Salk HT3 vs Sonus Faber Domus Grand Piano

Sonus Faber has a loyal following, as do Jim Salk's speakers. The Audiocircle forum has a Salk speciic forum and many former VMPS (and other speaker mfg) owners swear by their HT3's. There is one universal comment about them, though, they are a magnificent piece of furniture. It's almost too high a praise, as in "she has a GREAT personality". But beyond looks, many of my audio pals are very much audio purists who demand great sound, and they love the HT3's. Sorry I haven't heard either, but thought the AC forum info would help you find folks who have listened to many speakers vs HT3's.

I heard the Salk HT3 in several homes, and probably I'm going to buy a pair. I'd put them in them in the same class as the Vandersteen 5A, and though I'm not familiar with the SF Grand Pianos, I doubt these compete with the Salks.

I auditioned a pair of SF Cremonas months ago and while I liked the overall sound, they did not excite me. In fact, they sounded a bit tame (e.g. muddied in the midrange and rolled off in the high freqs). I believe I read somewhere that these are voiced with a "BBC hump" and perhaps this is what I heard although the audition did not take place in my listening room. I also auditioned Vienna Acoustics Mahlers (similar sound), Maggie 3.6s, Dynaudio Contour 3.3s and Salk HT3s. In the end, I purchased the Salk HT3s.

As a former Innersound ESL owner, I can sum up the HT3s like this; I have the transparency and detail of ESLs combined with tremendous bass and excellent off axis response of a traditional cabinet speaker. While I lost some of the pinpoint imaging of the ESLs, I gained a much wider sweet spot and overall, a much better speaker IMO.

As a previous poster suggested, you can find much more info in the owners group on AudioCircle.com.

I found the Domus series to be a poor value with the Euro being so high. They don't sound bad, but there are much better choices in their price range. I felt they did had rolled highs and lacked image depth and air.

I have listened at length to the Cremonas as well, and I purchased Dali Helicon 800's instead which were significantly cheaper and offered many of the same strengths with less tradeoffs (I found the Cremonas to really lack drive and excitement with rock and pop music). When they released the Cremonas I think retail was around $6500, now they are at $9000 due to currency shifts, no longer much of a bargain for the money IMHO.