Stereophile: Sonus Faber Cremona loudspeaker
I have a listening room set up in my finished basement which is 16'4'' x 15'6" ceiling height 8' 9" which has a fireplace in the middle of one sidewall and 2 corridor size openings on either side into a larger room with a hard slate floor and lots of windows. Not exactly ideal which can make finding the right speakers difficult.
My last pair of speakers were B&W 804s speakers which never sounded as impressive in my house as they did at the dealer. Bass was lacking, high freq. were fatiguing. My intention is not to bash the 804s speakers but rather to point out that the room can make or break a speaker. I will not always say great things about equipment I have purchased so this review is my honest opinion. Prior to the 804S I had used Magneapan MGIII's as my reference speakers for 20 years; I still have them and they still sound fabulous (the adhesive on the mylar film needed to be repaired) for older speakers. The Magnepan speakers however really need a sub , the ribbon tweeter, midrange and imaging is still great. Even with a sub. I tended not to max. out listening to these speakers and found something else to do after about a hour of listening time. The Cremona's on the other hand seduce me into listening for sometimes 5 hours at a time and when I have to shut down the system, wish I had more time ie no fatigue.
I have had this pair of Cremona's since Jan. 09, they were new old stock. This was actually my second pair as the first pair had a few blemishes in the finish and the dealer swiftly switched them out for this pristine pair. With the MC501's, C220, MCD500 and wireworld cables I have attained fantastic music reproduction in my listening room
Some speakers are better for rock, others female vocals, guitar and piano music. These speaker just sound great with anything I play through them. With rock you can turn the volume way up . The scanspeak midrange driver and silk tweeter are so easy on the ears, without any sensation of grain, jolts or interuptions. The imagaing is superb and 3 dimensional. What is surprising is that the 4 smallish 6 inch woofers put out impressive bass that makes you swear a sub is in the system, reaching down to 32 hz. While a sub. would be nice to fill out the freq. below this it does not feel necessary when you are listening.