Sonus Faber Cremona Auditor "Minimum" Power?

Hi Eugene:  I have the Auditor M's but cannot comment on the Bel Canto.

I drive mine pretty easily with an old Classe' Audio Model Seventy amp (150W into 4Ohms).  

The speakers dip down to 4 ohms.  You can see the curves on the i-fidelity website, page 8 of the review.  It's in German but google translate works.

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.i-fidelity.net/testberichte/...

Mike

Have you tried a low power SET tube amp on your SF Cremona auditor? 

Eugene,
Glad to hear you are very satisfied. I was a true Dynaudio fan (still am) but am more than satisfied with my Sonus fabers. Craftsmanship cannot be matched. A beauty to look at and amazing to hear.

Thanks for the warning, but I already own the speakers and like them very much. For the record, the amp drives the speakers very well.

Sonus Faber have warmish signature, at least the one I tried, which are Auditor M and Electa Amators. Try them with your own system and in your room, before buying, cos they will be very differ sounding with differ amps and sources, well, which speakers dont?
Power is important, but matching is a must. Even these fill the room easy, I would use both with sub, cos the bass need plenty of controle, but also top end can be to round. Yes, mids are wonderful, but other things are important to, at least to my taste.

I wouldnt buy blindly.

My room is 12' x 18' x 8'. McIntosh components: C2300 pre and MC452 (MC252 prior to that). I have never been past 45w/ch with my Auditor M. Plenty dbs for me.

I use (as a power amp mainly) a Luxman 507 (110 watts) and it drives them fine, with lots to spare and no strain.
A tube preamp really helps a lot, especially with tubes that are mellow up top.
A great speaker. A classic imho.

As long as you have a high current amp you should be fine. I came close to getting the SF auditor m's but then heard the Dynaudio C1's. My C1's are rated at 85db and previously had a Bryston B100SST (180w @4ohms) and it sounded pretty darn good to me but on a lark I demoed an Octave V70SE tube integrated (70w @ 4ohms) and it just crushed the Bryston B100. Naim XS and Supernait are a couple of other very good high current solid state integrated amps that match well with the C1's.

I have the SF Cremona Auditors as well,and I use Pathos Inpol 2 integrated hybrid amp,with 45wpc on 8 ohms and 75 wpc on 4ohm in A class. Had my doubts also too, because prior to Pathos I used the Krell integrated amp, with loads of power. But,I have to say that Pathos power prooved to be more than enough, for my room anyway, which is around 15m2, and I rarely use more than a half of its power. On the other hand, I tried friends integrated Arcam A38 with 100wpc and it simply could not drive the speakers, same happened with Prima Luna Prologe 1. The Cremonas prefer powerfull amp, but if your room is not huge,they are able to work with others as well. I have the paper with impedance curve that I got with brochures and speakers, if you think that it might help you,I guess I could find it and send it

Oops, I was comparing peak to RMS power. OK, the Ref500m ONLY puts out 3.75 times more power than the C5i. :)

Thanks for the reply. I would think the Auditors are harder to drive as they are rated 88 dB sensitivity vs the 91 dB of the floorstanders. Both are 4 ohm nominal impedance. I haven't found an impedance curve for the Auditors, but the big guys are relatively flat with a dip down to 2.8 ohms (ouch) in the upper bass.

How did the combination of Cremonas and Ref500M sound? That's a pretty good comparison as the C5i uses the same 125ASX2 ICEpower module, albeit only 1 compared to the pair of bridged modules in the 500M. At least the general sound qualities should be similar. I don't think it's fair to compare dynamics when the 500M puts out > 4x the power! Then again peak current is marginally higher at 35A. Again, power vs. current... *confused*

Someone else will need to chime in on the physics but I ran the original Cremonas on a pair of REF500M's and had plenty of juice to spare. The auditors as a 2 way should be less of a load than the 3 way Cremonas with its more complex crossover. I'd say you'd be just fine.