Κώστας Φ.
Truth hurts. Here's a teddy bear.
- Μηνύματα
- 8.978
- Reaction score
- 895
"Now comes the "refreshed" Guarneri, which uses two new custom drivers: a 1" Scan-Speak ring-radiator tweeter, crossed over at 2.5kHz to a 6" Audio Technology polypropylene-cone woofer.
It's important to remember that while a drive-unit's faαade may look familiar, what's behind it is usually custom-tailored to the end-user's needs. Like the resemblances between an airport rental version of a well-known automobile and the top-of-the-line edition, the similarities can be little more than superficial.
On the other hand, while the Guarneri memento's cabinet looks spectacular, it's still a 6" woofer and a familiar Scan-Speak ring-radiator tweeter in a box. A pair of these small speakers will set you back $15,000. The price includes the shapely Column stands to which the speakers are bolted, with stone wedge bases from a quarry near the Sonus Faber factory in Arcugnano, Italy.
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Conclusion
This loudspeaker is another stellar blend of art and science from the house of Serblin. You'll pay dearly for outstanding engineering, superb build quality, and off-the-chart appearance. You can get greater extension, increased dynamics, and somewhat more revealing and airy upper-octave performance elsewhere. And if you listen exclusively or mostly to rock, you'll be wasting your money. But for those whose tastes run to small-ensemble classical music or jazz, don't have room for larger speakers, but need whatever speakers they buy to complement an elegantly appointed room, a pair of Sonus Faber Guarneri mementos will surely satisfy.
While Sonus Faber's Guarneri memento won't play extremely loud, it played loud enough. While it doesn't go way down low, it went deep enough: just below 40Hz with conviction. And while it can't produce the dynamic slam of a bigger speaker, it provided a convincing spectrum of dynamics, particularly at the microdynamic end of the scale, where music lives and breathes.
But I easily and quickly forgot what the Guarneri memento couldn't deliver, because of the quality of what it could: transparency, delicacy, detail; a lack of mechanical artifacts such as dryness, edge, and etch; and a wide, surprisingly deep, ultrastable soundstage. In terms of pure musical pleasure and involvement, the Sonus Faber Guarneri mementos rank near the top in my listening experience, especially in the reproduction of small acoustic ensembles. I went in a skeptic and came out a believer." -- Michael Fremer
"In common with other recent-generation Sonus Faber speakers, such as the Amati anniversario, which I reviewed in May 2006, the Guarneri memento offers excellent measured performance." -- John Atkinson
Full Review: Stereophile.com
