In this article, we review the new Sonus Faber Sonetto Generation 2 loudspeakers collection, which features innovative new cork internal chambers and Comelia midrange drivers. These new speakers bring Suprema’s flagship technology to a more compact package that fits easier in more homes and wallets!

Company History

Since its inception in 1983, Sonus Faber has always garnered attention with every product they make. They combine elements of old-world Italian craftsmanship with today’s technology in a way rarely seen. From their least to most expensive models, Sonus Faber gives each product its smooth musical sound and top-quality finish and design.

Features & Technology

When we saw the $750,000 Sonus Faber Suprema flagship speaker earlier this year, we were floored by the technology and craftsmanship, and that was before they powered them up. The Sonus Faber Suprema is a speaker everyone should hear at least once! It is hard to believe that high-end home audio has come this far and sounds this real. We understand that the Suprema’s are a product that will only work for dedicated music lovers with super deep pockets and a full complement of flagship gear. But, the other bonus point to companies making flagship speakers of this level is that the advancements made on these products will make their way into its more down-to-earth products. That is precisely what Sonus Faber has done with their new Sonetto Generation 2 loudspeakers. The Sonetto Gen 2 speakers show that Sonus Faber is dedicated to improving the art of speaker design and performance.

Elegant Shape Improving Performance

Color choices are walnut, wenge, and piano black, and they feature an open pore fine wood finish that allows the wood grains to pop and be more tactile. This process gives the Sonetto Gen 2 speakers a detailed and refined finish. The midrange and tweeter “unity” flange is also wrapped in leather, taking cues from Stradivari and Olympia Nova lines.

The top panel veneer is also 45° angled and embossed with the “SF” logo. Each driver has a metal finish ring around it with a separate grill for each driver. Sonus Faber has some of the finest-finished speakers on the planet, and the Sonetto Gen 2 is no exception.

Drivers Designed For Musical Purity

The Sonetto Gen 2 woofers and mid-woofers feature a paper pulp sandwich cone, which ensures a natural tone and a precise and dynamic bass response. The surround of these drivers has a unique camelia pattern that adds a unique appeal and helps reduce interference and improve sound dispersion.

The tweeters in the Sonetto Gen 2 speakers are silk domes with a unique Damped Apex Dome. Standard soft dome tweeters have issues with the dome's apex being out of phase compared to the rest of the dome. This causes a high-frequency roll-off as the tweeter nears 20Hz. To combat this issue, Sonus Faber added a DAD lens that fixes the phase issue, allowing their soft dome tweeters to perform all the way out to 40Khz. Having this ability brings two things to the table. It is well known that while human hearing can’t reach above 20kHz (most of us are lucky to hear 14kHz) when a speaker can cleanly play above that, it can affect what we hear in lower frequencies. Also, when a tweeter rolls off its response, it will generally roll off non-linearly, affecting the frequency response. Having the Sonetto Gen 2 tweeters extend to the 40Hz range allows their response to remain linear and more controlled in the audio band.

The Sonetto V G2, Sonetto VIII G2 floor-standing speakers, and the Sonetto Center G2 center channel speaker get a special new midrange driver taken directly from the Suprema flagship speaker.

This new midrange is called the Camelia Midrange Speaker. This specially made driver has the shape of the Cemelia flower, which Sonus Faber’s engineers have said avoids the resonances associated with round-shaped midrange drivers. The cone is left raw and unpainted to ensure total sound purity. The driver is mounted on a unique, organic basket with an aluminum phase plug to optimize the frequency response and clarity on or off-axis. The organic basket is a unique asymmetrical driver basket, much like natural-occurring shapes and structures. The organic spokes of the basket are also shaped to allow better air flow for the back wave of the driver.

Suprema Derived Inner Chamber

When Sonus Faber was developing the Suprema flagship speaker, they found that using natural cork to build the inner chamber for the midrange and tweeter had wonderful dampening properties, which improved the drivers' resolution and natural sound quality.

They also engineered the shape of the cork inner chamber to optimize dampening and standing wave reduction. With no square walls or straight panels, this chamber's organic shape greatly reduces resonances and sound coming back into the driver. The Sonetto V G2, Sonetto VIII G2 floor-standing speakers, and the Sonetto Center G2 center channel all get this special chamber, which pushes them towards that incredible natural sound we heard on their flagship Suprema.

A Model For Every Occasion

When Sonus Faber designs a speaker line, they consider every user and room situation. This allows them to develop a model lineup within a series that will satisfy almost anyone. The Sonetto Gen 2 line has two stand-mount speakers: The Sonetto I G2 and Sonetto II G2. Both are two-way speakers with the 1.1” DAD soft dome tweeter. The Sonetto I G2 has a 5” mid-woofer with a sensitivity of 86dB, whereas the II G2 has a 6.5” mid-woofer with a sensitivity of 87dB. This means that they will need some good current to show their best. The larger woofer in the Sonetto II takes the bass down all the way to 42 Hz compared to the very respectable 52 Hz on the smaller unit. It’s nice that the port on the bookshelves is front firing which means they will work better in a bookcase than some other brands that use a rear port. But like any great stand mount speaker, you’ll get the best sound on their stand with them located further away from room boundaries.

Next is a small floor-standing speaker, the Sonetto III G2. This 2.5-way mini tower now uses the same 1.1” DAD soft dome tweeter with two 6.5” woofers, one doing only bass duty and one doing both midrange and bass duties. Sensitivity is 88dB so these are a little easier to drive but we still suggest good power for these as well. For a small to medium-sized room, these will do a great job, and if you spend some time dialing them in will provide impressive imaging and a very natural midrange.

The two larger floor-standing speakers are the Sonetto V G2 and VIII G2. The V G2 uses the same 1.1” tweeter but features the 6.5” Camelia midrange driver and cork inner chamber. The Sonetto V G2 features 2 6.5” woofers with a bass extension of 35Hz, while the VIII G2 has 2 8” woofers with an extension of 33Hz, which gets you another 3 hz on paper, but the power and impact to our ears was far superior. All three towers use downward firing reflex ports, which gives you a lot more flexibility in placement. Plus, that concrete base is just super cool providing such a solid platform. Sensitivity is up in the V at 89dB and the VIII at 90dB, making these a lot easier to drive than the bookshelf models. However, we find all Sonus Faber speakers greatly benefit from high-quality power, and you’ll just notice more effortless sound with a more robust amplifier. These two are a bit of a jump in price up from the Sonetto III G2 but boy, that midrange driver and cork cabinet make a world of difference to our ears. For small to medium-sized rooms, the Sonetto V G2 should be fine, but if you have a fairly large space, the bigger Sonetto VIII G2 will give you more impact. Like great speakers that cost far more than these, careful attention to the setup of the Sonetto speakers will reward you greatly. This is an area where the music lovers at Audio Advice are here to help if you purchase your speakers from Audio Advice. We can get a good feel for your room and guide you on the best starting points, and give you some tips on fine-tuning to get the very best sound.

For home theater lovers, Sonus Faber has you covered with the Sonetto G2 line. The Sonetto Wall G2 is a wall-mount home theater speaker with the same 1.1” DAD tweeter and 6.5” woofer as the Sonetto II G2. This will be a perfect match for surround channels with the same drivers, and its bass extends quite low for a speaker in this form factor.

The Sonus Faber Center G2 rounds out the lineup for anchoring dialog and on-screen movie action. This center channel speaker uses the same 1.1 DAD tweeter as the other speakers in the line. With the 4” Camelia midrange driver and 2 6.5” woofers, the Center G2 provides incredibly realistic dialog.

Performance

Our team loves testing Sonus Faber speakers. We love their attention to detail, and the unboxing experience is always excellent. The Sonetto G2 lineup shows that Sonus Faber cares as much about its more affordable models as its flagships. The binding posts are of exceptional quality, so connecting the Sonetto G2s to any system we had was easy. We unboxed our review samples and set them up in our room to start evaluating. We set up the Sonetto VIII G2 speakers in one of our larger rooms and connected the excellent McIntosh MA352 2-Channel Integrated Amplifier to the speakers.

Shannon & The Clams new album The Moon Is In The Wrong Place is a great new album with an eclectic mix of instruments and sounds. The first thing we noticed with the Sonetto VIII G2 was the vocal clarity. The 6.5” Camelia midrange brought a sense of realism and transparency, bringing out every detail in this album. The Sonetto VIII G2 has the smooth musical sound that Sonus Faber speakers are known for. The treble from the 1.1” DAD soft dome tweeter is sweet and allows us to hear all the treble details without any peakiness or response issues. The bass was dynamic, punchy, and realistic, with a good sense of bass detail. The Sonetto VIII G2 is a speaker that can be listened to for hours without fatigue or the feeling that detail is shoved down your throat. Imaging and soundstage abilities are excellent, and the speakers simply disappear with the right recordings and setup. The Sonetto Lineup as a whole gives you the famous Sonus Faber sound, with its warmth in the midrange while retaining all of the musical details and a treble that seems to do the magic trick of being all-day enjoyable while presenting a very vivid picture of the music. Only Sonus Faber’s higher-level models were better than The Sonetto’s.

We grabbed our popcorn and connected the Sonetto Center G2 and Sonetto Wall G2 to the system with the McIntosh MX123 A/V Processor and McIntosh MC255 5-Channel Solid State Amplifier. Playing Mad Max Fury Road showed us that the Sonetto G2 line is fully capable of movie dynamics without strain or compression. The Center G2, with its 4” Camelia midrange driver, gave us the tremendous vocal clarity we heard from the VIII G2, which is excellent for a speaker primarily handling dialogue. It amazed us with this system how we just wanted to keep turning the volume up. There was no strain, compression, or fatiguing treble anomalies that can creep into lesser speakers when playing movie soundtracks. The Sonetto G2 speakers exhibited great tonal accuracy, and each model kept the same sound signature, which is vital to keep movie soundtracks sounding realistic. Overall, we felt that the Sonetto G2 speakers performed great with music and movies and gave us all of the realism and clarity we could ask for in their price points.

Overall Recommendation

We are impressed with the Sonus Faber Sonetto Generation 2 speakers. They keep the smooth and musical sound that Sonus Faber is known for. All models have the same overall sound signature, giving you more clarity, focus, and refinement as you move up the line. With an impedance of 4 ohms and sensitivities in the high 80dB range, they need good power to be their best but have great scalability that will showcase improvements as your equipment improves. Combine these factors with the craftsmanship and aesthetics that Sonus Faber is known for, and you will have a winning combination. The Sonetto Generation 2 speakers allow technical achievements like the Camelia midrange drivers and cork inner chambers to be within reach for people who simply don’t have the room or budget for Sonus Faber’s flagship Suprema speakers. We highly recommend the Sonus Faber Sonetto line of speakers and think they are a winning combination for someone looking in these speakers' price class. Please contact our highly trained staff at Audio Advice via chat, phone, or email to see if the Sonus Faber Sonetto speakers are right for you.

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