SONUS FABER Venere 1.5
Stand mount monitors
The rather small Sonus Faber Venere 1.5 monitors have made a rather big stir in the audio community recently. The new entry level speakers should have all the Sonus Faber's trademarks: great craftsmanship, great sound and a great story. The price has been paid too, however: these speakers were not made by an Italian craftsman, rather by a Chinese industrial partner.
Function and form
The Venere 1.5s have lute shaped cabinets that have their upper part slanted towards the listener. The shape, being lute like or not, gives the cabinets better rigidity and antiresonant behaviour. Each slanted upper panel is decorated by a slab of black tempered glass. Combine this with white or black gloss (or walnut veneer) on the cabinets and the Venere 1.5 are ready to be a part of any modern interior.
The silk dome tweeter is made for Sonus Faber by German DKM. The dome is slightly bigger than usual, 2.9cm, and sits in a shallow waveguide. The 15cm midrange/bass driver is plastic - I suppose it has been sacrificed to achieve the attractive price point.
Bass management
The Sonus Faber Venere 1.5s tried to impress me by their mighty bass. The speaker appeared ulmost unstoppable in bass energy. Spanish Nights (Blackmore's Night) track was morphed through the Venere 1.5s - the acoustic guitar driven music became a drum and bass track. It might have been a very attractive feature as there are not many monitors out there that can go so low, however, after while it became apparent that the bass is deep but it is not textured. Resolution was missing. True, that the Meridian amplifiers that I used with the speakers are no slouch in low octaves which tortured the slot reflex ports of the Venere 1.5s even more. To sume it up, the Veneres were more enthusastic than refined.
Clarity & delicacy
I would not exactly say that the Venere 1.5s were transparent speakers - slick speakers would be more appropriate word. I liked the SFs more with the Cambridge Azur 851 integrated amplifier that was a bit uninvolving until it was paired with the Venere 1.5s. The frequency extremes tilt of the Sonus made the otherwise flat sound become more interesting and juicy. The bass stepped back a bit too, which opened up the mids. In fact, the SF and CA partnership is more appropriate too as they share similar price region, unlike Meridian.
Tonal accuracy
Though the spanish guitar was attractive and energetic, its timbre had a flavour of boxiness through the Sonus Faber. When I played synthesized music with booms, clicks and beeps, everything was exciting. When I played violin sonata I could not recognize if the violin was an acoustic or electric instrument, and this was not a good sign.
Then I got back to pop with Madonna's Vogue: the basslines and rhythms of the track made me forget about reviewing and I was moved to a dancefloor instantly. This music is the right food for the Venere 1.5s. It was funny, stirring and imposing.
Spatial resolution
The soundstage and imaging of the Venere 1.5s is not different from what you expect. The fact that the acoustic instruments are out of scope for these speakers makes any discussion about the soundstage irrelevant. If tonality is wrong then nothing else matters. For synthesized music or typical hard rock numbers the imaging was good enough.
Recommended resellers
HI-FI studio TYKON, Ostrava, tel. +420 723 449 894
Excelia HiFi, Chrudim, tel. +420 724 00 77 44
Manufacturer's website: http://www.sonusfaber.com
Associated components
- Sources: Meridian G08.2 and Cambridge Audio 851C
- Amplifiers: Meridian G02 preamplifier and G57 power amplifier, Cambridge Audio 851A integrated amplifier
- Interconnects and speaker cables: Cardas Neutral Reference, Cross and Crosslink
- Loudspeakers: Revel Ultima Studio2
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