Sonus Faber Olympica III speakers first views

[joey_v]

Originally Posted by Mac6

What makes these speakers "geared toward home theatre"? To me that is a turn off as I am only into 2 channel LP/SACD listening.

I would not read too much into that.

The O3 on their own are very capable 2ch true audiophile speakers.

[B_Smitty]

Originally Posted by joey_v

I would not read too much into that.

The O3 on their own are very capable 2ch true audiophile speakers.

Most assuredly!

[Mac6]

Originally Posted by joey_v

I would not read too much into that.

The O3 on their own are very capable 2ch true audiophile speakers.

Thank you! I may be going to audition them this week.

[7racer]

Originally Posted by Mouse

A good idea, except I don't have a flagship AVR at home, I have old ones not worth keeping that were given to me with a home I bought 2 years ago.
Do you hear the difference under which circumstances? (when listening loud, or at low volumes, or when the AVR is getting hot after a couple hours?)
I'm closer to getting the Mc then a flagship AVR, I just want to hear it for myself so I can justify the expense and space. It may take several days until I can get time.

Hey Mouse, found this thread from the AVS forum. Don't have privileges yet to send you a pm. Wonder if you got an AVR and are driving the O3 yet?

I have the Denon X6200W and thinking about doing the same in a 5.1.4 system

[Mouse]

I ordered O3 main and center, and have built in speakers in the ceiling that came with the house I'm not ready to replace.
I won't be driving them with an AVR. I had a weird demo since no dealers carry the exact components I'm shopping for which makes a demo weird.
I compared a Mc AVR or integrated amp (lol), to marantz separates. At normal volumes it's probably fine, but for my demo I cranked the music to fluctuate at about 95-100 decibels.
I noticed some sound defects in the highs with the marantz, which could have been underpowered, or it could have been the DAC. My salesman pointed out tighter bass with the Mc too. The tighter bass I wasn't listening for, because the O3 is a little lacking in bass (it only goes to ~36 hz) and I'll be connecting a sub. However he pointed it out that the marantz tended to rattle the walls more in a bad way.
The Mc despite being an integrated amp won me over, albeit slightly.
Fear and over researching won me over really. I didn't know if those sound defects was clipping from being slightly underpowered and I didn't want to ruin my speakers. Nearly everyone at AVS thinks that an AVR is fine for 4 ohm speakers, and they are probably right. I really wanted an AVR to work too because separates take up way too much space and add too many wires. I started to research the top of the line Denon 4 ohm capable AVRs at 150 watts per channel. The 4 ohm setting is a safety setting in the denon that cuts the power down by half, and people on AVS aren't happy with the 4 ohm setting in the Denon. If you leave the setting at 8 ohm you'll have plenty enough power but run the risk of overheating. If I had to have separates I wanted Marantz anyway, but my demo led me to believe if I notice defects with Marantz an AVR wasn't going to work either. The defects in the marantz separates also ruled them out so I went with Mc.

The Mc is pretty, which is why my wife liked Mc, and marantz was a distant second. I didn't want a marantz pre and an amp of a different brand. (I like it matchy-matchy if possible) I don't think the marantz amp is even a good choice as it's not rated for 4 ohm, and no matter what the company rep tells me on the downlow, if they didn't bother for UL testing it's not guaranteed to be safe for a fire or my speakers.

Before anyone gets the wrong idea here I'll issue a disclaimer:
I don't really know what I'm doing and I lack experience to offer sound advice (pun intended).
The CD I used was burned off of itunes; at the time I knew it was a bad idea but I wanted a sample of different genres from my favorite bands which the CDs are in my office in a different state. I'm wondering if the defect in sound was that the Mc was better at filling in the missing blanks?

BTW I'm not a big fan of gangster rap but I met a friend who is a producer for a rap major rap label and he gave me a cd he was promoting. The O3 doesn't get deep enough to play it. The bassline is absent A LOT.

Another thing about the O3 is that the bass really sucked in a small room. I had too many acceptable variables on my demo. The salesman had no problem carting the O3 from room to room, but he had a problem moving electonics around. This gave the illusion that the marantz in the large room was far superior to the Mc which was in a room half the size. Once I forced him to move the Mc into the same room, the MC won by a slim margin.

I didn't get warmer or smoother, or clearer sounds from either electronic. I only noticed occasional sound defects. Had I been picking sound quality only I'd probably go with NAD M series, but decor and features played a role too.

[7racer]

Originally Posted by Mouse

I ordered O3 main and center, and have built in speakers in the ceiling that came with the house I'm not ready to replace.
I won't be driving them with an AVR. I had a weird demo since no dealers carry the exact components I'm shopping for which makes a demo weird.
I compared a Mc AVR or integrated amp (lol), to marantz separates. At normal volumes it's probably fine, but for my demo I cranked the music to fluctuate at about 95-100 decibels.
I noticed some sound defects in the highs with the marantz, which could have been underpowered, or it could have been the DAC. My salesman pointed out tighter bass with the Mc too. The tighter bass I wasn't listening for, because the O3 is a little lacking in bass (it only goes to ~36 hz) and I'll be connecting a sub. However he pointed it out that the marantz tended to rattle the walls more in a bad way.
The Mc despite being an integrated amp won me over, albeit slightly.
Fear and over researching won me over really. I didn't know if those sound defects was clipping from being slightly underpowered and I didn't want to ruin my speakers. Nearly everyone at AVS thinks that an AVR is fine for 4 ohm speakers, and they are probably right. I really wanted an AVR to work too because separates take up way too much space and add too many wires. I started to research the top of the line Denon 4 ohm capable AVRs at 150 watts per channel. The 4 ohm setting is a safety setting in the denon that cuts the power down by half, and people on AVS aren't happy with the 4 ohm setting in the Denon. If you leave the setting at 8 ohm you'll have plenty enough power but run the risk of overheating. If I had to have separates I wanted Marantz anyway, but my demo led me to believe if I notice defects with Marantz an AVR wasn't going to work either. The defects in the marantz separates also ruled them out so I went with Mc.

The Mc is pretty, which is why my wife liked Mc, and marantz was a distant second. I didn't want a marantz pre and an amp of a different brand. (I like it matchy-matchy if possible) I don't think the marantz amp is even a good choice as it's not rated for 4 ohm, and no matter what the company rep tells me on the downlow, if they didn't bother for UL testing it's not guaranteed to be safe for a fire or my speakers.

Before anyone gets the wrong idea here I'll issue a disclaimer:
I don't really know what I'm doing and I lack experience to offer sound advice (pun intended).
The CD I used was burned off of itunes; at the time I knew it was a bad idea but I wanted a sample of different genres from my favorite bands which the CDs are in my office in a different state. I'm wondering if the defect in sound was that the Mc was better at filling in the missing blanks?

BTW I'm not a big fan of gangster rap but I met a friend who is a producer for a rap major rap label and he gave me a cd he was promoting. The O3 doesn't get deep enough to play it. The bassline is absent A LOT.

Another thing about the O3 is that the bass really sucked in a small room. I had too many acceptable variables on my demo. The salesman had no problem carting the O3 from room to room, but he had a problem moving electonics around. This gave the illusion that the marantz in the large room was far superior to the Mc which was in a room half the size. Once I forced him to move the Mc into the same room, the MC won by a slim margin.

I didn't get warmer or smoother, or clearer sounds from either electronic. I only noticed occasional sound defects. Had I been picking sound quality only I'd probably go with NAD M series, but decor and features played a role too.

thank you man! Appreciate it. I like gadgets but my house space limits what I can place in it as well as some of the previously built in wires already makes the quality less than desirable. Just wanted to upgrade my old Sonus to something newer!

[Masterlu]

7racer... Welcome to AA!

[vinod_david]

7racer, welcome to AA.

[Mouse]

7racer, I'd PM you, but I can't do that either.
What I did was google the top AVR by Denon and googled x7200 +4ohm. (or whatever was the top when I looked it up). I found some disappointed people on AVS and a few satisfied. I also googled the marantz separates + 4ohm and since so few have it there are few to write about it. One guy on AVS bought the marantz amp and pre combo and put them up for sale a month later in favor of parasound amps or something like that. Your milage may vary, and if I had a top end AVR I may have bought the speakers first and decided on new electronics later. I also had them both cranked up very loud, more so than I would listen naturally but my room is well over two times larger than their largest demo room at roughly 800 sq ft.

[Mouse]

Originally Posted by Mac6

What makes these speakers "geared toward home theatre"? To me that is a turn off as I am only into 2 channel LP/SACD listening.

I'll assume because they designed a matching center channel and the smaller speakers would make great rear surround speakers. The Aida and lillium have no rear or center offerings.