Sonus Faber V's Sonus Faber

Pass X350, McCormack DNA-2 LAE, Rowland 8TiHC, and on and on. If those don't bring out the best of any speakers, something is wrong with the design.

It's like saying your Ferrari GTO will not be competitive against a Honda S2000 unless you have F1 superglue tires, 110 octane racing fuel, and Michael Scheumacher behind the wheel.

Bottom line is Kjgp bought what he liked and I thought he made an excellent purchase. Cremona is more coherent than Guarneri unless you only listen to light jazz and string quartette. No subwoofer can perfectly integrate a small monitor or no one will pay the extra bucks for full range speakers. Guarneri is even more refined than Extrema from midrange and up, but Cremona is not far behind and has decent bass for better musical enjoyment.

For those Extrema lovers, go hear Dynaudio Confidence 5 and you will ditch your Extrema like a hot potato. Just make sure you have a power plant at home because they are even less efficient than Extrema. Guess why I sold them.

All said and done Sonus Faber Extrema speakers are one of the world best speakers ever designed. Just a little difficult to drive. And with either Amati or Extrema the listener will have a great, great speaker to enjoy.

Very well then, Semi. Have fun and enjoy your Amatis and Cremonas. Cheers!

halelluia Sonus Faber fans what a thread.
I could say that little speaker companies in the world can be proud of so many good speakers in their lines to begin an "inter-brand" war.
Good points from everyone all are killer speakers let's enjoy them !

i have heard the extremas, guarneri's, and electra amators.
i have been nothing less than amazed by how musical all three speakers were, and i have zero doubt that the other models discussed above sound any less wonderful- mr. serblin has some of the best ears in high-end audio. i do have some concerns however with the introduction of the stradivari which doesn't image/stage that well (according to reviews)- at $40k that's not encouraging- it should do everything plus make cappiccino imho. i also feel that the amati's should do 20hz-20khz with ease, with tight, deep bass and macrodynamics second to none, especially at ITS price point. the amati-2's hopefully resolves these issues, although the pictures of it (that i've seen) aren't nearly as nice as the red-violin finish on the amati-1's.
so, i don't know if sf has done quite as well in designing large/expensive floor-standing systems as they have in previous years with their monitor-line, from a price comparison standpoint. i have guarneri's in one room, and eggleston andra-2's in my living room. both sound great to my ears, but as of late i've been tweaking/upgrading the guarneri system and the speakers actually "communicate" a bit better than the egg's, which are connected to a MUCH more expensive system (amazing). i do wish the sfg's could go a little lower (bass), so now i want to either get a different amp or better interconnects (or both!$!) to see what the little guys can do, without getting a subwoofer. but i just can't get over how good sf speakers sound- my first exposure to them was at the stereophile show in miami years ago, where i 1st heard the extremas. and, even under show conditions, the sf's sounded better than 95% of the competition in the other rooms, regardless of size, design, or price. i wasn't the only person who waited patiently for a chance to sit in the front-middle chair, where the realism and the imaging was really spectacular.
that day perhaps more than any other had an enormous effect on what kind of a system i myself would eventually end up with.