For those familiar with Sonus Faber

@roxy1927    The Nova series is due for an update so I would wait. Regarding the Maxima Amators, I thought they were overtly "nice" sounding lacking bite/drive, could have been partially due to the Dan D'Agostino Progression amplifier. The current Nova 3 is a much better all-rounder. Hope the next Nova update will improve on bass refinement with added sensitivity and please offer the choice of the highest quality conventional speaker grills.

Where would you place the Elipsa in the Sonus Faber hierarchy? I heard them at a friend's place, and was impressed, but I have not heard the models mentioned above.

I auditioned the Novas and the Amati/Sarafinos.  The Amatis are noticeably just more speaker.  If you can make the stretch to the new version of the Amatis I'm sure you won't be disappointed.  @dayglow makes a good point that the Novas are due for an update.  It might be worth pursuing a timeline for that.  Good luck and cheers.  

I had a pair of the original Extrema's and they were MAGNIFICENT!!!

I'm also interested in comparison of the Serafino vs Olympica nova line. From what I can tell, many people claim somewhere in these two lines is where the "real Sonus Faber sound" is, which I feel is a bit nonsensical. SF offers many speaker lines with their name on them, afterall.

If anyone could comment on this: the only experience I have in my own listening area consist of Dynaudio C1 Platinum and Elac Solano floorstand  models. Both of these models are definitely on the polite side. I wonder how similar or different Serafinos would be. Ultimately I'm after a clean, natural, and transparent sound over all else.