Replacement Sonus Faber grille strings?

 I have heard of people tightening the strings. As I understand it is not difficult but is time consuming.

 I have Sonus Faber Elipsa SE Red speakers and I don't use the string grills. Watch the strings on the grill as you play music, the strings noticeably vibrate. To my ears this can negatively affect the imaging. 

The ’silk strings’ of the SF speakers are IMHO....a design flaw...pure and simple.
They look nice, but they are truly a problem waiting to happen....as tboooe is now experiencing. Replacing or re-stringing the strings on the stands, or the grille, is a major head-ache and is no easy task. ( Unless one wants to pay to replace the strings or stands/grilles from SF....or their distributor; who sees $$$ signs immediately you inquire about this). IOW...a MAJOR PITA!

Otherwise, the GH’s, The GE’s and others in the line are nice/great speakers,LOL.

I have heard that fabric stores carry silk strings close to the ones used by Sf.

Definitely a PITA!  Good thing I love these speakers so darn much!

@daveyf , off topic but I just picked up another sub to go with my Evolutions.  I am in the process of dialing it in now.  I just bought a calibrated mic and will be using Room EQ Wizard to help me.  Hopefully I will be able to integrate a second sub into my system.

tboooe, I will be interested in your thoughts about the 2nd sub. I have been told that in a small room...like ours, that two subs can actually be detrimental. This, due to the probability of overloading the room. I have not experimented with two subs, even though I do own two REL t5's. Do report back on your findings.

@daveyf, the one thing I have going for me is my room may not be an acoustically small room.  Behind my seating position is only a 3' tall wall, above that is open to my family room and kitchen.  

I will say, so far so good.  The second sub adds more punch.  Note that I do not listen at high volume (~70db).  Whats interesting to me is that I never thought the music I listen to had much bass at all.  But if i place my hand near the subwoofer cone, I can feel it moving quit a bit even during parts of songs that I didnt realize even had bass below 40hz which is about where I crossed the subs over.  Anyway, I will keep you posted.

How much does SF want to charge you? Just curious.

Yo TBoooe...

How do you like your evos?  I've been eyeing one for some time now.

Yo TBoooe...

How do you like your evos?  I've been eyeing one for some time now.

joey_v!!  great to hear from you.  Hope all is well.

I absolutely love the Evos! In my smallish room they give me everything I want in a speaker.  I just added 2 Rel T 5i subs and now my system sounds great!  Of course, as with all things audio its all subjective.  But if you like the Sonus Faber sound then you wont be disappointed by the Evos!

Tbooe!

i have the SF olympica 3 so I like the SF sound bud

I checked with my local dealer. For my Cremona, the cost would be $1,000 for two grill assemblies. Ridiculous. So, we tighten up our strings by simply pulling on them and re-knotting them. On the Cremona, the string is knotted  at the bottom and does a loop over the top and back down and is knotted there.  So each length gives 2 grill strings. We just pulled on one end until both sides were  taut and re-knotted it. Pretty easy. Small hands help.

You can get elastic banding cord at most fabric stores. or craft stores. Here is one option. It is a little larger than what is on my Cremona but it could be used. I am pretty sure there are smaller sizes available. It was $3 for 5 yards at my local fabric store.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002XNLK88/ref=twister_B00BXQEZVU?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Take a look at the pictures here, especially the second one.

http://www.tapeheads.net/showthread.php?t=6007


 

I’ve seen this with the Amati’s, I believe they sag with humid days and stay that way because they’re hanging on their own weight.

Maybe if you spray/wet them with water, then dry them in the dryer, they’ll shrink a bit like a tee-shirt does when they’ve been dried in a dryer.

Cheers George

You need 1mm Fabric Elastic Cord it comes in a 328ft roll. You can purchase on EBay for about $35ea. You're going to need about 900ft. I replaced both sets on my Amati's Homage last year and they look like new.  By the way it took me three hours each.  

Have fun!!

Dtc, that photo is why I stated what I did above! I hate to think what would be involved to try and rectify those darn strings...
pjm2116. I presume you are talking of the speaker grills for the AH.
The speaker grill strings for the GH’s and I believe the other G’s are not the same diameter as the base grill strings. Replacing the base grill strings or the speaker grill strings looks to be a PITA!
As Dtc stated, the price to replace these strings from the dealer is ridiculous.
Such a shame as the speakers are very special...the strings are not, IMHO.

They are fabric\elastic try the wetting them, and then pop them in the dryer, they just need a little shrinkage, what have you got to loose.

Cheers George  

I resorted to just cutting off the little piece of metal at the bottoms of each string and re-knotting them as mentioned above.  No way I am paying $1000 to have these redone.  In the meantime I will check out the various replacement options listed above.

I had tightened my Auditor. However, after 2 year, the strings will lose the tightness again. We cannot tightened twice, all the strings had lost their elasticity.

I bought a pair of Sonus Faber Concertinos without grill covers. Can anyone point me to the right source where I can buy the grill-covers? Many Thanks!

I am missing 1 pc. of the Sonus Faber emblem at the bottom of the grill. Can someone point to where I can buy a replacement one? Thank you!

GUARNERI HOMAGE GRILL STRINGS- (used to be) $600 PLUS SHIPPING- special order from Italy.
I GAVE UP AND REMOVED THEM. THEY DO LOOK NICE, THOUGH.
BUT if they don't provide any protection at all, and they don't last at all,
it's really nuts- unless someone invents a regular cover replacement that fits onto the speaker. I don't care if it blocks .01% of the upper frequencies.

@french_fries I think that price from SF was for the material only, then you had to have someone string them...another crazy cost!
I certainly hope someone would invent a grill replacement that would fit on the speaker. I have been recently tightening up all of my strings, wth some success...BUT this is a temporary fix! Who knows what happens once the strings on the stands begin to fail...I hate to think! Like I stated in my prior post, these strings look good, BUT IMO they are a severe design flaw due to their aging factors!

I tighten mine once like 6 years ago, it got lose again. Just don't pay attention too much. They should have just sold the strings and let us do the re-stringing by ourselves.

I paid attention that many audio companies do not last for a long time. Most of them come and go. In the 80s, I bought top of the line Celestion SL700SE, then they stopped making high end speakers, then I bought Sonus Faber, now they are not the same company like before. Pay attention, there are many other companies like that. 

Boy, do I have great news for Sonus Faber fans:

The Elipsa grille kit is $80.00 plus shipping costs. The part number is SON9940033. If you would like to order the grille kit please fill out the online Parts Request form: https://airtable.com/shrCYsyBO4Rt0ovXI. If you have any questions, please let me know.

A fair and reasonable sum.  Received this from Sumiko USA today.  

I dunno if the dealer was just ripping his customer, or Sumiko was charging a far different amount in days past.  

I'd always hoped that U$1000 price was urban myth.   In any event, those who have saggy grilles but like the look, these kits are available for quite a reasonable amount.

And I’ll add a bit more data on the elastic string topic. I have a pair of Cremona Ms and a Cremona Center. Yes, Sumiko is offering pre-cut strings for these speakers at a reasonable price:
- Cremona M pre-cut strings $70/speaker (Part SON9940117)
- Cremona Center pre-cut strings $50/speaker (Part SON9940078)

I received and installed them and it was a piece of cake, if a bit time consuming. I pulled off the top and bottom brackets, then cut and removed the old strings and laid the brackets left-right on a table. It’s a simple matter to thread a string through one bracket, then the other bracket, a short U-turn down the next hole and back to the first bracket’s next hole. That is, each string is double length and makes two lines. Then you just tie off the two ends in a single knot.

One trick is to hold the brackets vertical on the table with something; I used two spring clamps. Of course the other trick is to do it all loosely so you’re not dealing with tension.

Now the speakers are like new and good for another . . . hmmm, how many years?

I've been thinking about this for years.  This thread gave me the will to tighten by hand, and the fallback of buying new strings from Sumiko if something went wrong.  It's tedious, but with some good music...

Not sure if the string grilles work quite the same on other SF, but with Stradivarius, I simply inverted them so the "bottom" of the string grill was facing up.  Then, one by one, put a new knot in the string about 6-8" in.  Cut off the excess.  Inverted the grill so bottom is facing down.  Big visual improvement.

 

Contact https://finesounds.com/ and they will sell you the strings only for just the cost of shipping. They no longer have the metal brackets...

Spoke to FineSounds America - phone # (510)843-4500 yesterday regarding replacement grill strings for my Guarneri EVO. They asked to provide speakers serial number to verify the exact model and ordered the string kit part number KIM110001 free of charge for me. I pay only cost of shipping - the kit will come directly from Italy.

 

@krell303  Thanks for the info. I also spoke to Fine Sounds and sure enough the speaker grill strings are available. I also asked for the stand strings, which I am now going to be getting from Italy.  Not sure of the procedure to mount the strings onto the grills or the stands, but will be a work in progress. 

I received my re-string kit today from Fine Sounds. Impressive service. I noticed that they are still Sumiko and also the McIntosh group. I received four packs of the strings, presumably two packs per speaker grill?? I also ordered the strings for the stands, which have to come from Italy and will arrive later.