Audiophilepure

https://www.hifinews.com/content/sonus-faber-lumina-v-amator-loudspeaker

While Sonus faber’s floorstander looks imposing in the pictures, the speaker is neither huge nor massively weighty, standing just under 105cm tall and, at 22.5kg, about light enough for one-person set-up, adding convenience to the room-friendliness. Positioning is no trickier, in no small part due to that downward-firing port. I spent some time moving the Lumina V Amators backwards and forwards in the room, finding very little difference wherever I placed them, and concentrated instead on experimenting with toe-in for the most coherent stereo image. Again, I was unable to effect any huge changes in this department, so stuck to my usual positioning with the cabinets aimed just slightly in front of the listening position.

With their rated 89dB sensitivity, 4ohm nominal impedance and a 50W minimum power requirement, these are not especially demanding speakers, and worked well with the various amplifiers I tried, ranging from Audiolab’s 9000A [HFN Aug ’23] up to my vintage Naim NAC 52/NAP 250 set-up. I should mention that magnetic grilles are provided, but it would be a shame to cover up the understated dark wenge or more exotic gloss red and walnut wood finishes on offer!

However, if you need something more conventional to get your bass fix, and include a great woman’s voice in the bargain, listen to Jennifer Warnes’ cover of Leonard Cohen’s track “Way Down Deep” on her The Hunter album. The Stenheim Two.Five does a remarkable job of mixing her voice and the deep, textural percussions. Imaging from the Two.Five with an incredible “wall of sound” is sublimely fulfilling.

Of course, this led me to pull up Leonard Cohen, the man himself. In My Secret Life is a beautiful melodic song from his Ten New Songs album from 2001. Cohen’s voice contrasts his backup singers and is mesmerizingly elegant, the Two.Five gives this track such depth and richness.

Because of this whole “reviewing” thing, I’ve been given the opportunity to listen to and experience several speakers that I would have otherwise passed over. This is a speaker that would have fallen into the passed-over category. And that would have been a shame. The Revela 2 is a stout, 3-way floor-standing speaker. It features twin 6.5″ woofers, a 6″ midrange driver, and a single 2.5″ ribbon driver taking care of the high frequencies. The speaker stands a hair over 37″ tall and weighs 60 lbs. The Revela is available in piano walnut and black piano gloss. And retail for $4495.00 USD.

The PlatiMons deliver an excellent sense of timing and musical pace. When at Chris’ house the other night listening to his setup of the new Skyanalog REF cartridge, the same thing was going on with his reference system when we listened to Kind of Blue. All of the instruments were blended as they should be, yet all occupied their own space without being buried under one another. It’s one of those deceptively simple aspects of musical reproduction that sometimes you don’t even notice until it’s wrong.

These speakers always present a lack of blur in musical transients and high frequency decay. Cymbals and percussion sound natural, along with stringed instruments. Some of the metal cabinet speakers auditioned here have exhibited a great sense of dynamic energy yet impart their own sense of tonality to the music being presented. The PlatiMon speakers do not fall victim to this. Listening to them for days on end is an exceptionally pleasant experience. So much so, that I did purchase the review samples to use as an ongoing reference.