The rich, resonant upper bass gave rock material an overcooked quality.

It was least convincing with driving rock and pop, where bass lines would sometimes overwhelm the sound. You'll not be surprised though to hear that it favours certain types of music over others. Having adapted to the peccadilloes of this almost wilfully idiosyncratic loudspeaker, we had a great deal of thoroughly musical pleasure from this entry-level model, whose musical attributes are an excellent match for its stunning aesthetic qualities. It's all there, but there's nothing demonstrative about this unit. The treble meanwhile is clean, detailed and extremely sophisticated, with many of the qualities that we have learned to associate with ring radiating tweeters - a kind of dry, tightness. Pulling the speaker forward of the rear wall has a similar effect on the midband, which is perhaps why it works so well. However, it seems to compensate, or over compensate, with what is best described as an inherent loudness contour - a warm and somewhat waffly mid and upper bass that projects the sound of those instruments within its compass cellos, basses, the lowest octave of the piano for example - forward of the enclosure. It doesn't go particularly deep, though it matches other speakers of similar overall proportions. What has been delivered is a speaker with a slightly woofy bottom end. It is almost as though the design was conceived from the outset as a special case of a musical instrument. In fact, the Grand Piano Domus has a highly distinctive and unusual balance which we cannot believe is inadvertent. Musical instrumentĪll of this effort still doesn't deliver a sound that could be described as completely neutral.

Experimentation here will pay dividends and we'd avoid valve amplifiers that sound too much like valve amplifiers. It doesn't need - in fact cannot realistically cope with - enormous quantities of power, but it does need a replay chain that is lean, crisp and detailed if the aim is to avoid playing to the Sonus Faber's weaknesses. The right choice of amplifier and also speaker cable is key to this design. But, after a couple of hours under drive and sometimes with a slightly higher than normal volume setting (which turns out to suit the balance of this speaker) it wakes up noticably Straight from the box, or after an extended period of inaction, we found the speaker sounded congested and lacking in 'air'. The speakers will need to be extensively run-in and for a considerable period. Vertical orientation is possible using the adjustable feet, and this should also should be tweaked with some care. The optimum turned out to be with the speakers pulled well forward from the back wall, relatively close together and toed-in so that they were pointing directly at the listening hotseat. Used with a wide baseline, the speaker sounded phasey and back near a rear wall, the sound was soft and recessive. It's not too hard to see just which strings are being pulled and how.įirst and foremost, we had some difficulty in determining appropriate positioning. This is in most respects an utterly wonderful and beguiling loudspeaker, but it is not without foibles and criticism. But this is not a loudspeaker that sets out to give the user an easy ride. What you end up with is an unusually elegant tall column, with no hard edges and a very organic shape, enhanced more than a little aesthetically by the unusual grain orientation of the side panels and by the leather trim. These have enough adjustment available for some useful tweaking of the speaker's angle of attack. The enclosure sits on an overhanging steel plinth which provides the wide wheelbase required for stability and of course, anchor points for carpet piercing spikes. Our test pair were supplied in the teak option with a horizontal grain structure, but there's also a nice piano black lacquer finish available.

These use horizontally arranged staves of wood, which are glued together and then highly polished. The sides consist of what appear to be resiliently mounted panels. It also serves yet another purpose by helping guarantee a good pneumatic seal around the drivers. The front, top and rear panels are covered in real black leather (not leatherette as in some accounts), which is used to apply surface damping and helps control diffraction with its textured surface. Although this model is from the entry level range, we are dealing with a beautifully constructed, heavy enclosure with a cross section said to mirror that of a lute - it is wider at the front, narrow at the back and has outward bowed side panels.

Sonus faber grand piano domus