Continues to amaze me with its' detail and precision for such a reasonable price. Lovingly hand-crafted with the finest of materials - beautiful.

To add to my previous notes on this speaker - I have recently purchased the somewhat expensive but solidly built fixed-height matching stands for these speakers. I now understand what other reviewers here and elsewhere mean when they praise these little gems so highly. I was quite impressed with them before but now the bass and lower midrange have tightened up considerably. Detail, ambience and spatial cues are greatly increased as well. I had previously been using a pair of Lovan stands and assumed that little improvement could be made with the SF stands other than an aesthetical one. Boy was I in for a wonderful surprise!

The Sonus Faber stands bolt directly into the bottom of the Concertinos with finely machined bolts that are designed to be tightend by hand. The stands alone are quite heavy and I recommend that you not sand-fill the stands until you are fairly sure of your speaker position or have help to move them. The combined weight of the stands and sand in addition to the bolting of the stand into the speaker provides a coupling with the floor (via spikes) of the room such that it allows the Concertinos drivers to deliver considerably more than I expected they could.

My previous review cited the stands as "a bit pricey at $425.00". I now believe them to be quite worth it. My satisfaction with the Concertinos has increased a fair amount. I cannot wait until I pair them to a REL subwoofer.

bass

I use SF concertino for a year . i really love it ! Sound was beautiful and detail . And before i choose it , i want to get myself a B&W speakers , CDM-1 . But finally , I choose " concertino " . Because i like the SF sound style , and their outlook design , nice wood with real leather and the Italian art design .

Of course , sound was the main point for why I choose Concertino . It's sweet and lovely as a beautiful girl .

If I will gave up concertino in future time , i will take SF conerto grade piano speaker . It's another SF great design speakers for music lover , like me .

I will highly recommend to all of my friends who love music and hi-fi audio .

Excellent highs, clear mids

limited bass, but what do you expect from a bookshelf speaker?

I have listened to many speakers in this price range and these are the finest, bar none. The B&W's sound nice, but not nearly as musical as the Sonus'. They sound like fine violins, and they should, given their construction... walnut from Virginian Walnut trees, "tuned" by expert ears.

Similar Products Used:

B&W 302, Signet SL280, B&W CDM1

Best highs at the price, very smooth and refined. Mids sweet, voices very natural.
Excellent bass response!!

NONE!

Probably the best at the price, even higher. I was blown away by the bass
quantity - at least with my system.

(NAD 312, Marantz cd67se, mf x10-d, cable talk / kimber pbj).

Similar Products Used:

SF Concerto, Parva, Minima Amator

Silky-touch midrange; very good for violins and vocals, musicality, pinpoint imaging, beautiful wood/leather finish,

Bass

This pretty set of Italian loudspeakers brings you "MUSIC". I believe it is one of the ideal products for solo violin and Canzone at this price range. I loved to live with them. However, the size of the cavinet and the woofer eliminates the volume of bass (but fairly speaking, it is far beyond the average of small bookshelf speakers). That is indeed a problem which I cannot live with when listening to orchestral music. I once considered to purchace SF Grand Piano Home, but it was a little bit expensive for me. SF's good sobwoofer "Gravis" costs approx.twice more than Concertinos. So I gave them up and purchaced B&W CDM7NT.

Similar Products Used:

B&W CDM1, CDM7NT, Bose

Aesthetics, Very good with vocals and acoustic instruments.

Not very efficient.

I've heard the Concertinos, Concertos and Electa Amators side-by-side with Adcom and Plinius amps and Rega and Arcam source units all in the same high end shop. Very musical, especially good with female vocals and acoustic instruments. In comparison to the Vienna Acoustics they had a much fuller balance and richer tone.

At home I was first running the Concertinos off my HT setup, which consists of a Pioneer DVL700, Marantz AV550 and ATI AT1505. I wasn't even close to realizing the musical experience I had at the store. Thus, I was bitten by the high end bug.

I removed the Sonus Fabers and my Musical Fidelity E60 CD player from the HT and started a dedicated music system. A month ago I bought a used Sim Audio Moon I-5 integrated amp. After breaking-in the amp along with a new set of DH Labs BL-1 interconnect and T-14 biwired speaker cables I am getting closer to the dream. The Sonus Fabers IMO require good electronics in front of it. The soundstage and placement of instruments has broadened and come into focus. The Sim Audio is really making the Concertinos sing. Everything is head and shoulders above what the Marantz/ATI could manage.

However, depending on the music being played there is sometimes a lean balance to my system. It could be because of the absence of a subwoofer. That and I'm also beginning to suspect the acoustics of my room. I have a pair of DH Labs Silver Pulse interconnect that I've never used, and I'm waiting for a .5 meter Cardas Golden Cross to arrive too. Maybe these cables will help mellow the sound some.

A friend of mine has Concertos with a Conrad Johnson tube preamp and a Classé CA-100. Neither are known to be bright components, but if the Concertos are more than 2 feet from the wall they sometimes sound bright. This leads me to believe that placement is very critical too.

In my system there are times when I experience magic. This is an expensive hobby and I don't want to upgrade every 6 months. I am still searching for my ideal system, but for now I am very happy with my Concertinos!

Similar Products Used:

Vienna Acoustics Haydn, NHT SuperZero/SuperOne, PSB Alpha

Hi there,
This is John van Polen again; I changed my name to get this message through. To prevent misunderstandings: my concertino's are new. I guess I should have filled in 2000 for product model year. BTW, I used a MIT terminator 3 and an Audioquest Ruby interlink; the Ruby sounding better: far more warm, powerfull and homogeneous. This suggest one should go for warmer electronics; otherwise the puppies can become too bright.

Very musical (neutral sounding, non-colored sound), non-fatiguing, beautiful mid-range

Can be difficult to drive. Sensitive to placement and electronics.

I came to own my Concertinos in something of a fortuitous way. Namely that I built my system from the speaker in (which I used to think was the right thing to do). In retrospect I see that I was very lucky. Once I ditched the mass produced Sony craplifier that was a hand me down from my 'sis and bought a Audiolab 8000S I have been almost perfectly happy ever since. Every six months or so I will get the audiophile itch and go to listen to some gear but I still keep coming back to my setup which has remained unchanged for about 3 years now. The Concertio is an excellent speaker for the price. I have been most pleased with how it handles the human voice and solo piano repertoire - which IMHO is a very difficult thing to do.

They are difficult to drive though and respond well to a powerful amp. Also I wouldn't get them if you want speakers that thump - these speakers don't produce a lot of dBs. What's interesting is that I almost never miss the lack of bass. I have lived with these speakers in three different settings. They don't work well in small rooms - I think they need space to breathe. They literally took several months to break in. I always found that the best sound was achieved by bringing them 3 or more feet from the wall. The openess of the sound thus achieved more than offsets the extra bass lost which these speakers weren't really meant to produce in the first place.

I have the heavy SF stands.

Soundstage, reproduction of vocals, neutral sound compared to others

Thin (although more accurate) low end bass (but these are bookshelf speakers, remember)

I remember laughing when I first saw the Concertinos (leather?..$1400 with stands?). I wasn't planning to spend that much, but I listened and I couldn't go back to cheaper speakers. More listening, and nothing else I heard in the price range came close, including the equivalent Vienna Audio. And more expensive ones didn't necessarily sound much better for the extra $$. (diminishing returns above $1k?)

Compared to my old Advents (fine for their day), I was hearing instruments in the music that I had not before. The speakers dissolve and the music is more effortless. The sound stage appears to be 10 feet wide although the Concertinos are only 5 feet apart. The bass is tight and full enough for jazz. I could even feel (although lightly) the 16hz organ on Saint Saens Organ Concerto from an old LP. However, Concertions will let you know about recording imperfections, even from track to track, but I won't blame them.

My other equipment is simple: NAD 50 watt per channel receiver, an old Philips GA212 turntable with Ortofon cartridge, and a Kenwood CD player. As one salesperson said, I did have to experiment with the Concerto's proper distance from the wall to get the best bass. I later replaced my old Monster cables with Audioquest 4+ speaker wires and Turquoise interconnects, and got cleaner highs and a bit more bass.

I knocked one star off for the price of the stands.

After auditioning various speakers to be used for music as well as for home theater for the past few weeks, I came across these speakers and they are excellent. I've listened to speakers in the $500 range which included NHT Superone, PSB Alphas, Atlantic Technology, KEF Q15, Paradigm mini monitors and a few others I can't remember. I think in this price range the Paradigm can't be beat. Nice full range sounding speakers. A little punchy and bassy but not bad at all. Good for movies and music listening. When I moved up to the $1,000 range, I've listened to this speaker and compared it to the Vienna Acoustics Haydn which is also in the same price range, side by side. The sound on these speakers are definitely more crisp and detailed than the $500 speakers but I prefer the Vienna over this one. Don't get me wrong. My friend was also listening to the same speakers and he prefers the Sonus over the Vienna's. I think the Sonus has good top range and good bottom range with some decent bass going but lacks a full sounding mid range especially on the vocals on some of the music. The bass tends to drown out the midrange. The Vienna is a brighter speaker and if you prefer good highs, excellent mids and decent bass (but not lacking), this is the one to get. If you like emphasis on bass then you might want to consider the Vienna's. I personnaly prefer the Vienna's.