Any info on new Sonus Faber Amati Anniversario?

from what I read, should be the same price as original Amati Homage, or $24k retail.

I read in a Taiwan audio publication or web site a major designer in Scanspeak left the company to form his own speaker company which will in effect compete with Sonus Faber. As a result, Franco got upset and switched out as many Scanspeak drivers as possible. Check out his new Domus line, no Scanspeak except tweeter which is sourced from Vifa.

I am not thrilled about the new Anniversario styling especially the rear ports. Original Amati Homage is classy and elegant, Cremona is stylish targeted for younger audience, but Amati Anniversario seems like a bad blend of the two. Maybe I will change my mind when I see the real thing.

As a former owner of Dynaudio Confidence 5, I know bass speed. C5 is a compounded bass design in a sealed cabinet and produced the fastest bass I have heard from any speakers. I have owned close to 30 pairs of speaker in the past 10 years, I hope I know what I am talking about. C5 became one of my favorite speaker of all time.

But after owning Amati, I discovered what I was missing all along. There is more to bass than just speed. Scanspeak woofers are not known to have the fastest bass, Seas/Eton/Accuton etc are better known for that. But real life bass is never super damped and tight and Scanspeak produces bass with superb balance of detail, speed, and warmth. My question is has Sonus Faber gone to the dark side and starts making hifi sounding speakers that has tremendous detail, speed, extension, but not music?

It took me a long time to love Amati after owning Extrema for years. Extrema was one speaker that can music no matter what you throw at it. Amati is much more finicky and required more care in upstream equipments and setup. Do I need to brain wash myself all over again and learn to love the "new" Sonus Faber sound?

Branimir and Alma, please don't use this thread as the battle ground. We are here to help each other by giving your opinion, not saying who is right or wrong.

I am sure everyone will agree sound & look are very personal. I can't comment on the Anniversario sound since I haven't heard it. But I do know I like the old styling better. Another thing that puzzled me was the weight of the Anniversario, it weighs 25 lb lighter than Amati Homage EACH! I haven't compared the physical size of the two speakers, but I assumed they should be close. 25 lb is a lot of weight to lose and I don't know how Sonus Faber pulled it off.

As for cost, no one except Sonus Faber finance depart will know the exact figure. But general rule of thumb is topline WBT binding post is about as expensive as it gets. I also own Cremona, binding post on that is like a toy in comparison. Woodwork is both time consuming and costly, both required world class craftsmanship. But what happens inside the speaker is a mystery unless someone volunteer to take out the drivers to compare. I know Amati Homage has very extensive damping inside using copper plates, not sure about Anniversario.

I do hope Anniversario is as good or better sounding than Amati Homage to keep Sonus Faber in the prestige league. But as I already mentioned, I have owned most of the top end Sonus Faber in the past and Sonus Faber continues to move away from its "house sound" generation by generation.

But my check book will be ready if Anniversario proved to be as good as it claimed.

Glad to hear we can all live in peace.

I do agree Alma has better front end than his dealer, I heard the Audio Aero Capitole several times and each time I told myself I should get one someday.

I am also well aware Mr. Skanning is the founder of Dynaudio, Scanspeak, and Skanning (Audio Technology). Many have claimed the best Skanning drivers ever made was the one in Extrema. As an Extrema owners for years, I do find Amati to have better mid overall from transparency, detail, imaging, and other perspectives. To say Scanspeak is behind is probably not a fair statement, Scanspeak does have many brilliant engineers that continue to create world class drivers. Also, I am really not a big fan of polypropolyne (sp?) cone after owning Dynaudio for years. I found plastic cones to have a distinctive sound where carbon impregnated paper cone to have less "sound". Mr. Skanning might be a genious and he agrees metal cones are the worst, but his choice of cone material does not suite my "taste". But then speaker sound is a lot more than driver choices and Franco has proved that theory over and over again.

Play my Amati last night, still wondering how can it be improved?

Kops,

This I can share. I have gone thru several power amps (Pass Labs, Accuphase, ARC, Sonic Frontiers, BAT VK-150, and some others can't remember right now) and BAT VK-75SE (or VK-150SE) really brings out the soul of Amati.

I had some reservation with BAT 75SE initially due to its low power rating. But speaking to Sonus Faber importer in Denmark who has access to many other fine power amps including Rowland he liked BAT VK-75SE best. The difference is not subtle - solid imaging, speed, rise and decay of each note, bass extension, transparency, and details to spare. I was so impressed I almost bought a second one to bridge if it wasn't the small room. I am sure Tenor OTL or Atma-Sphere OTL will be equally impressive or better, but BAT is tough to beat.

What do you guys use?