Sonus Faber Lumina II - Review & Measurements by Erin

[VintageFlanker]

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Sonus Faber Lumina II 2-Way Bookshelf Speaker Review

Sonus Faber Lumina II 2-Way Bookshelf Speaker Review

www.erinsaudiocorner.com

PS: A very coloured speaker line indeed, according to these measurements and ones from Stereophile. It confirms what I've personally heard in this Lumina family: just treble heavy, even off-axis.

 

[delta76]

Thanks for sharing - every time I try to read an Erin's review, it reminds me how much I like @amirm's approach. With the panther and the summary and the price, pref. score also if @MZKM was available, I can form an opinion about the speakers (care / ignore).
Don't get me wrong, Erin works are valuable, but it is usually too technical for someone who not so enthusiastic like me. I hope he will change his formats to make it more accessible.

 

[MKR]

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PS: A very coloured speaker indeed, according to these measurements and ones from Stereophile. It confirms what I've personally heard in this Lumina line: just treble heavy, even off-axis.

Actually this confirms what I have heard with every SF speaker more or less. No one can question the workmanship, very easy on the eyes. But if you want accuracy? Nope, run away

 

[Purité Audio]

£1300 ish over here.
Keith

 

[Purité Audio]

Thanks for sharing - every time I try to read an Erin's review, it reminds me how much I like @amirm's approach. With the panther and the summary and the price, pref. score also if @MZKM was available, I can form an opinion about the speakers (care / ignore).
Don't get me wrong, Erin works are valuable, but it is usually too technical for someone who not so enthusiastic like me. I hope he will change his formats to make it more accessible.

Erin’s expressions are the equivalent of the Pink Panther his expressions are extremely eloquent.
Keith

 

[VintageFlanker]

Thanks for sharing - every time I try to read an Erin's review, it reminds me how much I like @amirm's approach. With the panther and the summary and the price, pref. score also if @MZKM was available, I can form an opinion about the speakers (care / ignore).
Don't get me wrong, Erin works are valuable, but it is usually too technical for someone who not so enthusiastic like me. I hope he will change his formats to make it more accessible.

As you would guess, I pretty much disagree with that.

We cannot sum up some complete and extensive measurements (which equal to several hours of work) to a single 4-grades rating. Every review has to be red entirely and carefully to fully understand what are the pros and cons of a specific product, in a specific context. We just can't, especially on ASR, save all the pennies, in intend to oversimplify the interpretation of objective evaluations that way. That works for @amirm as well. His reviews are nowhere near to be less complete or technical, IMHO, nor that they would deserve less attention and focus to be read. It's just up to people to choose if they either want to learn and understand, or just refer to a Panther, a single SINAD number, or a simple on-axis FR. Pick your poison.

My two cents.

 

[thewas]

Quite long time we didn't see the "bat curve" here, similar tuning to some recent B&Ws with increased mids and highs, an euphonic tuning which works well in shops and demos.

 

[VintageFlanker]

Quite long time we didn't see the "bat curve" here, similar tuning to some recent B&Ws with increased mids and highs, an euphonic tuning which works well in shops and demos.

View attachment 332336

Hahahaha. I also call this the Batman Signature myself. Or W-shape.

Totem Acoustics Rainmaker Speaker Review

Well... It sucks.:facepalm: Like very few other speakers, it does have the Batman sound signature...

www.audiosciencereview.com

But this is not a textbook perfect one, it sways to one side (and lacks a second ear/resonance at the center ).

 

[MZKM]

Thanks for sharing - every time I try to read an Erin's review, it reminds me how much I like @amirm's approach. With the panther and the summary and the price, pref. score also if @MZKM was available, I can form an opinion about the speakers (care / ignore).
Don't get me wrong, Erin works are valuable, but it is usually too technical for someone who not so enthusiastic like me. I hope he will change his formats to make it more accessible.

Erin calculates the scores himself, @7:50 in the legend of the graph.

 

[MKR]

Quite long time we didn't see the "bat curve" here, similar tuning to some recent B&Ws with increased mids and highs, an euphonic tuning which works well in shops and demos.

View attachment 332336

Bingo … this FR sells speakers in showrooms, period. They know exactly what they are doing. Makes for very happy SF and B&W dealers. Not about the best sound, it’s purely about moving product and generating revenue. What they don’t tell you is after a period of time this FR becomes very fatiguing to listen to. So guess what happens then? Dealer tells you it is your electronics or cables not a good match for speakers and then sells you more to “tune” the speakers. When the problem is the speakers to begin with

 

[delta76]

As you would guess, I pretty much disagree with that.

We cannot sum up some complete and extensive measurements (which equal to several hours of work) to a single 4-grades rating. Every review has to be red entirely and carefully to fully understand what are the pros and cons of a specific product, in a specific context. We just can't, especially on ASR, save all the pennies, in intend to oversimplify the interpretation of objective evaluations that way. That works for @amirm as well. His reviews are nowhere near to be less complete or technical, IMHO, nor that they would deserve less attention and focus to be read. It's just up to people to choose if they either want to learn and understand, or just refer to a Panther, a single SINAD number, or a simple on-axis FR. Pick your poison.

My two cents.

our opinions are not that different actually. I absolutely applaud the complete measurements, but the keyword here is "accessible". Not a lot of people have knowledge, patience and/or time to read/watch a lengthy video/review. Sure, if you are into those things, it's like a treat. but definitely not for everyone, and not for every review

When I am on the verge of buying something, you can be sure I read and re-read reviews multiple times, even for parts I don't really understand. But definitely not on every speaker.

 

[VintageFlanker]

our opinions are not that different actually. I absolutely applaud the complete measurements, but the keyword here is "accessible"

If I'm being honest, I do think that both Erin and Amir are quite good at vulgarisation when they're on camera..

PS: Please do more videos, @amirm !

 

[Haint]

Thanks for sharing - every time I try to read an Erin's review, it reminds me how much I like @amirm's approach. With the panther and the summary and the price, pref. score also if @MZKM was available, I can form an opinion about the speakers (care / ignore).
Don't get me wrong, Erin works are valuable, but it is usually too technical for someone who not so enthusiastic like me. I hope he will change his formats to make it more accessible.

Erin calculates and posts the preference score on the heading of his response linearity graphs.

 

[VintageFlanker]

That one would be the weird part to me. Erin now publishes EIR for both On-Axis and +/-30° (which is actually relevant, IMHO). But here... both responses are almost identical:

@thewas I stand corrected: it is indeed a real Batman!

 

[MarcT]

Hmm, I'm very interested in this because I have had a set of Lumina V towers in my family room system for over a year now. I've heard that people find the Lumina speakers bright, now seemingly confirmed by these measurements, but mine just don't seem bright at all to me in my room. If anything, the tweeters seem tame to me and I find myself wanting more "air" and clarity to the highs.

Now, there may be a couple reasons for that impression. First, I do have age related high frequency loss. And, secondly, my family room is fully carpeted, has curtains on the rear windows, has a large heavy L-shaped sofa, and is open to the breakfast area and kitchen. So a lot of the high frequencies may be lost to those factors.

Also, I do not get much of a sense of imaging or sound stage from them, sitting 10 feet away. Would the dispersion data correlate with this?

 

[Steve Dallas]

So, they really are furniture!

 

[JayGilb]

Erin’s expressions are the equivalent of the Pink Panther his expressions are extremely eloquent.
Keith

I agree and am glad that he doesn't fire up photoshop and start making headless versions of himself.

 

[CleanSound]

From what I understand Sonus Faber are known to be extremely colored. Apparently, they have no regards for science and all the research on loud speaker that was conducted over the last 30 years.

 

[MKR]

From what I understand Sonus Faber are known to be extremely colored. Apparently, they have no regards for science and all the research on loud speaker that was conducted over the last 30 years.

No engineering/science best I can tell, but they do build very nice furniture that happens to have some drivers and passive components in them

 

[thewas]

Written review is now online too:

Sonus Faber Lumina II 2-Way Bookshelf Speaker Review

Sonus Faber Lumina II 2-Way Bookshelf Speaker Review

www.erinsaudiocorner.com