I heard the Sonus Faber Extremas, at the Stereophile show in 96, in NYC. I to thought, how good can a pair of mini monitors be. I heard them in the Meridian room. The system was 2 Meridian 557 Amps bridged, Meridian 502 Preamp, Meridian 566 Dac, 518 Jitter reducer and the 500 Transport. I can tell you this, I was blown away how good these speakers sounded. The Extremas were so sweet and articulate sounding. Plus the bass was fast and tight. I later learned, the 7 inch midbase on the Extremas, is by Scanning. Scanning started Scanspeak and worked for Dynaudio. The Scanning midbase is incredible. Verity speakers also use the Scanning Drivers. The Extremas use the Dynaudio Esotar for the tweeter, which is one of the best tweeters. To sum this up, the Extremas were amazing sounding. They just sounded so sweet and silky. The Meridian 557 Amps sounded great with them.