phantom center setup.
So my quest continues, while Sonus Faber's starts.
