Sonus Faber Cremona Auditor old v new

Tda2200 - I would agree that Primare and Rotel are not up to the task of bringing out the best of the Cremona. My comparisons were with higher end amps. The difference between the lower end B&K and the higher end amps was definitely dramatic, as expected. I did try the AR switching amp, which I believe uses a similar technology to your Linn amps. It sounded very nice, with good base control and reasonable good treble. But I liked the Levinson 432 better. It had the smoothest treble and most controlled bass, with very good dynamics. Might be interesting to compare it to the Linn amps. The Edge amps were also very nice, but are not easily available here (Boston). The general feeling is that if going SS, then lots of power and power reserve is the best for the Cremona, especially for the base. The 432 is 400 watts per channel at 8 ohms. I also agree that you need a good source. We actually prefer vinyl which matches the Cremona very well. We use a Linn Linto as a phono pre-amp. It is one of the most dynamic and quietest ones available. Incidently, I have Transparent Audio cables, which really matched well with the Levinson and Cremona.
Influence - you are lucky to be able to listen to all these options. SF is basically not available in Boston. I would have to come to NY/NJ to hear all these options. But you probably do need to try something other than Mcintosh if possible. Good luck.

Over 30+ responses and no has answered the orginal question. Well I will. I owned the original auditors and traded up to the M. I say without a doubt that the Auditor M is far and away better than the orginal. Forget about frequency response curve graphs and other numbers. The only way you can tell is with your own ears and in the room that you will be listening in

Thanks.

I am somewhat discouraged by my inability to get any info from Sumiko; 3 emails, 2 voicemails, no response.

I listened to the Cremona Auditor M this weekend. The sound was consistent with what I heard with the Elipsa. They have much more detail than the original Cremoma, but the sound did not show the richness of the original, especially in the mid-range. Many say the original Cremona were "colored" but to me there are just more musical than the M. Several others at the store agreed with this assessment. As always, this is personal preference, but for me the original Cremona are just more musical than the new M line. Electronics were ML 32 pre, ML 433 amp and Estoric P-05. I like the ML amps, but would suggest a different pre-amp. I thought the Cremona were a little too laid back with the ML 32 compared to my Classe CP-65 and ML 432 setup.

Everything I am reading is most interesting. I guess everybody hears something different altogether due to inherent component variables. i.e. electronics, speaker cables, interconnects, power cables, line conditioners, AC power feeds, dedicated circuits or not, circuits feed by high quality 6 nines copper or Romex, HI-FI fuses, room acoustics or lack of, shapes and sizes of rooms, different types of isolation to the front end or the amp, equipment stands, current, power quality off the pole, or if using batteries, i.e. Jeff Rowland, SET-UP is most important, street noise, house noise, kid noise, whether trying to integrate a woofer or not, reflections, component synergy, whether the equipment is broken in, listening in your home vs. the store, what house or structure is built out of, is the floor sound/solid, carpet, throw rugs, hardwood, windows. As you can see it goes on and on and on. No one except for people doing this for a living can really get close to optimizing the sound of their equipment thru trial and error. Although, because of the massive amounts of variables and even though some people have immense experience in understanding these variables and have great ears and maybe they are musicians they still view the sound of the music through equipment in a personal way. Hardly ever have I heard everyone agree that the sound of any given piece of equipment being placed in a given set of variables to sound fantastic. It seems that someone has a different opinion.
Being a musician and hanging around musicians all the time and knowing the sound of live music and knowing that most musicians don't have high end electronic and don't need them, especially acoustic musicians I have found that most musicians don't particularly care for bright forward sound that lacks bass, nor do they much care for super articulate digital sound that lacks life and body. Moreover most guys that know like sound that is somewhat rolled off if you will, with a full range sound, definitely a sound that low end, it doesn't have to go down to 20 cycles it can be down to 35 or so but at least that. Full rounded harmonic tubey musical encompassing sound is more what live sound is, what is not is super clear and perfect, that is hardly music.
What I have found over the years is that the builders of high end electronics and speakers and waxed and wained between building these goodies to sound somewhat bright and forward/edgy unforgiving to full, wonderful bassy reall music. i.e. sound you hate to sound you actually enjoy. Most high end electronics today produce a highly refined hard to listen to sound unless of course you buffer the equipment with all different kinds of cables that either add or subtract from the highs or lows and everyone does everything in their power to alter the inherent sound of the equipment with something else. What is that about. My idea of a system is one that actually works within itself in a more or less simple set up. Not to say the electronics have to be cheap or ultra expensive because a combination of both can work just fine. The idea is to listen to what sounds good to you, to your ears and leave it at that. A person should know pretty quickly if they like what they hear. I may add if it sound to spectacular at first it problem won't sound that good for long. All the hooplah around Wilson speakers is for the most part marketing, do Wilson sound good, if set up with the right electronics and cables, then yes do they sound the most musical, that is debatable. No electronic or tube music system will ever sound like a 1940 Martin guitar or a stand up bass that was built in the 1800's or a drums played by an experienced jazz drummer, the high hat or the snare, it is defacto impossible regardless of what your friendly neighborhood high end electronics sales person has to say, he likely doesn't really know. Maybe someone who actively plays in a a band and also sells analog equipment or may designs it and sells it knows, I am sure they use at least some tubes and really good records, even still when you or someone that hasn't heard this sound before hears it they say oh that sound flat or I can't hear the treble or something like that, but actually in fact that is the sound that is likely the most musical.
As far as the process, it is challenging to attain a musical sound, it is or can be expensive and wasteful. I believe to much money is spent on getting music into the house, especially musical music, sound worth listening to. Put it this way if your 3 year old or your 5 year old does not like it, it probably sounds like crap and you've been kidding yourself and spending thousands on sound that a 3 year old could care less about. To that end, I listen to the original SF Auditors and think they are more musical than the M and for the most part create a sound field that is listenable, are they perfect like my Martin guitar, no way, did I have to put some decent juice to them and high end cables and power conditioning, room conditioning, isolation to get them to sound the best I could get them to yep. Do my musician friend like the sound yep. So I am happy with my set up and it certainly was not easy to put together or cheap. Was it worth it money wise, I will let you know if I get thru this latest depression our country and the world is going thru. The last thing I want to blab about is that I built another system, yes yet another system in a second home, I installed built in wall and ceiling speakers from Sonance, nothing special, I used a older Marantz Receiver and a Sony blue ray players with some decent cables that I had laying around, in the end to we enjoy this modest system as much as the high end ones I own, YES we do and we saved a ton of money, in the end we found that we didn't need to buy Wilson or Vandersteen or Verity or Kharma etc. to get musical sound, in fact in most of the systems I heard this simple deal I put together with leftovers and Sonance inwall speakers and saved and saved I am overall happier that I heading in a direction that makes more sense than not. and who knows maybe my kids will actually get a helping hand when they go off to college instead of me thinking I need to buy a 40K front end or a pair of 28K amps and 70K cables from Transparent or Tara what the F, are we all out of our minds, be happy with some simpler things, thats what I am going to do after all the crap I have been thru with my favorite hobby. If you can't beat them one sure as hec better join them. I don't mean to offend anyone with this thread, I guess I will have another cup of tea and consider what I don't need today and be happy with what I have.