Sonus faber Elipsa Loudspeaker

Italian Masterpiece- Far from the Analytical School of Design

I’ve tried, really I have, but I honestly can’t think of another loudspeaker manufacturer creating models as purely beautiful sounding as those made by Italy’s Sonus faber.With each passing year, Franco Serblin and the team at his Vicenza-based design and manufacturing facility add to their impressive heritage of gorgeous sounding—and equally gorgeous looking—products. TAS has covered a fair number of Sonus faber designs over the years. Most recently, Neil Gader reviewed the $3495 Domus Concerto in Issue 163; Jonathan Valin reviewed the company’s top-of-the-line $40,000 Stradivari Homage in Issue 148; I reported on the $8995 Cremona in Issue 143, and followed up with its standmounted sibling, the $4845 Cremona Auditor in Issue 146. Except for the Stradivari Homage, all Sonus faber models are based on Serblin’s classic “lute”-shaped enclosure that over the years has influenced everything from B&W’s 800 Series to the cheapest “home theater-in-abox” systems. In actuality, the Stradivari is based on a lute shape, too, but its cabinet was inspired by the idea of a pair of conjoined lutes, which naturally results in an enclosure that is wider than it is deep—rather like an ellipse. And, I might add, rather like a violin. 

Now, if you happened to read Issue 171’s CES Report, you may have noticed that several members of our crew singled out Sonus faber’s new Elipsa as one of the finest sounds heard at this year’s show. The speaker was praised for its strikingly rich tonality, breadth and depth of soundstage, remarkable detail, transparency, focus, and ability to communicate musical emotion. I was among those who picked the Elipsa as one of the best sounds at CES, and jumped at the offer to be the first U.S. reviewer to hear a pair at home.

Although it strongly resembles one (and is clearly based on that design), the Elipsa is not really a half-priced Stradivari. The Strad resides at the top of Sonus faber’s Homage series, and is luxe in every way. Not that the Elipsa is priced like a drive-through burger and coke—or should that be pizza and straw-encased jug of Chianti? Yes, it is about half of the Stradivari’s cost, and at $20,800 is still plenty luxe enough for guys like me and (most of) you. And the Elipsa’s superb sound holds its own against similarly priced models from Wilson, Avalon, Kharma,  and the like. But the Old World finishing details that go into Homage designs like the Strad—most notably the 20 coats of hand-rubbed, high-gloss red lacquer (semi-seriously whispered to be derived from Antonio Stradivari’s very recipe), that affect the sound as well as the look of the Stradivari—are not present in the Elipsa, which takes its place atop the Cremona series. Still, this is not to say that the Elipsa and Stradivari are not in other ways very much alike.

Most obvious, of course, are the two speakers’ violin-inspired shape, which creates an infinite baffle for their drivers. Even though the Elipsa is much larger than the Cremona and Auditor models I previously reviewed, U.S. distributor Sumiko’s Kevin Wolff says that its wide baffle helps remove some of the room from the sonic equation, allowing the speaker to couple more easily with smaller rooms, such as mine, while reducing diffraction effects and increasing dynamic range and low-frequency response.

The enclosure’s sandwich-style construction consists of 20 handselected staves of layered maple (which can be ordered in a natural matte or “graphite” finish—same wood, stained a lovely and contemporary-looking deep metal gray) that are specifically oriented to reduce resonance. “A violin is not made of MDF,” Serblin likes to say, and indeed, viewed head-on the Elipsa’s slightly pinched “waist” adds to the suggestion of the speaker’s fiddle-fangled form. Additional sub-structural ribs are placed within to increase the enclosure’s resistance to vibration and the buildup of internal standing waves. In addition, the woofer and midrange drivers reside in their own sub-enclosures, vented to the rear of the cabinet. The top and bottom end caps are made of solid wood. Knowing that even the most inert loudspeaker enclosures still resonate to some degree, the designers of the Sonus faber line chose to work with, rather than fight against, enclosure resonance, and at 107 lbs. apiece, with all that bracing, the Elipsa cabinet is plenty stable. But just as a violin can be tuned for the most pleasing pitch, so, too, during the design and construction process, is the Elipsa’s cabinet.

 As with most loudspeakers, the musical heart of the Elipsa beats to the tune of its midrange driver, and this one happens to be a brand new design unique to the Elipsa—a 6" ScanSpeak-sourced paper cone that’s been impregnated with wood-pulp fibers. Although it may seem like yesterday’s news, paper remains an excellent choice of driver material, as it’s not only lightweight and rigid but also quite low in material coloration. The wood fibers add to the driver’s rigidity and help break up standing waves at the cone’s surface.