Sonus Faber Cremona Subwoofer M, Agile and musical

INTEGRATION

• The discreet looks of the Cremona SUB hide a tremendous capacity for excitement: there is a before and after the day we install an active subwoofer in our home theater

• Price: €3,210

• Specialists' rating: 5

• Text: Josep ARMENGOL

A manufacturer like Sonus Faber surely needs no introduction, but here goes. Italian in origin and currently based in a modern factory in Vicenza, it was founded by Franco Serblin in 1983, and its specialty is loudspeakers, which offer not only a sound that some consider unrivaled, but looks on which there is unanimity: they are the most beautiful on the market, thanks to the skillful use of quality woods, leather and, of course, a good dose of classic Italian design. Like musical instruments.

Until a few years ago, Sonus Faber had concentrated on producing pairs of speakers, that is, models for stereo music listening. But the boom in home theater led them to complete their range with models dedicated to the center and rear or surround channels, and of course they also began making active low-frequency units, or subwoofers, like the one we bring to our pages this month.

WHAT IT'S LIKE

Within Sonus Faber's complete range, the Cremona series is the second highest after the luxurious Homage, but when we think of a set of speakers for use in a home theater system, Cremona will be the highest available, since the Homage only offers speakers dedicated to the two stereo channels. The Cremona Subwoofer M featured in our Lab will be the choice of those who can afford a complete system from this range: it is a subwoofer of relatively modest size but very considerable weight, slightly pyramidal in shape, with a 400W Class D amplifier and a 300 mm driver. Instead of using a vented or bass-reflex enclosure, Sonus Faber opts for a sealed one, but in this case with two passive radiators, also 300 mm. These two drivers, mounted on the sides of the main one, are not connected to any amplifier, but their movements complement and accompany those of the active driver, extending the frequency response into the lowest octaves as a vented enclosure would, but in a more linear way, without irregularities. Further down, in the Domus range, Sonus Faber has the Gravis active subwoofer: it also uses a 300 mm driver in a sealed enclosure, in its case loaded with another (passive) 260mm unit; its amplifier is rated at 200W.

The connections are on the rear panel, with both line inputs (where we connect the output of our audio/video receiver or processor) and speaker inputs (where we would connect, in parallel, speakers with limited bass capability in a stereo setup, for example). There are only three controls: a phase switch (0 or 180), a volume potentiometer and a multi-position switch for the filter, from 50 to 80 Hz. A 50Hz minimum strikes us as somewhat high, but the truth is that both the Cremona Center and the Auditor M have a frequency response reaching down to 50Hz, which is possibly why the selector on our Cremona Sub has no lower settings, which would be handy for integrating it with speakers capable of going deeper. The Cremona M, to name just one, is already rated down to 40Hz, and the impressive Elipsa reaches 35Hz, according to the manufacturer itself.

While we are at it, we miss (especially given the price) a remote control (it is always useful to be able to adjust the subwoofer volume easily according to the movie) and more options when choosing the crossover frequency, as on the British Rel subwoofers, for example, which are the paradigm in this respect, allowing you to start from as low as 20 Hz and go up precisely until you find the optimum blend point with the rest of the system. Nor is there any standby mode (automatic or otherwise): with the rear switch we decide whether our Cremona Subwoofer M is permanently off or on.

TEST

I connected this subwoofer to an auxiliary system in my basement and, after checking that it worked properly, left it for a few days playing some music and effects tracks. Loudspeakers need break-in more than any other component in a system, and in this case we have an enclosure with three moving cones (the active one plus the two passive ones), so although my unit appeared to have already been through a show or a previous test, I preferred to make sure I could assess it at its full potential. The thing is, even though it was in the basement and covered with some protection, at times it felt, two floors up in the house, as if a heavy truck were passing in the street, certainly a promising sign for the tests to come.

After this break-in, it was time to take it up to the living room and install it in the main system. No sooner said than done, although I would advise any reader interested in this little one not to trust its size and to get help moving it, because those 35-odd kilos are going to cost me at the physiotherapist's... After a couple of tests and measurements, I placed it between my main speakers, in phase, with the volume at mid-level and the filter at its highest setting (80 Hz), since that was how the receiver was configured.

Since most potential buyers of this Sonus Faber will use it in a home theater system, I began my tests in that mode with several bass-heavy scenes. I barely had to adjust the level for the first one, and then only the usual tweak with each change of movie (the inconsistencies between soundtracks are well known), and I was convinced straight away. I began with the now-famous drum dance scene from House of Flying Daggers. The beans striking the skins of the vertical drums could be heard and appreciated with precision, and when the heroine throws them all, I was not plunged into a vague cloud of noise and distortion; instead the impacts and resonances could be heard separately. That same accuracy, cleanliness and agility were repeated in each test, accompanied when necessary by the low-frequency bass that gives presence to certain effects and without which the same scene loses much of its excitement, although in this respect I was still missing a little more deep bass (we will see why shortly), for example in Hellboy 2.

Music always helps in appreciating the quality of a system, even if it is dedicated to soundtracks packed with effects, and for assessing a subwoofer there is nothing like some jazz or classical tracks with a good double bass. Ray Brown and Yo-Yo Ma, respectively, were tasked with putting to the test this subwoofer from a brand as expert in highly musical loudspeakers as Sonus Faber, and as could only be expected, the Cremona rose to the occasion, allowing the articulation of notes to be followed, whether they were created with fingers or a bow. Here, in addition to speed, we are hearing an absence of distortion. In this respect, this Cremona reminded me a good deal of the British Rel subwoofers, very musical designs capable of following the notes of a double bass (or the gunshots and explosions of a violent movie scene) quickly enough, although some of them (like the Storm I had some time ago) lack that final punch that can leave you shaken in certain scenes. The Cremona Subwoofer is just as agile at articulating fast sounds, but it improves on that Rel in having enough impact to thrill us whenever needed when watching movies.

But it is not perfect: being as demanding as I think we should be with a product at this price, it lacks extension at the bottom. It is a feeling I had straight away while watching several of my favorite noisy scenes, but it is something a simple CD with test tones at different frequencies quickly reveals. Thus, going down in 5 Hz steps, its presence is very noticeable at 40 Hz as well as at 35 Hz, but the 30 Hz tone is barely perceptible and does not move the needle of the sound level meter we keep at hand as a reference (at these frequencies the ear can be deceived), and the 25 Hz tone goes completely unnoticed (and so on below that). Some of you will be surprised because perhaps you have never gone that low, but I must confess that I have an ace up my sleeve, or rather in my living room: my B&W ASW855 uses the 15-inch driver from the 801D with a 1kW amplifier, and with it the 25, 20, 15 and even 10 Hz tracks move not only the sound level meter's needle but the furniture and doors of the house...

CONCLUSION

In the end there is always a compromise, and with this Cremona Sonus Faber has chosen, wisely in my opinion, to offer us an agile and musical subwoofer rather than a mere noise generator capable of going very deep (there are plenty of those at very affordable prices, but if we saw their distortion figures our faces would fall). Given its construction, a sealed enclosure using two passive radiators (the same size, 300 mm, as the active driver), this is what we could expect, and so it proved.

Unlike the rest of its range, its styling is discreet (no exotic woods on view), which can make it easier to integrate into a system with other speakers; in other words, we can recommend it not only for Sonus Faber systems. It hardly catches the eye, and properly installed it will not catch the ear either: it will do its job, filling in at the bottom for speakers unable to fill those first octaves and giving us the excitement that scenes with sound effects demand, in both cases without becoming tiring or oppressive at all, thanks to its speed and cleanliness.

INTEGRATION

When we add a subwoofer to a system, or set up a system with one, we must be careful about overlaps. If we are not, there will be (bass) frequencies to which both the speakers and the subwoofer contribute heavily, and that excess bass can also add to our room's own resonances and turn into a headache (never was the word more apt, because that may well be the effect after a few minutes of listening). The idea is that there should never be duplication: the speakers go down to a certain frequency, and from there downward the subwoofer takes over. The exception may be the front speakers, which are sometimes capable of good bass (their bass will then not be redirected to the subwoofer and will not be duplicated).

The variety of systems and rooms means each case must be analyzed in detail, but there are some preliminary rules we should always follow in order to isolate problems. The first is to check the lowest frequency each speaker in our set can reproduce, note the highest of these (that is, that of the smallest speaker or the one with the least bass) and set the subwoofer crossover at that frequency or slightly above, for example 80 Hz if we have seen that they reach 55 or 60 Hz. Then, in the receiver setup, we do likewise: speakers capable of going below 40 Hz will be set to large or full-range, and the rest to small, so that the bass in the soundtrack intended for those speakers is redirected to the subwoofer.

In all of this, we should remember that the auto-calibration systems in most of today's audiovisual receivers are a great help, since they measure the actual response of each speaker, subwoofer included, and decide to apply the crossovers at the optimum frequencies (measured, moreover, in our own room, which has a great influence here because of speaker placement). In general, that measurement should be our first step before considering whether to modify what the unit itself proposes.

To integrate this Cremona Subwoofer into a stereo system (with two monitors, for example), there is another way: we connect speaker cables from the speakers (or the amplifier) to the binding posts on the rear panel. Then the filter should be set to its lowest setting (50Hz), and with various music tracks we adjust the volume so that it accompanies those monitors without excess. Unless they are very small (capable of very little bass), the 50 Hz setting will probably do; if not, we can raise it gradually toward 80 Hz (which I very much doubt we will reach, unless we are using very small speakers). We will know the setting is right when the subwoofer seems not to be contributing, yet we miss it when we disconnect it. If we notice it a lot, that is a bad sign.

Sonus Faber Cremona Subwoofer M, Agile and musical

Specifications

MAIN DRIVER 300 mm diameter, hardened paper cone; passive radiators: 300 mm. PREAMP line inputs (stereo RCA) or speaker inputs (stereo binding posts), level adjustment by potentiometer and two-position phase switch (0 or 180 degrees); 24dB/octave filter, selectable from 50 to 80 Hz (6 steps), subsonic filter at 19Hz; three-stage protection. AMPLIFIER Class D, 400W into 4ohm. DIMENSIONS 490 x 480 x 480 mm. WEIGHT 35.5 Kg. DISTRIBUTOR Sarte (963510798).

Price: €3,210