Sonus Faber Cremona M vs Verity Audio Parsifal

First off I admit that I've never heard any Verity Audio products. I have, however, heard several SF speakers and most recently heard a pair of Cremona Ms. They knocked my socks off. They weren't even in a particularly sophisticated setup. They were sourced and powered by the Marantz PM8004 / SA8004 bundle. Not junk certainly, but not exactly extravagant either.

Usually for a speaker as fine as the Cremona M I want to play vinyl or at least SACD. I was supplied the Diana Krall CD (not bad for a CD) that has "Peel Me a Grape" and "All or Nothing at All."

The demo blew me away. I could hear a level of ambience I didn't know was on "Peel Me a Grape." Her voice was extremely natural and transparent with no hint of cabinet coloration and I couldn't have wished for a better tonal balance. The higher level of ambience seemed to be from simply better low level resolution because I detected no tip-up in high treble or the types of tricks often used to increase the perception of detail.

The other really telling test was Christian McBride's athletic bass intro to "All Or Nothing at All." This is some fast upright bass played by one of the few remaining living masters. It was astounding. The Cremona M woofers tracked that bass line perfectly and I never would have guessed that the cab is double ported because there were no hot spots or dips in the bass frequency response. The bass stays linear with no dropoff right down to his slide at the end to near the bottom of the bass's range.

So impressive was this performance that this demo haunted me for weeks. Under current circumstances there's no way I could afford a pair, but I'll say that if I ever got within sniffing distance of $10-12K for a pair of speakers, the Cremona Ms would be it. In fact, if I wanted a pair of true full range speakers good down to 20 Hz, I would get the Cremona Ms plus a pair of JL F112s and be done with it.

Of course YMMV but for me, the Cremona Ms have something special where emotional communication and involvement are concerned. I can't listen to them without the music invoking a very strong emotional reaction, usually a great big smile. I have no doubt they'd keep their composure in large scale classical and big band. After all, I was auditioning them with a 70 wpc integrated SS amp. How much potential do these guys have?

Marty, what Prima Luna amp did you try with the Cremona M's? I am contemplating buying a pair myself, and currently own a DiaLogue One amp (with KT88's) and use Sonus faber Toy Towers in a small room. I'd be curious to hear more about your experience with the PL/SF Cremona M combo. Thanks in advance!

I would agree with the general tone of this thread - the local dealer where I bought my second-hand Parsifal Encore's also carries SF, and I listened to the Cremona M's. While they are a very nice pair of speakers, they aren't quite in the class of the Parsifal's IMHO. They're missing the bottom-end accuracy and output to really be full-range speakers. Of course, they're also half the price of Parsifals.

As always, it comes down to your own priorities. While I can't, with my set of preferences, understand somebody preferring Cremona's to Parsifal's, both are excellent speakers that I never thought I'd be able to consider. It just seems that Verity speakers don't have as good resale value as SF, perhaps in part to the stunning good looks of the SF speakers - but that makes the Verity speakers a great deal used (and it's not like they look bad!).

Beyond,

I own PL 6 mono amps.

I'm struggling to recall which output tube I settled on for the Cremonas since they ended up with the Pathos pretty quickly. The PL amps subtly, but clearly, change character as you swap output tubes - I suspect that the choice of output tube type is about as significant as the choice of amp model in the PL line. These days, I use KT66s when the PLs are on duty, but that tends to be with Merlin VSMs.

I'd suggest that you call Kevin Deal at Upscale Audio in Upland, Ca. He's a dealer for both SF and PL. He's a good guy and a straight shooter with long experience pairing up these brands.

Good Luck,

Marty