Sonus Faber Olympica nova 2 VS Sonus Faber Cremona M Loudspeaker vs

hey Petaluman,

Sandy Gross is not a designer. But his partner in both Definitive Technology and Golden Ear was an excellent one. But Sandy was one of the best audio businees men in audio. He was largely responsible for the initial growth of Polk, then Definitive Technology and finally Golden ear into three of the largest, important speaker companies. They would never be anywhere as important if it wasn't for his management genius.

I run Sopra 2's and play tons of punk, metal, extreme metal and classic rock. @mofojo is probably right on with SF being too warm. You probably want a speaker more sharp, focused, detailed and fast. Focal does this, but they're so extremely overpriced I'd have a hard time recommending them now. They had a 20% off sale last week at dealers, but I'd probably wait for a used pair to pop up. 

I just picked up a pair of Cremona M and they sound very good. Nothing I've played so far appears off-limits - Jazz, rock, metal, etc, have all sounded very good.

In my system with my ears, these are not your typical warm and cozy sounding Sonus Faber speakers. I owned the Cremona Auditor M for a while and they were very warm sounding, quite veiled, and lacking in clarity and transparency. The Cremona M is far more neutral in my system....with my ears, etc.

I've driven them with hybrid amps (6H30 input, class D Hypex output) and a solid-state amp that runs Class A for 5 watts (Moon W5.3SE) and both sound great with the Cremona M.

They also look gorgeous and are fairly easy to get dialed in.

@dynamiclinearity 

Thanks for the correction!  I didn't mean to give the front man undue credit, although his continued success with innovative designs is commendable.  Do you know who the designer(s) are behind these speaker lines?

I don't know his name. A friend of mine who knew Sandy well would but we lost him a year ago. I do recall he was Canadian I think and was a full partner in both Definitive Technology and Golden Ear. I don't know who the Polk designer was although I know it wasn't Mathew Polk. He was chosen as company 'head' because he looked the part especially in a lab coat.

By the way, no big deal. All 3 companies would never have been anywhere what they were without him. Sandy was brilliant in knowing the market and dealing with retailers and the public.