Clarity, soundstage, esthetic appearance / size

Deep bass

I am using the Sonus Faber Concertos in Walnut with a REL Strata III Subwoofer, B&K electronics and an Arcam CD changer. Room size is 20 feet by 33 feet with 9 foot ceilings with a peak height of 15 feet in the middle of the 33 foot dimension. For this reason, I did listen to the Sonus Faber Grand Pianos in the Tweeter store in Burlington MA. I perceived the Concerto's were clearer & more accurate especially on Jazz vocals. Bass on the GP's were slightly deeper. The sound in my room is so clear ... it brings big smiles and tears to your eyes. It is good for someone who is turning 48 and thinking his hearing is not what is was 20 years ago. Bass is extremely tight and musical. Sound quality is excellent at low volume also.

The Contessa, my wife, hears a huge difference from the B&W's we had before, and, with the REL subwoofer, it is even better than our ADS 1290L's in our Massachusetts home. She even likes the look of the Concerto's [Walnut finish].

Perhaps we'll spring for the Amati Homage when we move back to Massachusetts in about 5 years.

Similar Products Used:

Upgrading from B&W DM-602 S2; ADS l1290 [Massachusetts residence]

These are great value for the price. They were my second choice to the 5 Totem One's I just bought. The Totems overall are better than the Concertino's, but cost a good deal more. For the price, these cmall Sonus Faber's are hard to beat

I just got a pair of the Sonus Faber Concertina speakers and they are great! Beautiful sound and beautiful looks. The clarity of the high end is bell-like and the tight, supple mid/low end comes through with punch and definition. Very neutral sound also; no harsh or artificial coloring. If you close your eyes on a trumpet solo or a vocal, the sound seems to float in the middle of the speakers. Experiment with placement and height, it makes a difference. I have a low-end Luxman receiver and it is plenty powerful for these. I also have a Boston Acoustic sub-woofer that rounds out the sound; this is a powerful combination! I am a serious listener but until now never spent as much money on a component as these speakers. After hearing these in a sound room in comparison to others I couldn't resist, and the price is favorable when compared to true audiophile performance.

I tried the sonus faber on a Macintosh MC 1000, Wadia CD separates and prepower. The results, dynamism that is difficult to match in its class. I later tried the lower powered Krell power amp, no problem perform beautifully. What is interesting that this bookshelf is able to stage the sound close to you, like you are sitting at the front seats.

Sonus Faber Concertino don't only sound facinating and really looks authentic. Easy to drive, transparant, and plenty of bass for jazz enthusiast. Its a piece of well priced and high fidelity equipments.

Its an easy choice for jazz avid listeners if you have big or small room.

I tried the smaller version Sonus Faber Concertino, as expected, not as dynamic, as open and poorly perform in the bass. Maybe it will sound well in a tweeny tweeny small room.

It is too bad that the poster below had a terribleexperience with bad sales people, because
this is the best speaker I have heard in its
price range

It blows away other speakers of its size, and all
speakers in its price range pale in imaging comparisons

I hope the poster below finds a better dealer,
these and the Concertos are worth every penny

It is sad that certain dealers pay all their attention to doing sales rather than providing excellent service and sales. I'll suggest to Johann of Singapore to audition the SF in Malaysia instead. My experience with the dealer here (Audio Image) is highly positive, both before and during the economic downturn. And he doesn't speak LOUDLY in Hokkien.
The SF Concertino's are a pair of remarkable speakers which will not fail to impress. They can really sing. I find that their strong point is in the treble/midrange, where the clarity and resolution really shines. The bass is not the most powerful around but for their size, it is hard to beat. Compared to other small speakers, their bass is powerful and dynamic.

The SF Concertino's is an articulate speaker. It has good transparency and is suitable for long hours of listening. From a different point of view, it would be unfair to judge the quality of a pair of speakers based on their dealers. After all, that's what this column is all about - to review the speakers and not the dealers.

I bought the Concertinos last week, the imaging is amazing, the highsand mids are the best I've ever heard, add a good sub to these and
you can't go wrong,

I have a large room and they fill it better than most large speakers

To make a short story as short as possible: Bought an Arcam 8 CD player and took the Concertinos' home on demo loan. Put the Arcam up against my 7-year old, slightly wheezing CAL Tercet III, then put the Arcam back in the box, shipped it back to the store and took home a new pair of Concertino's instead. Feeling foolish that I had bought a US$1K pair of speakers with no comparrison's and no research, I rushed out to all the other hi-end dealers in the city to sample bookshelf speaks. Heard some B&W's, still not a big fan. Heard the Focal's, yawn. Took home a pair of PSB Strata Mini's (see seperate review) on extended week long demo (the dealer went to a trade show and was closed for a week), by Sunday they were taking up floor space. I think I'm a gonna keep the Concertino's (unless I can convince myself to pop down the extra $600 for the larger Concerto's).
The full story? I have realized that any speakers in this size are going to have flaws. Most try a bigger box and tune drivers and ports for maximum bass and and end up stretching the midrange too thin. They might have good bass "for their size," a good section of midrange, and a crispy high end, but it seems like those big dots are hard to connect. They may achieve a "good overall response," "disappear" and be "easy to listen to" but what good is all that if they put you to sleep?

The Concertino's are the only small speakers I've yet heard that are far more than the sum of their parts. They work so well as a unit that they "dissappear" immeadiately, almost everything you put through them jumps alive. Soundstage is Big, Deep and Wide. Hi's and Hi-Hi's are crisp, exact, and exciting. There is a slight emphasis in the hi-mids that can get brash, particularly at high volume with horn's and crash cymbals. In fact, this is one of my two main criticisms. This slight emphasis in the high mids has, in turn, two side effects. One, they seem to pick apart bad recordings. The detail they reveal tonaly, spacially, and in phasing terms means that really good recordings sound really great and bad ones sound really bad. Every studio trick, every digital effect, every slightly missed fader move is laid bare for you to hear. This can be fun and exciting, or else annoying.

For instance, I happen to really like Portisheads album. They have a mood, a pretty good singer, and some really good songs. But, part of their 'concept' appears to be that all the tracks sound like they were mixed on my clock radio. And, in fact, on the systems that 99.98% of their audience listens to them on, they sound fine. On my last speakers, some M&K's, they sounded great. On the Concertino's, they are almost unlistenable. The sampled record pops are suddenly overpowering the mix, the bass is a dull thud hitting the exact spot between the 'Tinos and my sub-bass rig and Beth Gibbons' whiny, over-effected voice is grating and so shrill that I can't even aproach rock&roll volume without my ears protesting. I almost returned the spekers because of this one CD. But this CD was a pretty rare exception.

The second side effect is that they can seem a tad unruly. I find myself constantly adjusting the volume from track to track. I can feel myself getting a bit tired of listening after awhile because things get just a tad overwhelming. But when I am listening, mama mia, paradisio!

My only other criticism is not really a flaw considering their size - they have no bass. In what is perhaps a very smart move, these speakers do what that they do (high's & mids) exceedingly well, and then leave it at that. They don't try and overcompensate for bass response and thus don't screw anything else up. The problem is that they roll off just a tad too early. If you have a typical active sub-woofer (and you're gonna need one with these babies) then the usual highest crossover point is probably between 125-180Hz. If you can x-over at 180, you're probably OK, especially if the slope is >18db/octive. My AudioControl x-over is 24db/octive and I got it up to 216Hz, and it seems fine except that there's actualy some vocal in the sub-woof, which I don't like. But I definately noticed the lack of punchy bass when x'd at 125Hz - it was weak in the 150-250Hz range. So just be careful about matching. I could say the same thing about CD players - I listened to them with an Arcam 8, which I found to be a bit forward and bright, and the effect is accentuated with the 'tino's, so try at home if possible before you buy.

Anyway, to review:

Hi's above 10K: Perfection. Crisp, detailed, technical.
Hi's 5-10K: Great. Round, full, dynamic, musical.
Mid's 1-5K. Great. Alive, extreamly musical. Female vox sound amazing. A bit
overextended, can become brash, esp on questionable recordings, but with a
good mix, you'll never notice.
Low Mids 500-1K: Fantastic. Sweet, linear, full.
Low's 100-500: Starting to lose energy.
Below 100: non existant.
Sounstaging: Unbelievable. The unity and phase-acuracy of these speaks is at
once the most impressive thing about them. Instruments are precisely placed
left-to-right and front-to-back with truely impressive depth. Vertical
soundstage is not as dynamic, but still very good.
Musicality: Genius. Passionate, tempermental, involving. They will make you
cry.

I bought a pair of Sonis Faber Concertinos when they were on sale.
I had tried several small bookshelf speakers, including the Paradigm Studio 20, NHT 1.5, Monitor Audio Studio 2 SE, Epos ES 12. None in this price range came close to what these speakers did in terms of imaging, transparency and coherence. They lack ultimate bass extension but get most other things right.

Besides which they are beautifully made and really are quite excetional for the price.

I have the Sonus Faber Concertino for about a year now and I am still quite
confused about these speakers. Sometimes I think that I am in heaven and
sometimes they can sound harsh and irritating. I think the reason is in the
stuff that fad in. I listen mainly to classical music and some jazz when the
disc and the performence are good the speakers sound exellent when there is
something wrong with with origin of the of the music better not to hear it
and go to some mini system.
Vocals especially women voices sound terrific. Brass trumpets and horns
sound very natural with the glamour of the high spectrum better then any
other speaker I have heard. Violins sound very real and it is a hard test for
any speaker. Drums sound very precise and natural. Solo piano sound
exellent. On the other hand full orchestra sound a little vague or blurred and
finally I did not like too much the solo cello (Bach suites) that sounded like
a hard plastic membrane.
It may be that my gear is not the ideal one for the Sonus Faber. I have
Marantz CD63SE as a CD player, NAD Monitor 7000 receiver that is used as a
pre and NAD 214 power amplifier. I also have Thorens TD160 turntable with
exellent Stanton CS-100 cartridge. The same story with the vinyl record, some
sound exellent and others reveal mistakes in the production or recording that
I did not hear in other speakers.
The speaker were planned to be in a small room but my wife liked their style
very much and asked me to locate them in our big living room about 25 sq.m.
It may be that the room is too big for the Concertino's sometimes I have the
filling that they fill the room naturally and effortlessly and sometimes I fill
that they work too hard.
It may be that some Hi End Expensive tube amplifier will do more justice to
the speakers but I have to try them in my room for a while and that is almost
mission impossible.
I give them 5 stars for the good CD's and records that I have.