Italian manufacturer Sonus Faber is celebrating its 30th anniversary with the release of a new high-end speaker, the Extrema. The name harks back to one of the company’s classic products, but there’s nothing old-fashioned about this standmounter’s design.
The Sonus Faber Extrema looks striking and uses a layered cabinet construction that combines carbon fibre and wood. Metal is used in specific places too. The idea is to build a rigid and well-damped foundation for the drive units to work from.
Its tweeter is unusual, using a beryllium dome coated with a diamond skin. It’s the first time we’ve come across a drive-unit design that uses these materials together. The diamond helps to damp any resonances in the dome without adding too much mass.
The exotic-looking mid/bass unit is also an all-new affair with a great deal of emphasis put on its chassis and motor system.
Look around the back and you’ll find an adjustable passive radiator. This allows the speaker’s bass performance to be fine-tuned to match the partnering system and room.
Put it all together and you have a speaker that Sonus Faber claims is as detailed and transparent as possible. We hope to test that claim soon.
The company plans to make only two to three pairs a month and no more than 30 pairs in total. There’s no definite figure on price as yet, but expect the Extrema speakers with dedicated stands to come in somewhere north of 30,000 euros.
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