Cremona M's home.

[PHC1]

Well, I am back in the Sonus Faber club for the next few months. My dealer dropped off the Cremona Ms this morning as a loaner pair.

Setup was rather painless, I know my room pretty well and after sliding the speakers around a bit to get a smooth bass response, they were positioned about a foot in from where the Wilson Sophia IIs and Sasha's sounded best. Once the bass response was as smooth as it was going to get, I played around with toe in to enhance the soundstage and focus. Once that was done, I spiked them to enhance the imaging and focus further as the spikes drain the cabinet vibrations.

I've heard these speakers before for a brief time but this is a well broken in pair and it was very evident as they sounded neither congested nor closed in like a new pair often sounds.

I let them play for a few hours while my Lamm amps woke up from their "vacation" and came up to temp and speed and then threw a few CDs at them that I am very familiar with and often use as a "reference".

Initial impressions: Enjoyable, musical speaker but.... I think I am forever spoiled by the two pair of Wilson speakers I've spent the last year with. The speaker sounds musical and enjoyable but that musicality comes at a price of a somewhat colored tonal balance. I am sensing a peak in the upper bass/lower mids making the male vocals sound a little fuller and warmer than what I would call neutral. The female vocals do not seem to suffer quite as much. Not really a surprise, I hear it with most SF speakers.

They don't plumb the bass depths the Sophia II and especially Sasha's were able to. The Cremona Ms give you a bit lumpier bass, a little less down low, a bit more up higher.... adding warmth to the male vocals whose voices fall in the bass/baritone region. Less noticeable with tenor, at least with the few CDs I threw at them so far.

Moving on up the mid/upper mids seem smooth if not slightly recessed, probably a little dip in that region? The female vocalists seem a bit further set back in the soundstage than what I am used to. The highs are smooth but lacking just a bit of air and sparkle.

Overall, the speaker is warmish and mellow sounding, very enjoyable, non-fatiguing but just a bit boring for my taste. I've also heard David's Cremonas, the non-M version a few times and the M's remind me of the non Ms quite a bit, so IMHO, the design change was more "evolutionary", not "revolutionary". There seems to be just a bit more midrange warmth and a bit more linearity in the highs. Hard to say for sure as David's room is different than mine as is our gear so take it FWIW.

Imaging is quite good with these floorstanders, the images are nicely laid out across the soundstage like they should be but in all honesty, they are not as focused as either pair of Wilsons were and they don't do "depth" of soundstage nearly as nice as Wilson speakers. Where Wilsons presented instruments with such three dimensionality where you felt you could get up and walk around the instruments on the stage, the Cremona Ms present them pretty much in the same 2 dimensional plane. I will play around with speaker positioning some more to see if I can improve that.

Having lived with two pairs of SF then two pairs of Wilsons and now back to SF, I have to admit, that elusive quality that I fell in love with Wilson speakers is what Dave Wilson calls "Dynamic Contrast". It is not "dynamic range" which is the ability to play the notes from lowest to highest levels on the recording with ease but the "rate of change" or "dynamic contrast" itself. It is the effortless rate of change, from the subtle shifts in playing style or the change of force or effort with which the string is plucked or the piano key is struck to the unexpected and eye flinching whack of the drum head, Wilson conveys the very essence of those dynamic range shifts or "contrast" with ease. Most speakers, these Cremona Ms included, just don't do it as well. Electrostatic and magneplanar guys can relate to this, I've had them myself except that they can hardly reproduce the "impact"/"force"/"effort" like Wilsons can. The Sophia IIs really impressed me with that elusive quality, it was the first time I heard a conventional speaker do that with such effortlessness and ease but with so much more "punch" and "realism". This is more than likely the explanation why some speakers sound a bit boring, slow and surypy. I understand what Dave Wilson is talking about much clearer now going back between the SF, Wilson and back to SF as well as thinking back to my Martin Logan days.

Overall, I would strongly prefer the Sophia II to the Cremona Ms and my dealer stated that he sells much less Cremonas to Sophia IIs now that he carries both.... I can certainly understand that and would have to agree, choosing between the two, I'd go for Sophia IIs unless of course one strongly prefers a more colored flavor and a less exciting speaker overall... To each its own of course. I will certainly enjoy my time with the Cremona Ms, they are easy to listen to and don't seem to do much wrong, they just can't do as much right as Wilsons but everyone has their preference and taste as well as different gear driving the speakers. If I had to stay in the SF range of speakers, I would try to come up with the difference for the Elipsa which elevate some of the parameters I discussed above to a higher level.

Some pics of the Cremona Ms and my music loving four legged friend.