Sonus Faber Cremona Vs. Dynaudio Contour S3.4

Hi

Thanks for your responses.

Kthomas, what amplification are you running with your Confidence 3's? I was told the S3.4's have a balanced sound and are as good as the old Confidence's.

A friend of mine is running a Krell FPB 300 and a pre (I forget which Krell) with his S3.4's and he finds them a bit bright - although he hasn't had the speaks for long. This is strange 'cos when I was auditioning amps, I thought the Krell was darker sounding then the ML's.

Also, the hard part is getting the scratch for the speakers and then deciding :)

Bigkidz, I did hear the Krells with the Cremonas at a show room and did find the sound a bit on the warm side - which was good for my tastes - I listen to mostly acoustic jazz, some big band, soul, blues, hip hop and pop - not really much into rock but was concerned that it would put me to sleep, as per Kthomas' impressions. With trumpet notes, it was fine whereas when my friend played Miles Davis on the Contour S3.4's on his setup with the Krell, the trumpet did seem on the bright side and slightly grating on the ears. A good balance between the 2 would be good. The dealer tells me that SF should be driven by tubes and he had paired it with the Krell for bass demonstration.

My impressions so far based on what I have heard is that on vocals and acoustic jazz, the Cremona is more warm and musical and the S3.4 is more natural and neutral.

MFish, your review on the S3.4 was why I started listenning to them.

Hi

Pendulus: My amps are 331 power and 380 pre. I thought the 3.4 was the safest to go with as fearing brightness I thought the Esotar 2 may be too revealing after reading Mfish's review comparing that and the S25.

Kthomas: My friend is using a FPB 200 C as well with a KRC preamp - what preamp are you using? I had suggested to him that it perhaps needed a tube preamp but he said that that would void the power amp warranty. What cables are you on? He has a real mixed bag - Naim Audio NACA 4 spk cables, Cardas Quadlink 5 C interconnects mostly and a Straightwire Virtuoso run between a ML DAC and the pre, all balanced. I told him to check the cables as the Straightwire may be bright. I thought the Naim's may be OK as the Naim sound is fast and bright anyway with the cables meant to tame this.

KeithR: was the pre you were referring to with the 400Cx a tube pre? If so, you would perhaps agree with my guess that a tube pre would smooth out the highs?