I admire you guys for how different standpoint you're backing, yet still are able to politely communicate, rare and nice to see occurance. I hope that all the other creators learn from you Erin
I thought that I knew about designing and building speakers...Until I started watching Danny's upgrade videos. I have learned a ton in the last couple of years. Thanks Danny!
Love the shout-out for Erin's Audio Corner! Been watching you both for a long time and really like hearing all your explanations and impressions on various speakers. It really helps relate what I'm hearing to what's actually happening.
You designed the x-over of my speakers and I love them! I am not surprised these videos are the most viewed. Usher Mini-X Diamond is great! Good job sir!
This is a very timely video. I had a long conversation yesterday with Gemini about speaker placement and different issues i.e. comb filtering, lobing etc etc, and it was trying to talk me into something that looked more like a centre speaker with the ends turned in.
Another good one. Great to have you back, Danny. Happy new year to you and the guys there. and all the viewers. Great shout out for Erin and the great work he does. Agrred ta a Klippel would be of no help in crossover development, but certainly would be a benefit to completely assess final performance of a fix and a new product development (assuming its not 7 feet tall !!).
With what associated gear and music genre@@dannyrichie9743? My old speakers don't measure perfect but I have not heard anything at their price point that sounds as good in my room with my gear and my music. How do all these speakers sound once the kits are added? I don't listen to measurement/testing gear. Where are the reviews?
Hello Danny. I watched Erin's take on the Sonus Faber - Lumina II's, and now your review. The measurement results gathered by Erin and yourself are perfectly in line with my critical listening results posted on the community tab of my small RUclips channel. For a while it felt like I was the only Audio Engineer willing to speak about why the Lumina II's are very unpleasant to the ears.
Yes I agree with you on smoothing. Thanks for the advice that 1/3 smoothing is the industry standard. I use that but I wasn't sure. I hope SF watch this. You should send them an invoice.☮️🇦🇺
I would love for you to get a Lumina V on the bench. That model I believe was tuned differently and has a hybrid crossover. Would love to hear your findings if you have the opportunity
Makes you wonder about the validity of some well-known review channels. I just watched one reviewing another brand bookshelf speaker around this price, which also compared it to several others in the same price range, including the Sonus Faber Lumina II, and both he and his wife preferred the Sonus Faber Lumina II to main reviewed speaker and the others.
I had Klipsch speakers, changed them to these Lumina II and they are soooooooo much better. Love them ❤ In this price range I didn’t listen to anything better. Also they don’t have Klipsch signature sound at all IMHO. No fatigue at all, I can listen to them all day long.
Agree, I like them. I have a switch, for music I am using a tube amp & Roon. For video an Emotiva amp. It is is very musical and I am only wondering wether the new version with improved filter would be better. The Emotiva sounds to American and lacks emotion when looking at concerts so I think I will replace them with a Darteel clone and also consider the Gr Research filterupgrade. Only question is whether the center speaker can also use this upgrade
Yep. I have the Lumina II as well and frankly I disagree with his assessment. I don't hear any smearing or ringing as he states. I listen to a lot of piano work and I don't hear any impurities as keys are struck. They are energetic up top but that is a plus for me. Maybe that is because I have a specific hearing loss. Whatever the case, I really enjoy these speakers and will not be doing any upgrades at this time. Especially at that price point. I just don't feel it's needed.
What speaker here, doesn't need an upgrade? I'd like to see specific price points tested, listened to, by independent listeners, and then judged on how is sounds with specific genres. They have to look great unless you don't care but most people do.
Have you looked inside a Sonus Faber cabinet? Don't for a moment think this cheap crap represents the typical Sonus Faber build quality. 99% of people couldn't make their better cabinets. Even at this level most still couldn't make them. A square box that most people would make are not the same thing.
@@DodgyBrothersEngineering yes I do realise that, that cheaper end is not as good, but after owning lot's of speaker over a 45 year period, I started building my own, with scan-speak drivers & woofers, using 19mm birch plywood cabinet, well braced. Crossovers using top parts from Mundorf & Jantzen & finally using OCC wiring You can build a £5,000 monitor for around £1,000 if you build them yourself. Thanks for the chat 👍
@@tweakerman definitely agree that DIY is a great option for those seriously wanting to step it up a notch on a budget. After owning I think I counted 6 pairs of Sonus Faber speakers myself, I decided to go the DIY route myself. Owning those Sonus Faber speakers gave me the opportunity to peak behind the curtain. I pulled the drivers out and took a lot of photos of things like the cabinets and crossovers, and see what drivers are in them. The last set of speakers I owned was a set of Sonus Faber Cremona floor standers. That is how I know that every person is not going to be able to reproduce those curved cabinets that reduce standing waves easily, but would it be impossible? Absolutely not. Before I went DIY I was sitting on the fence do I spend $45,000 on upgrading to some better Sonus Faber speakers, or do I look at going DIY? After much deliberation (I had the money and wasn't married then) I decided nope instead I am going to go active instead of passive crossovers that I would still be getting in the more expensive speakers and just step up the driver quality. Now if you are a Scanspeak fan like myself you will immediately recognize the mid and two woofers in the Cremonas as being Scanspeak Revelator series drivers (quite possibly what you are using yourself) and the tweeters were nothing more than a double magnet version of the Discovery series ring radiator tweeter, a tweeter that sells for $71 today 20 odd years later. So where was the $13,000 - $17,000 they sold for RRP? While the crossovers didn't use cheap junk, there still was no where near that kind of money in them. The cabinets were extremely well made and thoroughly braced, but they weren't what I thought I was buying. The top and the bottom of the speakers are real wood, but the main body of the Cremonas was curved MDF covered with a veneer that looks like wood. You would have to be extremely talented to reproduce a cabinet that looks even remotely as good as the finish on the Sonus Faber speakers. Every set I have owned were new and the finish on them was 1000%. But what you can do that they can't in the factory is build it with crazy thick walls, if you want to build a cabinet with 4" thick walls you can do that because you aren't constrained by design that the factory is (I have an upcoming sub that might be as thick as 60mm). For tweeters I bought RAAL dipoles which today retail for $1497 each plus post, I stepped up the mids to the Scanspeak Illuminator series, and went with TC Sounds woofers. Even after paying around $7,000 for an active crossover, I am still well short of the kind of money I would have spent if I had bought the expensive Sonus Faber's.
@@DodgyBrothersEngineering Revel puts $25.00 crossovers in their $4000.00 Bookshelves. That is a fact. Sonus Faber uses pretty much the same level crossover in these what $1600.00 bookshelves. Trusting any of these manufacturer's is a fools game. Sonus Faber & Revel have the exact business model. Substandard parts till you take out a second mortgage, only then they will give up the quality parts. Even then you will pay many times what they are worth, as per their pricing model. Don't trust any of them. Danny liked the box and the bracing. Are you sure they build their own boxes? Most farm it out to qualified woodworking people. You should have read the glowing reviews of Revel's 4k bookshelves with those 25.00 crossovers. Making fools of anyone that reviewed them.
Exactly. Upgrading raises the cost by a lot. You cannot produce a speaker for the general public that looks like an apple crate. @@DodgyBrothersEngineering
Sonus Faber enjoying quite a lot of success right now. They are really made in Italy and took control of the wood working factory that had traditionally supplied their cabinets. Sonus Faber is owned by the Macintosh group. It would seem the majority of buyers of this particular loudspeaker really like the medium and treble but complain about a lack of bass response. If you move up to the Sonetto or Olympica floorstand version the wood work and styling is just superb! I can confirm that the higher end models have excellent resale values. Keep to the higher end models if you can afford it.
The Macintosh group don't actually own Sonus Faber. Sonus Faber was acquired as part of a big buy up, which Macintosh became part of themselves. The company that acquired them and others has recently changed hands. Agree on the better stuff holding its value to a point. I had a set of Electa Amator 2's that I had spare so I sold them and only got a couple of thousand for them ($2500 from memory). I am kicking myself for selling them i should have just kept them in the boxes I didn't need the money. I had a set of Cremonas which I did get much better money back on after using them for about 10 years. This recent stuff needs to be made into firewood.
I made the same mistake letting go a pair of Electa! I adored them for the look and sound. On their webpage it mentions McIntosh Group. I wouldn't buy anything new from anyone right now. I'll probably end up building something and keeping my 20 year old PMC TB1 and Jean Marie Reynaud Cantibile. All pre 2000's before accountants took over the industry! @@DodgyBrothersEngineering
@@gdwlaw5549 I wouldn't be surprised if the website still says that. Often websites are slow to be updated. A lot happened since The MacIntosh Group acquired them back in 2007. In 2018 Highlander Partners became the major stake holder in The MacIntosh Group, essential becoming the new owners, at least in shares, but then the whole group was acquired in 2022 by another party from what I have heard. So it is possible at least in name that the new owners have kept the company as a whole still calling it The McIntosh Group. It is all very convoluted and complicated. But needless to say it is not the same Sonus Faber we knew and loved pre 2000's. I has been so long ago now I really can't remember which of their speakers I bought first. I radically changed directions somewhere pre 2000. I was heading down the track of a M&K home theatre setup and had already bought one of the better 2 driver subs, when a friend in the audio industry introduced me to Sonus Faber. As I say I don't recall what I bought first. It may have been a pair of gloss black Grand Pianos. I later bought a couple of pairs of bookshelf for surrounds, Concerto I think. I also had two Sonus Faber subs back then. I vaguely remember remember buying the non black version of the Grand Pianos to match the surrounds. I think I then bought the Electa Amators for a centre channel, then decided the rest of the system wasn't up to scratch and sold all of the other stuff and kept the Electa Amators. The Cremonas were released and I feel in love with them because they had the bass that the Electa Amators were missing. The Cremonas became my main stereo speakers and the Electa Amotors went back into the box. Not really having an immediate use for them I parted with the Electa Amators, which I regret to this day because in many ways they were far superior to the Cremonas, they just didn't have the same range. I stopped buying speakers for a while and kept the Cremonas for probably 10 years when I felt I couldn't live with the inferior sound any longer and wanted better sound. I started looking at the Cremona stuff in the mid 40 thousand range as it was the next step up from what I had. It was at this point I made the radical decision to go active DIY and I have been enjoying those for probably the last 13 years.
@@DodgyBrothersEngineeringSf seems to be pushed by that ownership to make these entry level products. I have the Luminas for my TV and visually it’s a great little speaker. Sonically it’s treble boosted. Good for that application but would not use these in a dedicated system.
From what i understand, klippel provides a wealth of information for speaker design from scratch and for reviewing speakers. Since you cannot change the speaker drivers, drivers spacing/placement, baffle dimensions/shape, enclousure volume/shape/material, port size/dimensions/position etc, it is not as necessary in speaker upgrade.
Can anybody please comment how the Lumina IIs stack up against Q Acoustics 5020? I have both available for purchase but I cannot have a listen first. It means a lot, thank you!
First order crossovers are used for a reason, some speaker units can handle not so steep crossovers between the woofer and the tweeter. Less parts in the signal path is great sound-wise. But Danny concludes that it’s because of saving money by the factory. It’s subjective and not fair to judge like that in behalf of your own benefits.
Most speaker manufacturers have a basic affordable (for them) crossover. They charge for the name and hype around their brand. The customer whom send in these speaker, found them a bit bright and wanted them fixed, if possible, it’s Sonos. There were issues with them as the measurement shows. To fix that, Danny fiddle around with parts, so he will get a nice measurement. One, two, three or fourth order crossover it might be to correct this Sonos. He does this for free, but charges for the parts. The customer whom send the speaker will be happy with the quality and accurate sound. Any problem with that? Do you work for free? Could you do it better, then just show us.
In the spectral decay I can see the hump was smoothed out, less steep but the ringing seems to have gotten louder albeit more smooth, less steep but still very much there. Maybe less annoying but still.. Maybe it is caused by the port design on the bottom. Is there any damping in the bottom of the box (because that would limit the airflow and turn this into more of a a-periodic design). It Might be worth just removing the bottom port and closing the box with an inch of MDF on the bottom and adding a port to the rear and tune that.
Love all your videos! You should start a class for so called audiofile utube people. Most of they're reviews are just idiot's telling us what they think and we don't care! Keep up the great work.
Sonus faber lumina 2 Amator version raised the cross over to from 1800 to 2600 hz. Could that have an effect on the sound balancing the frequency response of the speaker?
Anyone can set it up and press go to get measured data. Knowing how to read and understand it is what is important. Also, from what I heard Erin has been banned, or blocked at ASR.
Hi Danny, what is the thing (at 2:13) you use to see if a terminal is magnetic? Can you tell me where that thing is for sale? Thanks. Will you ship parts to the EU?
Thanks Danny, learning so much. So much in fact, that I will now make my own speakers next. These companies should be called out for this crap. No money into design and parts, appearance only. The money per speaker apparently all goes to marketing. No longer trust the big names.
Don't know if you have time answering questions, but I'll take a chance. Currently I have a pair of Von Schweikert VR4SR speakers, although I really like them with most music I find them not working that well with heavier music like rock and metal, so I wounder if you have any suggestion for speakers that might play this type of music better, but still maintain high fidelity? Thanks for your interesting and informative videos, best regards.
Our new Brute and Bully models will eat up that type of music up. We tried it, and had so much fun with it that we had to quit for a while to let our ears recover. We were cranking it and loving it.
@@dannyrichie9743 That sounds like a fun speaker to try out, only problem is I live in Europe, so I guess with shipping and customs they would end up rather expensive.
My only criticism of Danny's measuring setup is that it cuts off at 200Hz. I'd much prefer to see what's happening all the way down to 20Hz. I have a Klipsh powered sub that is *wholly unsatisfying* . But I don't know if Danny can do anything with it because none of his measurements go below 200Hz. Too bright up top, and that dip at 500Hz is real bad for vocals. That dip is still there at about 450Hz with Dannys mod. Not sure if there's anything you can do for it, though. And I think I would have looked into trying to tame that high end with a notch filter instead of knocking the whole thing down. Only because I'm looking at that drop off above 10KHz and thinking a notch filter might be able to leave that part alone. But I'm not the one doing the work, I don't have the speakers, I don't know if Danny looked into it or not. I have no idea if a notch filter would work at all, or if it would totally ruin the phase matching. I'm just sitting here in the snowbound north second guessing an expert, lol.
I do take a lot of full range measurements. I actually covered it in my last video. However, it includes room reflections. To do a full range measurement will require an anechoic chamber. We built an anechoic chamber and used it daily at GR Research's first location. It was nice, but not absolutely necessary either. There is not much that I can do about the dip at 450Hz, at least not without throwing a lot of parts at it. It is really not that bad. The tweeters response is such that a notch filter is not going to fix it. A notch filter is more ideal for a specific area and not a broad area that needed brought down in this case. I did by-pass the top octave with a small cap. So there is not much more I can bring it back up.
Good video Danny, a friend of mine in in Massachusetts bought a pair of those at a garage sale in his town and he said right from the moment he tested them in his listening room he was so unhappy he just gave them to goodwill and just wanted them out of his eyesight. After watching your video on these made me understand what he was cussing about . Like always your content is spot on . When my health gets better i would lo e to cone audition your speakers . Ive had to sell off my entire museum of audio gear the last 6 months to pay for my medical needs . Plus with the nerve problems and ptsd i can no longer listen to a lot of the music from my younger years. My next setup i will put together will be something that wont make my brain hurt . Cheers @@dannyrichie9743
I love your videuse and I respect your knowledge. I will never stop listening to you. But you always forget the best instrument, theranisa our ears. I don't believe in all those instruments I trust my speakers. My son bad to you, but for somebody else. The sound is good and that's why you guys don't understand. And You figured that out. That's my 2 cents. But I love your videos. And I will keep on seeing them and listen to You. Thank you for your knowledge
Absolutely, it is all about what we hear. The measurements systems just give us a visualization of the speakers output, and those measurements can show us things that we clearly hear. We know that problems and inaccuracies in amplitude, phase, driver break up, and cabinet resonances are easy to hear. The measurements are great at showing us those things.
i've seen a lot of 2 way speakers with the crossover point about 3-4kHz what about the advantages of this approach? frankly it's hard to believe there are no pros at all
Also current thinking is to close cluster drivers. To avoid comb filtering, the highest frequency allowed would be 3 k. Any higher and you cant get the drivers physically close enough.
SF makes the prettiest speakers in the biz. Sound wise, never did it for me. I have not heard that model, have heard some of their big $ models, and meh for me.
Hey, Danny boy! Greetings from the Chicagoland western suburbs. The wearher has been threatening springtime moderation. We can always hope. I'm really hoping there are no killer heatwaves in store this summer.
Whats up with complex crossovers people always talk about? If the speaker is in the room the room is doing its thing fo the sound,when I bend my head the sound changes a little, songs are mixed and mastered differently, taste and ears are different, so I feel like flat response is exaggerated, none of us hear flat response
@@dannyrichie9743 nice for you, to me there is an acceptable level, improving things beyond that level I get diminishing returns, I find it's more enjoyable to spend time looking for new interesting songs than spending time tweaking with sound quality, as long as my bass is deep, I can hear some mids and highs, I'm good to go, making it flat won't make a wack song become good 😂
@@mwizachavura8399 That's true, but in this case that wack song might not burn a hole in your head because the tweeter level is not 4 or 5db too loud anymore.
I had the Lumina III’s and they were bright, thin in the middle and bass areas, they prob would have sounded better with a subwoofer and a very soft sounding neutral amp🤔🤔
Danny, I’m a big fan of your work but I have to criticise here: I’m sorry, but spectral decay isn’t much better then it was before - you just moved this ringing some 2/3 hundreds lower (it is more less at 700 hz) + lower end decays even slower…
The lower one was actually caused by the binding post cup being removed and then taped over with the leads sticking out so that the new crossover could be designed. Once the back is sealed back up properly it isn't there. I should have reassembled it and reshot it to show it, but just didn't have time. The change in crossover can't create that. Good catch though.
The problem with ERIN: $1000 speaker doesn't measure perfectly, he points out how deeply flawed it is,. There is no quarter given. He measures a $7000 pair of dynaudio that measure like total ass. "OH...but they don't SOUND. that way." How disingenuous.
And some other thing you know , Jay When to your place, listen to some speakers. And he wasn't too impressed with your speayes can you tell us about it
The sad thing about the audio industry is (and they are not the only culprits) that looks go a long way in most peoples buying decisions. My favorite are VU meters. totally useless... Another thing to note is that most UK and European brands are forward and bright, some extreme!
For a Sonus Faber speaker they should be better than that from the factory! I guess they think that this a cheap speaker for them so cheaper parts! There higher end speakers are extremely expensive! Do they sound that good because they look that good and cost a fortune?
But how does It' Sound You see to be more To be more You shall listen to the speakers and let us know how it sounds. Ong Only the measurement is no Enough Measurements are not a 100% accurate, you know this. No excuse that they only send you one speaker , so get another one And let us know how it sounds okay okay and that's my two cents
If this is how a 1000$ speaker is, I am aghast. At least, it should be built using solid/drcent components, that is fundamental but doesn't guarantee it sounds right.
Hello folks and yep I'm still crazy. If this is their entry level what are they doing trying to upsell you to higher model seem so and that's cheesy, without any please me. It's all about the enter level that highlights the rest of the models. Poor first impression. Great speaker for to do it yourself using a few basic fundamentals from today's show you can do this to almost many other enter level speaker. Ride Easy
A $1,000 pair of bookshelf speakers are not, or should not be regarded as cheap speakers. If this keeps up, the Chinese will capture the lower cost speaker market much as they have the lower cost Tube amps that punch way above their weight.
Keep in mind that the pair of speakers, boxing, and packing material has to come in for around $200 in cost to produce in order to sell them at $1,000 a pair.
There's some Korean class D engineering that absolutely blows away all other amps. I mean distortion levels so low that laboratories have to get new equipment and develop new measuring techniques to get an accurate distortion measurement. But then the Chinese take these schematics and redesign the PCB to minimize real estate, then populate that real estate with the cheapest junk components money can buy, and now it's a mediocre amp that isn't worth a darn. What am I saying? Even when the Chinese steal the greatest engineering in the world. By the time they're done with it, it's just another piece of junk.
If Rolls Royce offered a car for $100,000 would you consider that cheap? Sonus Faber in the past only offered high end speakers, they built this cheap junk to try grab more market share. Sonus Faber are never going to try and duke it out with the Chinese over the scraps. High end Sonus Faber speakers can go as high as several hundred thousand dollars. By offering this cheap garbage they are damaging their brand, but lack of sales has forced them into this low end of the market. I would never touch anything this cheap in their range. I would go for other brands that offer better value before buying this stuff there is no value here. What people are paying for is a name. This is like buying a Rolls Royce for next to nothing with a million miles on the clock and dents in every panel just so you can say you own a Rolls Royce.
Sonus Faber. A brand that is known for having a polite presentation. Why would they release a speaker that is opposite their house sound? Glad I did not buy this speaker.
Sonus Faber haven't controlled what has happened in the company for a very long time. They were bought up along with some other big names. These sorts of acquisitions can do serious damage to the way a company operates. Someone on high decides you build cheap crap. Cheap crap gets built, then all the history and pedigree go out the window. Quite honestly this stuff is an embarrassment to the brand.
@@DodgyBrothersEngineering It would seem that any time one of these brands sells out, it never goes well. Mcintosh is a prime example. I had numerous problems with their reliability and support. I believe SF is under the same umbrella.
I was really disappointed when Sonus Faber started making these and the Venere. IMO they cheapened the brand releasing this cheap garbage. They don't even look like Sonus Faber speakers, they just look like any other cheap speaker on the market.
Every major brand from Revel, Klipsch etc. Now Sonus Faber that he has opened up has been a disappointment. Unethical compromises like steel nuts (an elementary no no they were clearly aware of) Did it anyway. Screwing us in the process. I personally will never buy a speaker unless I know exactly what compromises were made in advance. That simple. It pisses me off every time Danny exposes one of these unethical companies. We are just marks to them. Sure seems that way. How do we know? because the difference between steel nuts and not steel nuts is very small and should have been a cheap base covered. They opted to save the pennies. Moron's. IMHO.
Well, I have a pair of these and I disagree with the assessment here. Granted, my hearing is pretty damaged so I may not hear things the way "a normal person" would. For me, I happen to love how these speakers sound. I listen to quite a bit of piano work, and I don't hear any impurities as keys are struck or through the duration of the note. Nothing but musical goodness here. Are they perfect? No, but no speaker is. These are working just fine for me, thank you. Maybe at some point down the road I might look into the crossover upgrade just to see if it makes any difference at all. For now, I am just going to enjoy them.
@@raymoore8435 Yep. The things he talks about, especially with the tweeter, are the things I love about this tweeter! And he wants to take that away. I know this is all subjective and I would never challenge his technical knowledge. But in this case, I simply disagree. He goes on like this is some POS budget speaker, and that is simply not true. Oh well, he can bash them all he wants. I love mine and I am not changing them.
@@dennismoraisus4187 If you have damaged hearing then that super hot top end may not be an issue for you. For the rest of us that can hear, that hot top end will just about burn a hole our our heads. It also is very much a budget level speaker.
@@dannyrichie9743 You are entitled to your opinion. And I am entitled to disagree with you, which I do. I bought these speakers for me, not for you. What, perhaps if I bought one of your magic power cables they would sound better? HAHAHAHAHAHA! Whatever, dude. If you read my response, I do not discount the possibility that your approach to the cross might be worth looking into at some point. For now, I am enjoying them as is. And what difference does it make if they are considered "budget". That is pretty elitest, if you ask me. Again, we can agree to disagree. Meanwhile, I will continue to love these great little "budget" speakers. I'll leave it there.
@@dennismoraisus4187 Try a power cable and find out, but if the rest of your gear is as budget level as those speakers (very cheaply made) then our power cables may not be worth it to you. Then again they might make a notable improvement just like the upgrade that I designed for those speakers.
Thanks for the shout out, Danny! Cheers!
I admire you guys for how different standpoint you're backing, yet still are able to politely communicate, rare and nice to see occurance.
I hope that all the other creators learn from you Erin
I thought that I knew about designing and building speakers...Until I started watching Danny's upgrade videos. I have learned a ton in the last couple of years. Thanks Danny!
Love the shout-out for Erin's Audio Corner! Been watching you both for a long time and really like hearing all your explanations and impressions on various speakers. It really helps relate what I'm hearing to what's actually happening.
You designed the x-over of my speakers and I love them! I am not surprised these videos are the most viewed. Usher Mini-X Diamond is great! Good job sir!
Unbelievable they released this a finished product. Your redesign measures how I would have expected them to in the first place.
I'm not surprised these are your most watched videos - they have a format and style that even curious non-owners enjoy!
This is a very timely video. I had a long conversation yesterday with Gemini about speaker placement and different issues i.e. comb filtering, lobing etc etc, and it was trying to talk me into something that looked more like a centre speaker with the ends turned in.
What a pleasure watching a no-nonsense and no-frills speaker insight. Thank you.
This is becoming one of my favorite channels!
Another good one. Great to have you back, Danny. Happy new year to you and the guys there. and all the viewers. Great shout out for Erin and the great work he does. Agrred ta a Klippel would be of no help in crossover development, but certainly would be a benefit to completely assess final performance of a fix and a new product development (assuming its not 7 feet tall !!).
Really liked these speakers. Not a lot of bass but damn they sounded smooth
They are far from smooth.
With what associated gear and music genre@@dannyrichie9743? My old speakers don't measure perfect but I have not heard anything at their price point that sounds as good in my room with my gear and my music. How do all these speakers sound once the kits are added? I don't listen to measurement/testing gear. Where are the reviews?
Mighty fine Job Sir. You do excellent work. Love your videos.
Love your videos. Just bought one of your kits.
Thank you.
Awesome work Danny!
Apart from the woofer ringing, the rest of the spectral decay chart is superb.
Hello Danny. I watched Erin's take on the Sonus Faber - Lumina II's, and now your review. The measurement results gathered by Erin and yourself are perfectly in line with my critical listening results posted on the community tab of my small RUclips channel. For a while it felt like I was the only Audio Engineer willing to speak about why the Lumina II's are very unpleasant to the ears.
Love your work brother from Wellington nz
I’m a firm believer that in that price range you should stick with Elac or Emotiva etc.
Magic man strikes again! An all time guru in the crossover design sector.
Yes I agree with you on smoothing. Thanks for the advice that 1/3 smoothing is the industry standard. I use that but I wasn't sure. I hope SF watch this. You should send them an invoice.☮️🇦🇺
I would love for you to get a Lumina V on the bench.
That model I believe was tuned differently and has a hybrid crossover. Would love to hear your findings if you have the opportunity
Thanks, that's a great video! I'd love to see a similar one on Lumina V.
It's all you, Danny. Pedest'ale's are sounding great with the Sonicap upgrade. The Cryo power cables added smoothness, clarity. Detail, cohesiveness.
That shirt is awesome.
Makes you wonder about the validity of some well-known review channels. I just watched one reviewing another brand bookshelf speaker around this price, which also compared it to several others in the same price range, including the Sonus Faber Lumina II, and both he and his wife preferred the Sonus Faber Lumina II to main reviewed speaker and the others.
I had Klipsch speakers, changed them to these Lumina II and they are soooooooo much better. Love them ❤ In this price range I didn’t listen to anything better. Also they don’t have Klipsch signature sound at all IMHO. No fatigue at all, I can listen to them all day long.
I'd still do the upgrade.
Agree, I like them. I have a switch, for music I am using a tube amp & Roon. For video an Emotiva amp. It is is very musical and I am only wondering wether the new version with improved filter would be better. The Emotiva sounds to American and lacks emotion when looking at concerts so I think I will replace them with a Darteel clone and also consider the Gr Research filterupgrade. Only question is whether the center speaker can also use this upgrade
@@TRdaytona675different speaker needs a different crossover
Yep. I have the Lumina II as well and frankly I disagree with his assessment. I don't hear any smearing or ringing as he states. I listen to a lot of piano work and I don't hear any impurities as keys are struck. They are energetic up top but that is a plus for me. Maybe that is because I have a specific hearing loss. Whatever the case, I really enjoy these speakers and will not be doing any upgrades at this time. Especially at that price point. I just don't feel it's needed.
I love these speakers. Paired with a rel tzero sub.
Its a shame these speakers with that price point still need an upgrade
What speaker here, doesn't need an upgrade? I'd like to see specific price points tested, listened to, by independent listeners, and then judged on how is sounds with specific genres. They have to look great unless you don't care but most people do.
This is why I build my own speakers now, better cabinets, & better parts, great video as usual 👍
Have you looked inside a Sonus Faber cabinet? Don't for a moment think this cheap crap represents the typical Sonus Faber build quality. 99% of people couldn't make their better cabinets. Even at this level most still couldn't make them. A square box that most people would make are not the same thing.
@@DodgyBrothersEngineering yes I do realise that, that cheaper end is not as good, but after owning lot's of speaker over a 45 year period, I started building my own, with scan-speak drivers & woofers, using 19mm birch plywood cabinet, well braced. Crossovers using top parts from Mundorf & Jantzen & finally using OCC wiring
You can build a £5,000 monitor for around £1,000 if you build them yourself.
Thanks for the chat 👍
@@tweakerman definitely agree that DIY is a great option for those seriously wanting to step it up a notch on a budget. After owning I think I counted 6 pairs of Sonus Faber speakers myself, I decided to go the DIY route myself. Owning those Sonus Faber speakers gave me the opportunity to peak behind the curtain. I pulled the drivers out and took a lot of photos of things like the cabinets and crossovers, and see what drivers are in them. The last set of speakers I owned was a set of Sonus Faber Cremona floor standers.
That is how I know that every person is not going to be able to reproduce those curved cabinets that reduce standing waves easily, but would it be impossible? Absolutely not. Before I went DIY I was sitting on the fence do I spend $45,000 on upgrading to some better Sonus Faber speakers, or do I look at going DIY? After much deliberation (I had the money and wasn't married then) I decided nope instead I am going to go active instead of passive crossovers that I would still be getting in the more expensive speakers and just step up the driver quality.
Now if you are a Scanspeak fan like myself you will immediately recognize the mid and two woofers in the Cremonas as being Scanspeak Revelator series drivers (quite possibly what you are using yourself) and the tweeters were nothing more than a double magnet version of the Discovery series ring radiator tweeter, a tweeter that sells for $71 today 20 odd years later. So where was the $13,000 - $17,000 they sold for RRP? While the crossovers didn't use cheap junk, there still was no where near that kind of money in them. The cabinets were extremely well made and thoroughly braced, but they weren't what I thought I was buying. The top and the bottom of the speakers are real wood, but the main body of the Cremonas was curved MDF covered with a veneer that looks like wood.
You would have to be extremely talented to reproduce a cabinet that looks even remotely as good as the finish on the Sonus Faber speakers. Every set I have owned were new and the finish on them was 1000%. But what you can do that they can't in the factory is build it with crazy thick walls, if you want to build a cabinet with 4" thick walls you can do that because you aren't constrained by design that the factory is (I have an upcoming sub that might be as thick as 60mm).
For tweeters I bought RAAL dipoles which today retail for $1497 each plus post, I stepped up the mids to the Scanspeak Illuminator series, and went with TC Sounds woofers. Even after paying around $7,000 for an active crossover, I am still well short of the kind of money I would have spent if I had bought the expensive Sonus Faber's.
@@DodgyBrothersEngineering Revel puts $25.00 crossovers in their $4000.00 Bookshelves. That is a fact. Sonus Faber uses pretty much the same level crossover in these what $1600.00 bookshelves. Trusting any of these manufacturer's is a fools game. Sonus Faber & Revel have the exact business model. Substandard parts till you take out a second mortgage, only then they will give up the quality parts. Even then you will pay many times what they are worth, as per their pricing model. Don't trust any of them. Danny liked the box and the bracing. Are you sure they build their own boxes? Most farm it out to qualified woodworking people. You should have read the glowing reviews of Revel's 4k bookshelves with those 25.00 crossovers. Making fools of anyone that reviewed them.
Exactly. Upgrading raises the cost by a lot. You cannot produce a speaker for the general public that looks like an apple crate. @@DodgyBrothersEngineering
Would be sweet if you sent Erin some of your GR speakers for him to klippel and review. 😊
We might make that happen.
@@dannyrichie9743 I'll believe that when I see it!
@@Chris-hy6jy Hang in there.
Sonus Faber enjoying quite a lot of success right now. They are really made in Italy and took control of the wood working factory that had traditionally supplied their cabinets. Sonus Faber is owned by the Macintosh group. It would seem the majority of buyers of this particular loudspeaker really like the medium and treble but complain about a lack of bass response. If you move up to the Sonetto or Olympica floorstand version the wood work and styling is just superb! I can confirm that the higher end models have excellent resale values. Keep to the higher end models if you can afford it.
The Macintosh group don't actually own Sonus Faber. Sonus Faber was acquired as part of a big buy up, which Macintosh became part of themselves. The company that acquired them and others has recently changed hands. Agree on the better stuff holding its value to a point. I had a set of Electa Amator 2's that I had spare so I sold them and only got a couple of thousand for them ($2500 from memory). I am kicking myself for selling them i should have just kept them in the boxes I didn't need the money. I had a set of Cremonas which I did get much better money back on after using them for about 10 years. This recent stuff needs to be made into firewood.
I made the same mistake letting go a pair of Electa! I adored them for the look and sound. On their webpage it mentions McIntosh Group. I wouldn't buy anything new from anyone right now. I'll probably end up building something and keeping my 20 year old PMC TB1 and Jean Marie Reynaud Cantibile. All pre 2000's before accountants took over the industry! @@DodgyBrothersEngineering
google this: Sonus faber Quid....@@DodgyBrothersEngineering
@@gdwlaw5549 I wouldn't be surprised if the website still says that. Often websites are slow to be updated. A lot happened since The MacIntosh Group acquired them back in 2007. In 2018 Highlander Partners became the major stake holder in The MacIntosh Group, essential becoming the new owners, at least in shares, but then the whole group was acquired in 2022 by another party from what I have heard. So it is possible at least in name that the new owners have kept the company as a whole still calling it The McIntosh Group. It is all very convoluted and complicated. But needless to say it is not the same Sonus Faber we knew and loved pre 2000's.
I has been so long ago now I really can't remember which of their speakers I bought first. I radically changed directions somewhere pre 2000. I was heading down the track of a M&K home theatre setup and had already bought one of the better 2 driver subs, when a friend in the audio industry introduced me to Sonus Faber. As I say I don't recall what I bought first. It may have been a pair of gloss black Grand Pianos. I later bought a couple of pairs of bookshelf for surrounds, Concerto I think. I also had two Sonus Faber subs back then. I vaguely remember remember buying the non black version of the Grand Pianos to match the surrounds. I think I then bought the Electa Amators for a centre channel, then decided the rest of the system wasn't up to scratch and sold all of the other stuff and kept the Electa Amators. The Cremonas were released and I feel in love with them because they had the bass that the Electa Amators were missing. The Cremonas became my main stereo speakers and the Electa Amotors went back into the box.
Not really having an immediate use for them I parted with the Electa Amators, which I regret to this day because in many ways they were far superior to the Cremonas, they just didn't have the same range. I stopped buying speakers for a while and kept the Cremonas for probably 10 years when I felt I couldn't live with the inferior sound any longer and wanted better sound. I started looking at the Cremona stuff in the mid 40 thousand range as it was the next step up from what I had. It was at this point I made the radical decision to go active DIY and I have been enjoying those for probably the last 13 years.
@@DodgyBrothersEngineeringSf seems to be pushed by that ownership to make these entry level products. I have the Luminas for my TV and visually it’s a great little speaker. Sonically it’s treble boosted. Good for that application but would not use these in a dedicated system.
Hi, I have a pair of Yamaha NS-6490, does anyone have circuit Diagram for crossover modification? Please help. Thank you
Thank you for exposing the shortcuts these companies take to fool the consumer. Some brands just can't be trusted.
From what i understand, klippel provides a wealth of information for speaker design from scratch and for reviewing speakers. Since you cannot change the speaker drivers, drivers spacing/placement, baffle dimensions/shape, enclousure volume/shape/material, port size/dimensions/position etc, it is not as necessary in speaker upgrade.
tnx for that
Can anybody please comment how the Lumina IIs stack up against Q Acoustics 5020? I have both available for purchase but I cannot have a listen first. It means a lot, thank you!
First order crossovers are used for a reason, some speaker units can handle not so steep crossovers between the woofer and the tweeter. Less parts in the signal path is great sound-wise. But Danny concludes that it’s because of saving money by the factory. It’s subjective and not fair to judge like that in behalf of your own benefits.
Most speaker manufacturers have a basic affordable (for them) crossover. They charge for the name and hype around their brand. The customer whom send in these speaker, found them a bit bright and wanted them fixed, if possible, it’s Sonos. There were issues with them as the measurement shows. To fix that, Danny fiddle around with parts, so he will get a nice measurement. One, two, three or fourth order crossover it might be to correct this Sonos.
He does this for free, but charges for the parts. The customer whom send the speaker will be happy with the quality and accurate sound. Any problem with that? Do you work for free? Could you do it better, then just show us.
@@rikardekvall3433it’s not Sonos.
@@jonathandavis9507 Yepp. But my spelling program didn’t like Sonus….😳.
@@rikardekvall3433 In this case, the first order filter didn't work out very well.
@@dannyrichie9743 Yes. Most of us, trust your judgment and expertise. Love my X-LS’s Encores.
In the spectral decay I can see the hump was smoothed out, less steep but the ringing seems to have gotten louder albeit more smooth, less steep but still very much there. Maybe less annoying but still.. Maybe it is caused by the port design on the bottom. Is there any damping in the bottom of the box (because that would limit the airflow and turn this into more of a a-periodic design). It Might be worth just removing the bottom port and closing the box with an inch of MDF on the bottom and adding a port to the rear and tune that.
Love all your videos! You should start a class for so called audiofile utube people. Most of they're reviews are just idiot's telling us what they think and we don't care! Keep up the great work.
Try to get some of the newest versions ... I can imagine some things were fixed... ( or maybe not )
The Amator version ( new looking wood baffle )
The Amator always had real wood (sides at least). The Amators are a completely different level to this garbage.
Sonus faber lumina 2 Amator version raised the cross over to from 1800 to 2600 hz. Could that have an effect on the sound balancing the frequency response of the speaker?
Erin is a active member at ASR. Amir uses a Klipppel as well.......😮
Anyone can set it up and press go to get measured data. Knowing how to read and understand it is what is important. Also, from what I heard Erin has been banned, or blocked at ASR.
Send Erin some GR Reserch speakers to measure 👍🏻
The vertical off axis is very good...would it be better to place these speakers on their sides because of this?
No, in the other direction they will not be that good.
if you are 70 or older the original tweeter peak is the better solution ...
Hi Danny, what is the thing (at 2:13) you use to see if a terminal is magnetic? Can you tell me where that thing is for sale? Thanks.
Will you ship parts to the EU?
It is just a stack of Neo magnets.
Thanks Danny, learning so much. So much in fact, that I will now make my own speakers next. These companies should be called out for this crap. No money into design and parts, appearance only. The money per speaker apparently all goes to marketing. No longer trust the big names.
Don't know if you have time answering questions, but I'll take a chance. Currently I have a pair of Von Schweikert VR4SR speakers, although I really like them with most music I find them not working that well with heavier music like rock and metal, so I wounder if you have any suggestion for speakers that might play this type of music better, but still maintain high fidelity? Thanks for your interesting and informative videos, best regards.
Our new Brute and Bully models will eat up that type of music up. We tried it, and had so much fun with it that we had to quit for a while to let our ears recover. We were cranking it and loving it.
Dynaudio Evoke series
@@user-xg6zz8qs3q Look inside. The crossovers are garbage.
@@dannyrichie9743 That sounds like a fun speaker to try out, only problem is I live in Europe, so I guess with shipping and customs they would end up rather expensive.
@@user-xg6zz8qs3q Thanks for the suggestion, I'll take a look at those.
I think a lot of speakers are tailored to sound familiar ,,, its a trends thing
Ha, I bet speaker manufacturers cringe when Danny critiques their speakers. We consumers love it.
A few of them have contacted my with positive feedback. I guess it they do a good job they don't need to cringe.
Hello, I think a Danny recommendation for well made speakers with good parts at $500,$1000,$1500,$2000 price points would be a great video!
I'm new to the audio game. Is there something wrong with the Klipsch sound?
They are know for a hot top end as most of the time the tweeter level is 3 to 5db louder than the rest of the speaker.
My only criticism of Danny's measuring setup is that it cuts off at 200Hz. I'd much prefer to see what's happening all the way down to 20Hz. I have a Klipsh powered sub that is *wholly unsatisfying* . But I don't know if Danny can do anything with it because none of his measurements go below 200Hz.
Too bright up top, and that dip at 500Hz is real bad for vocals. That dip is still there at about 450Hz with Dannys mod. Not sure if there's anything you can do for it, though. And I think I would have looked into trying to tame that high end with a notch filter instead of knocking the whole thing down. Only because I'm looking at that drop off above 10KHz and thinking a notch filter might be able to leave that part alone. But I'm not the one doing the work, I don't have the speakers, I don't know if Danny looked into it or not. I have no idea if a notch filter would work at all, or if it would totally ruin the phase matching. I'm just sitting here in the snowbound north second guessing an expert, lol.
I do take a lot of full range measurements. I actually covered it in my last video. However, it includes room reflections. To do a full range measurement will require an anechoic chamber. We built an anechoic chamber and used it daily at GR Research's first location. It was nice, but not absolutely necessary either.
There is not much that I can do about the dip at 450Hz, at least not without throwing a lot of parts at it. It is really not that bad. The tweeters response is such that a notch filter is not going to fix it. A notch filter is more ideal for a specific area and not a broad area that needed brought down in this case. I did by-pass the top octave with a small cap. So there is not much more I can bring it back up.
Good video Danny, a friend of mine in in Massachusetts bought a pair of those at a garage sale in his town and he said right from the moment he tested them in his listening room he was so unhappy he just gave them to goodwill and just wanted them out of his eyesight. After watching your video on these made me understand what he was cussing about . Like always your content is spot on . When my health gets better i would lo e to cone audition your speakers . Ive had to sell off my entire museum of audio gear the last 6 months to pay for my medical needs . Plus with the nerve problems and ptsd i can no longer listen to a lot of the music from my younger years. My next setup i will put together will be something that wont make my brain hurt . Cheers @@dannyrichie9743
You probably need a higher end sub with better drivers/amplifier.
@@jasontimothywells9895 Come see me when you are ready. I'll take care of you.
anybody know about speaker+box can expect how low can it go.
I love your videuse and I respect your knowledge. I will never stop listening to you. But you always forget the best instrument, theranisa our ears. I don't believe in all those instruments I trust my speakers. My son bad to you, but for somebody else. The sound is good and that's why you guys don't understand.
And You figured that out. That's my 2 cents. But I love your videos. And I will keep on seeing them and listen to You. Thank you for your knowledge
Sorry I said I trust my speakers I was meant to say my ears
Absolutely, it is all about what we hear. The measurements systems just give us a visualization of the speakers output, and those measurements can show us things that we clearly hear. We know that problems and inaccuracies in amplitude, phase, driver break up, and cabinet resonances are easy to hear. The measurements are great at showing us those things.
Hear Everything
Sorry, but do you know 3:17 how many speakers measure beautifully? And they sound like crapp, believe me, I've gone through that.
@@user-pq4nr9jf5k Let me know when you are ready to change that.
Hey Danny, what type of solder do you recommend?
Silver
@@user-rn2jd8uo7mgood because that's the kind I got lol
@@user-rn2jd8uo7mand garlic
i've seen a lot of 2 way speakers with the crossover point about 3-4kHz
what about the advantages of this approach?
frankly it's hard to believe there are no pros at all
Power handling of tweet at expense of off axis linearity
X over is out of the range of the human voice, human ear also has a resonance around 4K .
Also current thinking is to close cluster drivers. To avoid comb filtering, the highest frequency allowed would be 3 k.
Any higher and you cant get the drivers physically close enough.
@@davevolz6138 true, however if speakers are used in near field it Isnt a problem.
The lower crossover points have a lot of advantages and nearly always sound better.
You have videos that aren't upgrades? 🙂
Sure, see the one before this one.
I remember the days when the words Sonus Faber and bright would never be associated. The old SF speakers were almost too laid back
SF makes the prettiest speakers in the biz. Sound wise, never did it for me. I have not heard that model, have heard some of their big $ models, and meh for me.
but....did you listen to them?
Unlistenable to me.....
Hey, Danny boy! Greetings from the Chicagoland western suburbs. The wearher has been threatening springtime moderation. We can always hope. I'm really hoping there are no killer heatwaves in store this summer.
Put a second woofer below the first and make sure it's not a 2.5 way. There. Now it has a Klipsch sound. (yuck)
Somebody actually sampled these speakers, then bought them?
Whats up with complex crossovers people always talk about? If the speaker is in the room the room is doing its thing fo the sound,when I bend my head the sound changes a little, songs are mixed and mastered differently, taste and ears are different, so I feel like flat response is exaggerated, none of us hear flat response
Some of us have a more accurate system than others, and well controlled rooms. So response problems are easily heard.
@@dannyrichie9743 nice for you, to me there is an acceptable level, improving things beyond that level I get diminishing returns, I find it's more enjoyable to spend time looking for new interesting songs than spending time tweaking with sound quality, as long as my bass is deep, I can hear some mids and highs, I'm good to go, making it flat won't make a wack song become good 😂
@@mwizachavura8399 That's true, but in this case that wack song might not burn a hole in your head because the tweeter level is not 4 or 5db too loud anymore.
@@dannyrichie9743 I hear you, I guess if the budget is right yes, why not, have the best things possible
I had the Lumina III’s and they were bright, thin in the middle and bass areas, they prob would have sounded better with a subwoofer and a very soft sounding neutral amp🤔🤔
Danny, I’m a big fan of your work but I have to criticise here: I’m sorry, but spectral decay isn’t much better then it was before - you just moved this ringing some 2/3 hundreds lower (it is more less at 700 hz) + lower end decays even slower…
The lower one was actually caused by the binding post cup being removed and then taped over with the leads sticking out so that the new crossover could be designed. Once the back is sealed back up properly it isn't there. I should have reassembled it and reshot it to show it, but just didn't have time. The change in crossover can't create that. Good catch though.
1:00 1:02 1:21 5:42 someone should make a techno song out of these times
“It iz what it izz…”
The problem with ERIN: $1000 speaker doesn't measure perfectly, he points out how deeply flawed it is,. There is no quarter given.
He measures a $7000 pair of dynaudio that measure like total ass. "OH...but they don't SOUND. that way." How disingenuous.
And some other thing you know , Jay When to your place, listen to some speakers. And he wasn't too impressed with your speayes can you tell us about it
Funny, while he was here he was very impressed and said at one point when playing a song he new really well, that was the best he'd ever heard it.
The sad thing about the audio industry is (and they are not the only culprits) that looks go a long way in most peoples buying decisions. My favorite are VU meters. totally useless...
Another thing to note is that most UK and European brands are forward and bright, some extreme!
For a Sonus Faber speaker they should be better than that from the factory! I guess they think that this a cheap speaker for them so cheaper parts! There higher end speakers are extremely expensive! Do they sound that good because they look that good and cost a fortune?
More deception with the graph being Centered :)
We are always going to center it to make it more readable. It does not change the scale. There is no deception the levels are clearly on the graph.
I tried a pair of these. They hurt my ears. Sucked.
Internet: Why no Klippel?
Danny: Crystal ball's better.
Nonsense, a Clio system is not crystal ball. Crystal ball measuring would be designing by ear.
@@MaxiMe-et4zs That's probably why the area below 200 hertz is hidden, like snake's legs... :)
@@adissabovic you have no idea what you are talking about, are you.
@@MaxiMe-et4zs That's correct: you have no idea what I'm talking about.
@@adissabovic okay then explain then why a Clio system is like a crystal ball 🔮and why it is not measuring below 200 hz. Troll
But how does It' Sound
You see to be more To be more You shall listen to the speakers and let us know how it sounds.
Ong Only the measurement is no Enough
Measurements are not a 100% accurate, you know this.
No excuse that they only send you one speaker , so get another one And let us know how it sounds okay okay and that's my two cents
They are cheaply produced mass marketed speakers. They sound like crap. We turn them into something.
And our measurements are in fact 100% accurate.
If this is how a 1000$ speaker is, I am aghast. At least, it should be built using solid/drcent components, that is fundamental but doesn't guarantee it sounds right.
I have never been the first comments guy before, thanks for the video.
You still never have. Please Cope.
Hello folks and yep I'm still crazy.
If this is their entry level what are they doing trying to upsell you to higher model seem so and that's cheesy, without any please me. It's all about the enter level that highlights the rest of the models. Poor first impression.
Great speaker for to do it yourself using a few basic fundamentals from today's show you can do this to almost many other enter level speaker.
Ride Easy
Yeah, but do you actually listen to music on the speakers? 🤣 Graphs don't tell the whole story..
The measurements show problems and/or accuracy. The garbage used in the stock crossovers will tell you how they will sound. These were really bad.
1000 dollars is not cheap
Cheaply made....
I'd rather have GR Research speakers than these Sonus Fabers. smh
A $1,000 pair of bookshelf speakers are not, or should not be regarded as cheap speakers. If this keeps up, the Chinese will capture the lower cost speaker market much as they have the lower cost Tube amps that punch way above their weight.
Keep in mind that the pair of speakers, boxing, and packing material has to come in for around $200 in cost to produce in order to sell them at $1,000 a pair.
There's some Korean class D engineering that absolutely blows away all other amps. I mean distortion levels so low that laboratories have to get new equipment and develop new measuring techniques to get an accurate distortion measurement. But then the Chinese take these schematics and redesign the PCB to minimize real estate, then populate that real estate with the cheapest junk components money can buy, and now it's a mediocre amp that isn't worth a darn.
What am I saying? Even when the Chinese steal the greatest engineering in the world. By the time they're done with it, it's just another piece of junk.
If Rolls Royce offered a car for $100,000 would you consider that cheap? Sonus Faber in the past only offered high end speakers, they built this cheap junk to try grab more market share. Sonus Faber are never going to try and duke it out with the Chinese over the scraps. High end Sonus Faber speakers can go as high as several hundred thousand dollars. By offering this cheap garbage they are damaging their brand, but lack of sales has forced them into this low end of the market. I would never touch anything this cheap in their range. I would go for other brands that offer better value before buying this stuff there is no value here. What people are paying for is a name. This is like buying a Rolls Royce for next to nothing with a million miles on the clock and dents in every panel just so you can say you own a Rolls Royce.
Sonus Faber. A brand that is known for having a polite presentation. Why would they release a speaker that is opposite their house sound? Glad I did not buy this speaker.
Sonus Faber haven't controlled what has happened in the company for a very long time. They were bought up along with some other big names. These sorts of acquisitions can do serious damage to the way a company operates. Someone on high decides you build cheap crap. Cheap crap gets built, then all the history and pedigree go out the window. Quite honestly this stuff is an embarrassment to the brand.
@@DodgyBrothersEngineering It would seem that any time one of these brands sells out, it never goes well. Mcintosh is a prime example. I had numerous problems with their reliability and support. I believe SF is under the same umbrella.
@@tritiumglo4699 becomes more about the dollar and less about the passion. It doesn't take long before it starts to reflect in the product.
Less tedious talking and let us hear those fkn loudspeakers!!!!
Come hear them.
Amazing for a thousand bucks the garbage you get, talking about a lot of these speakers....smh
I was really disappointed when Sonus Faber started making these and the Venere. IMO they cheapened the brand releasing this cheap garbage. They don't even look like Sonus Faber speakers, they just look like any other cheap speaker on the market.
Every major brand from Revel, Klipsch etc. Now Sonus Faber that he has opened up has been a disappointment. Unethical compromises like steel nuts (an elementary no no they were clearly aware of) Did it anyway. Screwing us in the process. I personally will never buy a speaker unless I know exactly what compromises were made in advance. That simple. It pisses me off every time Danny exposes one of these unethical companies. We are just marks to them. Sure seems that way. How do we know? because the difference between steel nuts and not steel nuts is very small and should have been a cheap base covered. They opted to save the pennies. Moron's. IMHO.
Steel nuts? Balls of steel?!
Well, I have a pair of these and I disagree with the assessment here. Granted, my hearing is pretty damaged so I may not hear things the way "a normal person" would. For me, I happen to love how these speakers sound. I listen to quite a bit of piano work, and I don't hear any impurities as keys are struck or through the duration of the note. Nothing but musical goodness here. Are they perfect? No, but no speaker is. These are working just fine for me, thank you. Maybe at some point down the road I might look into the crossover upgrade just to see if it makes any difference at all. For now, I am just going to enjoy them.
I agree, love them, so did a boatload of reviewers
@@raymoore8435 Yep. The things he talks about, especially with the tweeter, are the things I love about this tweeter! And he wants to take that away. I know this is all subjective and I would never challenge his technical knowledge. But in this case, I simply disagree. He goes on like this is some POS budget speaker, and that is simply not true. Oh well, he can bash them all he wants. I love mine and I am not changing them.
@@dennismoraisus4187 If you have damaged hearing then that super hot top end may not be an issue for you. For the rest of us that can hear, that hot top end will just about burn a hole our our heads. It also is very much a budget level speaker.
@@dannyrichie9743 You are entitled to your opinion. And I am entitled to disagree with you, which I do. I bought these speakers for me, not for you. What, perhaps if I bought one of your magic power cables they would sound better? HAHAHAHAHAHA! Whatever, dude. If you read my response, I do not discount the possibility that your approach to the cross might be worth looking into at some point. For now, I am enjoying them as is. And what difference does it make if they are considered "budget". That is pretty elitest, if you ask me. Again, we can agree to disagree. Meanwhile, I will continue to love these great little "budget" speakers. I'll leave it there.
@@dennismoraisus4187 Try a power cable and find out, but if the rest of your gear is as budget level as those speakers (very cheaply made) then our power cables may not be worth it to you. Then again they might make a notable improvement just like the upgrade that I designed for those speakers.
very very Infor mental. Almost bought these. now NO !