SonusFaber GrandPiano Center Speakers

The claim in favor of the single midbass and tweeter overhead is better coherence and the absence of lobing when a tweeter is flanked by 2 midranges. That is the claim, I have the former, and have never heard the latter so YMMV.

If I understand your description correctly, the single mid-bass one is the center from the Home series and would have been the one that orginally matched your Grand Piano Home mains. However, I never thought it was not a great center for movies, espcially loud movies. It is just not dynamic enough or full enough. The 2 mid-bass speaker sounds like the Domus center, which I have not heard. I think it is actually a 3 way speaker. It may be fuller and more dynamic than the Home center. However, in my opinion the new Domus line does not match particularly well with the Home series, but others may feel differently. I originally had GP Home mains and now have Cremona but I went with a Thiel SCS 3, then a SCS 4 center. The Thiels match better than you might think and are definitely more dynamic than the original Home center. The SCS 4 is less expensive than the Domus center (at list). As much as I like SF (I have the GP, Cremona, 2 pairs of Concertino home and a pair of Concerto home) I would be careful about either of the SF centers. If I had to take one, it would probably be the Domus. The Cremona center is very nice, but it is at a different price point. The specs for the Domus center are on the Sumiko website. Not sure where to find the original Home center specs.

Dtc,
First, gotta ask, how do you like going from Home mains to Cremona, was it worth the money?
- I agree, the single woofer one is called Solo and it's from Home series, but how about the the dual woofers one that I post link bolow?It is not a CURRENT Domus, so is it an older model of Domus then?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=130280151353

Jamnesta, your post was valueable as well, thanks.

I have owned the Sonus Faber Solo Home which has the tweeter on top. I have no other center speaker for comparison but agree with the poster above on the lack of volume for dynamic passages. Nevertheless, voices on the Solo Home are quite real and organic, a trademark with most Sonus Faber speakers I guess.

I agre with Ryder. The Solo Home center is very musical and does well for voices. Just not very punchy. The series before the Home series was bi-wireable so I assume that the center on e-bay (which it says is bi-wireable) is part of that series. I have not seen it before. It might make a good match with the GP. I have a pair on Concertino Home and a pair of the original bi-wireable Concertino. The sound is pretty similar although the bi-wireable one is somewhat less efficient. Many like the bi-wireable series better than the Home series. My concern is that SF is noted for this musical nature but did not really design for home theater. So, the center may be musical, but not punchy enough for a center. They paid more attention to home theater with the Domus series I think.

The Cremona are in a completely different league than the GP. However, they are somewhat picky about electronics and cables so to get the best from them means additional investment in preamp, amp, cables and probably sources. I ended up building up a new system for them - Classe pre, Levinson amp, Classe CD player, Transparent cables - which cost more than the speakers. For music it is really awesome. For movies it is overkill. FYI - I do not like the new Cremona M compared to the original Cremona. Starting with Domus I think they went away from their musical heritage and went to a more detailed sound that, for me, is much less enjoyable than the Guarneri, Cremona, Amati, Stradivari type sound.

Here is an short review of the older center. It references a previous version also. Not a lot of details but it does confirm the vintage - depending on whether it is this one or the previous one. But we are looking 2000 or before. The Home series replaced these older bi-wire versions.

http://hometheatermag.com/compactspeakers/13/