I think that the strength of all Sonus Faber speakers, since their beginning, is beautiful industrial design, luxury materials, perfect build and pride of ownership. It was always about looks.
None of SF speakers were designed to have flat FR. Small, ugly and cheaper active studio monitors will sound much better then SF most of the time.
But, since we enjoy music, not only through our hearing but from other senses as well, visual being very important, I say, buy the ones you like the most.
I do not know much, but this seems a bit reductionist regarding Sf versus many other brands, no?
Sf certainly seem to have a definite reputation for their sound
as well as the aesthetic design (I am a neophyte for sure, but when one can research a brand and quickly find it described as comprising
"classic Serblin-era", followed by
"post-Serblin transitional/HT/(and China-production) era", followed by
"current modern (while maintaining Serblin principles) era"...that seems like very acoustically specific stuff. Whether some people like the sound is of course an entirely different issue, but to say "it was always about looks" doesn't seem very fair.
I would say, as an architect and designer, that Sf do not convey "industrial design" to me at all. When I hear that term, I think of
very different speakers than Sf. But, subjective terms again.
[EDIT: I just read your second comment above explaining your use of the term "industrial design". I do agree with that: I thought at first you were referring to the aesthetic design of the speakers, rather than the production aspects. But by that production definition almost all speakers are "industrial design". One could even argue that hand-assembled speakers (as all post-China Sonus faber speakers are, if I understand correctly, now made by hand in the factory in Italy...along with many other brands in other countries) are, to a vast degree "industrial design", as they utilize mostly essential components of machine-driven production.]
I am an average, non-expert, listener, moving around and working in a relatively casual environment, and definitely not someone sitting very still at the apex of a precise listening triangle, so perhaps monitors, as well as they might chart on paper, are not really the "best" speakers for my life?