wide and deep sound stage. sweet transparent and detail. good base good impact.

not very good in deep base.

I had listened other loudspeakers at this price. Some have good treble,transparent,good sound stage but not good in detail and base. Some have good detail,good treble and midrange but the base so soft and float. I think the Sonus GPH is lack of weak point like those.

Wonderful, crisp sound stage

Absolutely none

These are awesome speakers. I would not hesitate to recommend them to anyone.

music and movie sound tracks.

Expensive.

There are so many speakers out there. Finding the right speakers that suits your needs could be time consuming and rewarding. The Sonus Faber Grand Piano is one of the best speakers I have heard and seen. The finish is beautiful. They use real wood on the side for decoupling and leather like materials on the front/back/underside to dampen the sound. In music, I like the way it makes the instruments sounded natural. The highs are smooth like butter and the lows sounded full. Playing Patricia Barber-Companion CD shows how the vocal and the instruments are beautifully resolved. Ones setup correctly, you will hear 3Dimensionality with the emphasis on vocals which I really like. It is warm, bass is articulate. Engaging. IT is perfect! In Movies, again, the vocals are intelligible on the matching Solo. It can handle THX reference level without a sense of strain or compression. In short, the Sonus Faber Grand Piano Home is one of the best speakers I have heard on it's price point.

Everything. Seriously.

Bass dosent appear to go as deep as Vienna Acoustic Beethovens or Mozarts but what is there (which is plenty IMO) is much cleaner, articulate and integrated with the midrange.

I know this is not what audioreview intended. Some slub listening to speakers for a few hours in a showroom and then giving their opinion. However I feel the Grand Pianos deserve a quick opinion even though I listened to them for only about 2 hours. So bear in mind that I am not an owner when reading the text. Actually I wasn't even interested in this speaker and had never read any reviews. I was looking for a good bookshelf in the 1000 to 2500 price range. I was auditioning SF Concerto, Concertionos and Vienna Acoustic Haydns using my own material ranging from Acoustic, Jazz, and Rock. I prefered the Haydns to the SF products by a substantial margin. So I don't feel that I was biased toward the SF sound. Decided to listen to some floorstanders just to see what if anything would be gained by going up the price scale. While moving up the line I listened to the Bachs ($1500) and Mozarts ($2500). Neither of these impressed at all. The Beethovens ($4500) were a completely different story. Wonderfull Speakers that IMO were the best I ever heard. I was ready to leave the store when the rep naggingly almost insisted, that I listen to the Grand Pianos. Since the Concertinos offered very little if anything more then my Aperion 502D and I prefered the $1000 Haydns to the $1800 Concertos I saw little point listening to the $3200 GP after the much more expensive Vienna Acoustic Beethovens. I was reluctant to "waste" anymore time. When the Rep cued up track #4 from Lee Reitenour CD festival to put it mildly I was dazzeled (I don't dazzle easily). These sounded like live music! The dynamics, presence, soundstaging depth with layering wonderful with absolutely seemless musical presentation. Whatever I threw at them the more then held their own. Bottom line after reading the reviews below I agree the texturing soundstaging and musicality must be experience and this speaker simply should be on any ones audition list when looking for a quality floorstander regardless of budget.

Extraordinarily musical, rich sounding, and non-fatiguing. Non-hi fi sounding. Vocals, piano, strings, jazz, classical. Cool looking.

Rock music. Bass is not convincing for rock music, but for everything else it is great. Speaker placement is crucial.

I looked and looked at many price ranges and styles of speakers until I came across the Sonus Faber's. They all struck me as severely compromised in one way or the other, especially musically. When I heard the Grand Piano Home's, I heard music flowing out in a relaxed, organic fashion. Nothing bright, analytical, nor clinical about these speakers. Very natural sounding. Speaker placement took some figuring out, but once I found it.... they sound amazing. I find that they are not the most "neutral" or most "detailed" speaker out there, not that they are lacking in these departments, but I find they allow any existing spirit and emotion of the music to come out and "color" the listening experience... In other words, the first time I heard the SF's, the first word that popped into my head was "romantic". And it is romantic in the best sense. Break in takes about 300 hours before they really opened up and sang easily at their full potential. Vocals and smaller acoustical group type music shine, chamber music, jazz. If you are looking for a rock music speaker, look elsewhere. BTW the SF's are wonderful for Home theater as well.

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Speakers auditioned: Audio Physic Virgo's, Sparks, Gershman Chameleon, Thiel, B&W, Wilson Watt Puppies, Dynaudio, Martin Logan and many more that I can't remember now.

imaging, tight bass,

none

Awesome in every respect, I ran them in for about 100 hrs and the whole time they've been a pleasure. I have 2 pairs of walls and the matched center, driven with all adcom electronic and monster cables 1.2's and 950's. Its fantasic

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vienna mozarts

Great sound - very musical with a wide soundstage and a real presence and depth; Look great too

None

I upgraded my entire 2-channel stereo system a few months ago, and totally love the sound. These SF speakers are driven by Rotel 1080 amp (200 w/ch), Rotel 1090 pre-amp, and Rotel 1055 CD changer, with Audioquest Coral interconnects, AQ Bedock speaker cables, and MonsterPower Center 5100. These speakers have an incredibly wide soundstage (I have them towed so that they are aimed slightly in back of my head), with a very detailed sound. Vocals especially sound great. Cymbals are crisp. Overall, they are very musical speakers (I mainly listen to pop). When I first shopped for speakers at Tweeter, I was pretty impressed with VA Mozart, although I was tempted by the VA Beethovens. It wasn't until my return visit to Tweeter that I heard these SF speakers, and I immediately fell in love with them. They had a lot more depth and presence than the less expensive VA Mozarts, and I even preferred them to the more expensive VA Beethovens (played with the same equipment: 200 w/ch 2-channel B&K separates, with pretty cheap speaker wire). I also listened in a different store to the B&W Nautilus 804s since they receive so many great reviews. Despite the fact that they were powered by supposedly better equipment in the 2nd store (Musical Fidelity integrated amp with expensive speaker wires), I thought the 804s were too flat and downright boring. The SF speakers had much more punch and more presence. The bottom line is that if you are in the market for a pair of main speakers in this price range, you really must listen to these speakers. To quote Stereophile, I have never heard an SF speaker I didn't like.

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20-year old ADS 710s; compared to B&W N804, Vienna Acoustics Mozart and Beethoven

Everything

Instrument separation, Stop & Start and a squeaky clean treble as good as the B&W CDM-NT or N805/804 have, this speaker does not. But that is hardly damning though as it still has them along with an array of other excellent attributes.

Mesmerising speaker! All the technical hi-fi terms spring to mind ... from a 'layered' (so you can feel what is going on in the front, middle and back as per the recording) soundstage (more depth than width although width is good too), to good instrument separation, to brilliant detail (including gasps of breath), to a sweet (maybe slightly rolled off) reasonably/adequately airy treble, to exemplary male/female vocals (best i have ever heard along with Pro-Ac's which are also divine) and finally tight deep bass (although not the last word in depth) which has a plummy rounded feel to it (so not so lean and punch although good enough to satisfy me with even house/dance/pop) but perhaps not heavy rock (which i only occassionally listen to). Integration from lowest to highest note is great, and the sound has a quick exciting style, with great timing and a rhythmic flow. Perhaps the midrange is evr so slightly exaggerated but I really like this. Overall, what's most important of all is that the songs I hear are musical and highly emotionally involving with zero listener fatigue. It can be fine-tuned with cables & interconnects to provide the exact sound you want (i tried Nordost and Cardas to try both extremes and loved both). Ofcourse the final sound out of these speakers is highly dependant on the rest of the electronics being used. It is definately a warmish speaker presenting music in a forgiving manner and is probably not going to be liked by lovers of B&W speakers who enjoy a leaner, dryier more icy, crystal clear sound with a more punchy leaner bass response. I find it easy to drive although a reasonably powerful amp of good quality, along with a good source, is required to show off its potential. I am so happy. My sole concern is if DVD-A and/or SACD gets firmly established, these speakers don't have a high bandwidth going to 40-50 Khz so will that mean I lose out on any enjoyment as I plan to stick with these expensive and gorgeous speakers for years to come. Overall this is a very civilised refined speaker which simply excels at reproducing all genres of music and is not for bass fiends who like the massive US monsters such as Cerwin-Vega or JBL Monitors.

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Pro-Ac - Studio 100, Studio 125, Response 1.5, Super Tablettes, Tablettes 2000, B&W - CDM-7NT, N805, N804, Kef - Q Series & Reference range, Martin Logans, Acoustic Energy, Tannoy, Monitor Audio.

3D imaging, definition, soundstage, looks, price

bright, limited bass

I personally do not own these speakers. I did have the opportunity to listen to them in a friend's home and what I heard has inspired me to write a review for them. The most "jaw dropping" thing I found with the Sonus Fabers is it's 3D imaging. The soundstage they create extends behind, around, and above the speaker. I had to ask my friend if his center channel was on. The center speaker sat on top of his 40" wide screen set! I sensed a definite "pyramid" effect. I have never heard a speaker that had more air, detail and definition like the Sonus Faber. I will go out on a limb and say that I think they beat the pants off Dynaudio's Contour series. The midrange on these speakers is incredible. They shine with female vocals. We played selections from Bjork's Debut, Sarah McLachlan's Fumbling Towards Ecstacy and the new Sheryl Crow disc. Those selections alone showed me how great these speakers are. My only complaints are the speakers are a little bright for my taste and the bottom end wasn't as strong as I like it. The latter may be from the way he had his Proceed AVP2 setup. He did have a 10" NHT sub running with them which made the mix perfect. If I ever put together a second system, I will definitely purchase the Sonus Fabers.

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monitor audio, psb, dynaudio

Great highs, can push a lot of power.

Position is key. Need a beefy amp for the tight lows. B&K ref series seems to do the job nicely. From what I hear, takes a bit to run-in the speaker. In the meantime, they are a bit harsh on the highs.

I just received these puppies a few days ago, and all that I have read here is true. I have these speakers with the following configuration: B&K Ref 30 PreAmp B&K Ref 7270 Amp Monster 1000i / M2.1s / HTS5100 cables and power center Sony DVD As soon as I plugged them in, I was impressed with the low to high ranges. The detail that these speakers put out is pretty amazing. If you have a tone sensitive ear like myself, these speakers do the job. I would agree that they are a "bright" speaker, but I love the high ends. Great for symphonic sounds so far. The bass is tight with my setup. I did have to set the low-pass filter pretty high to get some good bass out of these speakers - but after the pre-amp setup, they sound great! The mid range is a bit lacking right now, but I just got them. I have yet to run them in, and it can only get better! I auditioned these speakers at a local hi-fi store (which they wanted 3200+tax) behind an adcom pre-amp/amp. I definately notice an improvement with the B&K equipment. The best money I have spent for any speaker so far. Position is a bit critical as well. You'll eventaully find that "sweet" spot, takes some time (took me a week :). I can't wait to complete the sonus faber set. Going to get the center and surround's real soon.

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Bose Acoustimass II (Yeah, pretty sucky) NHT JB Labs Onkyo Amp Marantz Amp