Sonus faber Stradivari loudspeaker

Possibly one of the most elegant wooden artifacts that potentially ever grace a home. Made by Italians but fit for a Pharaoh. This design is a fitting tribute to the brand’s four-decade artisanal legacy. Located in Italy’s Veneto region, the company draws its inspiration from the violins of Antonio Stradivari, Andrea Amati, and Andrea Guarneri, master luthiers from Cremona whose instruments are renowned for their otherworldly sound.

The Sonus Faber Stradivari is thus aptly named, as its wide front baffle and sensuous form recall the hollow body of a violin. The enclosure of the latest Stradivari is a complex one—essentially a pentagonal shape when viewed from above—evolved from the elliptical footprint of the original, which launched in the early 2000s. Like its predecessor, the Stradivari Second Generation features a wide front baffle, which is partially responsible for the speaker’s organic, natural, full-bodied sound.

What Sonus Faber calls Clepsydra Technology (“water thief” in Greek, apropos of the ancient water clocks designed circa 325 B.C.) is a downward-firing, hourglass-shaped bass-reflex port designed to maximize low frequency performance. And the six-inch Neodymium-magnet midrange driver handles the lion’s share of the sound signature for which the manufacturer is famous. From as low as 160 Hz to 2,200 Hz, this driver is the heart and soul of the Sonus Faber sound, aided and abetted in its role by the one-inch soft-dome tweeter. These loudspeakers are relatively sensitive, at 92 dB, but present a 4-Ohm nominal impedance, so a high-current amplifier of between 100 watts to 600 watts will go a long way toward making them sing.

The Stardivari has a relatively shallow visual profile and a depth of less than 45cm at the center rear with proportions therefore more akin to a planar design rather than a regular moving coil rectangular box. Set atop a metal base, the loudspeaker can have its angle changed by means of four height-adjustable spiked feet. Using what the designers call Intono technology, the cabinet is divided and damped internally to provide individual, ducted compartments for tweeter and midrange transducers, eliminating internal resonances and standing waves.

Like the original Stradivari from 2005 the latest version uses a pair of 10-inch woofers , but which are entirely new. The latter feature an anti-resonant organic basket, specially formed to avoid vibration modes naturally generated by the pulp-paper woofer cone and voice-coil assembly, producing usable bass down to 25 Hz.