Why are my SF Venere S Speakers not sounding as warm?


I have a beautiful pair of Walnut Sonus Faber Venere S speakers and I use them for everyday surround sound/music listening in our living room.  The issue is I fell in love with these speakers in the showroom, and when I set them up in my living room they sounded almost piercingly bright and not nearly as balanced and pleasant.  I have bi amped them with my Marantz SR 6012 Surround Receiver, ran the room EQ set up as well as tried to manually EQ the system.  I was able to take some of the brightness out and get them to a more balanced sound.  I am VERY happy at the un-hindered sound quality they produce.  However there is not near as much bass as there seemed to be in the showroom (I had them disconnect the separate sub).  Now I understand my room is not treated and that of course makes a difference.  I added a Definitive Technology SuperCube 2000 and that has helped, surprising amount of bass for such a small discreet sub.  What are your suggestions?  What am I missing on the set up of these speakers to get the full range from them?

We have a tile floor and a raised ceiling that is at an angle from approx 9' up to 15'.  We have a large fabric couch with an area rug and wooden coffee table.  The dimensions of the room are approximately 14' deep and 19' wide.

tice34
This is the Lab report on what they will be like to drive, seems like these unlike their more expensive range are very easy to drive by anything short of rubbing two sticks together. I recommend a baby Class-A like the pass labs XA or even tubes.

" Sonus faber claims a 90dB sensitivity for the Venere S, close to our measured 89.5dB pink noise figure. Remarkably, this high sensitivity is achieved without recourse to low impedance. Sonus faber specifies a 4ohm nominal figure, with our results showing a minimum of 3.9ohm at 44Hz, but what sets the Venere S apart is its unusually well-contained impedance phase angles. Whereas phase angles in excess of 50o are not unusual, the Venere S’s largest absolute phase angle is just 28o . As a result the minimum EPDR (equivalent peak dissipation resistance), over the same 20Hz-20kHz, is 2.7ohm – a full 1ohm higher than typical of floorstanders of this size and class. As modern speakers go, the Venere S is unusually easy to drive. Forward frequency response [Graph 1, below], measured at tweeter height, evinces a mildly rising trend up to 10kHz, after which output falls by 4dB at 20kHz and dives thereafter. But the response error of just ±2.2dB for both speakers of the pair (300Hz-20kHz) is a fine result, especially for a speaker of this price. (Ignore the response fall-off below 350Hz which is an artefact of a shorter than usual measurement time window.) No less remarkable is a pair matching error of just ±0.6dB over the same frequency range. The diffraction-corrected nearfield measurement showed the Venere S’s bass extension to be 53Hz (–6dB re. 200Hz), a typical figure for a floorstander of this size and sensitivity. Because the response falls off a cliff above 20kHz, extension to ultrasonic frequencies is less impressive. The cumulative spectral decay waterfall [Graph 2, below] shows fast initial decay at treble frequencies albeit with a low-level resonance visible at 2.5kHz. KH"

Cheers George
You have couple serious major issues. First is your electronics and second is your untreated living room.

I wouldn’t run these Sonus Faber Veneer S speakers off a cheap mediocre Marantz SR6012 AV receiver or any AV receivers if I were you. You will not get a full potential of your Sonus Faber speakers by running them off this cheap Marantz SR6012 AV receiver. You will need to upgrade to good quality AV separates. For a budget five-channel power amp I would highly recommend the Rotel RMB-1585 retails for $3k new. This is a five-channel class AB amp. It’s a great sounding and is a high performance amp. It’s a very good amp especially for the money. Another great five-channel amp will be the Parasound Halo A51 retails for $4500 new and IMO it is better than the Rotel RMB-1585.

For an affordable AV pre pro (preamp surround processor) I recommend the Marantz AV8802 or AV8805 or the Anthem AVM60. The Anthem has superior room correction (ARC2) than the Marantz’s Audyssey. The step up in sound quality and audio performance than these Marantz or the Anthem AVM60 will be the Classe Sigma SSP, Krell Foundation series or an older Krell 1200U (long discontinued), Classe SSP 800 (discontinued), NAD M17, Cary Cinema 12. But the Cary Cinema 12 has been well known for their failing HDMI board/switching it sounds really good for both stereo music & surround movies but constantly has been having issues. Seemed like almost every single unit fails after couple yrs of use. HDMI board failure.

The combination of a good quality AV pre pro and a great five-channel amp such as the Rotel RMB-1585 amp will drastically elevate the performance of your system setup to a whole new different level of sonic performance from your Marantz SR6012 av receiver.

Lastly, you will need room treatments for your living room and try to tweak around with speaker placements / positioning. A well treated room coupled with proper speaker placements will make big difference.
My Rotel amp died and I hooked my SF to a denon AV amp I had and they sounded dead.  Purchased  Jolida Hybrid used on Audiogone and the warm magic is back. 
In my opinion, a well designed speaker should not sound bright because of inferior electronics or cables.  Front end equipment can modify the sound of the speaker somewhat but they cannot change the sound such that it will be unacceptably bright.
I have almost the exact same dimensions as the OP including the same vaulted ceiling from 9 to 15’. Bass from the 802D3 is good, but I do use a little boosting on the preamp. That said, I would agree with above that the first place to look is amplification. In addition, for home theater you’re going to want a great sub or 2. I’ve got the SVS SB-16 and my bass is prolific.