Sonus faber have built much of their reputation on the quality of their small speakers. Time and time again they have proven that you don’t have to go for a large speaker in order to get rich room-filling sound and when it comes to speaker design, quality will always win out over quantity. Add to this the consistently Italian aesthetic sensibility applied to each and every model and you can understand why they are so sought after. The new Duetto stays true to this heritage yet is a completely modern take and goes places that no Sonus faber model has gone before.
Duetto is Sonus faber’s fully active wireless stereo speaker system. The ground work for Duetto was already laid with the all-in-one Omnia system, which we’re more than happy with. Duetto builds on this, being a full two box system.
Why Active?
There are a multitude of good reasons to design an active speaker system and as many of you will know, we have plenty of history when it comes to active. A true active system uses dedicated power amplifiers for specific frequency ranges and replaces the conventional crossover with a far more accurate version that tailors the amplifier’s output directly to the characteristics of the driver. This delivers a far more revealing, detailed and controlled sound and a vastly improved extension into the lower registers.
The Duettos are much more than ‘just’ an active speaker – they have multiple inputs, both physical and wireless, so are effectively a system in themselves. While this concept has mutated into the mass market of powered speaker systems it’s important to understand that Sonus faber are coming to this as a natural extension of their range of ‘real’ speaker systems.
So if we ignore the active aspect for a moment, the Duetto is very much in the classic Sonus faber style with beautiful woodwork, the curved ‘Lute shaped’ cabinet, leather top surface, and uses organic materials for the drivers to deliver the trade mark natural sound. The nearest relatives in Sonus faber collections being the Sonetto I and II bookshelf models.
But here’s where it gets interesting. On paper the frequency response of the Duettos is 37 Hz –30.000 Hz. That’s actually slightly better than the much larger and costly Sonnetto V floor standers (38 Hz – 25,000). How can this even be?
This is what happens when you go active. The Duettos have astonishing bass by any measure and every review emphasises this. The unique porting system, active operation with a seriously powerful dedicated in-built 250 watt Class D amplifier and remarkable bass driver all combine to deliver sound that would normally only come from a far larger speaker. But this is really only part of the Duetto story and while it will probably be the quality that makes the greatest first impression, there’s much more to appreciate.
The Sonus faber app was not available when the Duetto was first released to reviewers and this resulted in some premature comments about operation. But it’s out now and has been through it’s first cycle of improvement, so I’m happy to report all is well on this front and getting better.
The app itself is actually quite beautiful aesthetically, which is just part of the Sonus faber experience. Everything you need to fine tune both placement and performance is in there, as is input switching, all your favourite streaming services and network settings. This will only get better with time…
…as the actual performance of Duetto is also likely to.
How do we know this? As I was close to finishing this article Sonus faber announced the first major upgrade for the Omnia system; This involved the implementation of a ‘new sound signature that reflects our target curve inherited from the Homage collection.’
Paraphrasing Sonus faber, changes made to the sound of the original Omnia system included… the improvement of time alignment between the woofer and midrange, providing cleaner transients in the mid – low frequencies ranges. And implementation of the Phase Coherent approach, inherited from Homage and Duetto. Which results in an improvement of focus and performance of the soundstage. There’s a lot going on here, but it shows just how serious Sonus faber are about sound quality and just as the Duetto and Homage lines have fed into improvements to the existing Omnia, the same inbuilt technology future proofs Duetto.
This is a critical point to understand with Sonus faber’s network connected components – their own software and firmware platform allows updates and improvements, not just for ensuring future compatibility with streaming service changes but also to allow actual sonic improvments to be made. Up until now, if you wanted to upgrade audio performance you had to change components.
As a long time Sonus faber owner and fan I’ve been impressed by first how distinctive their speakers have sounded from the first listen, but also how there’s been an evolution that has kept the essential brand qualities, refined and broadened the characters, of not just each collection, but even the individual models. To now have a Sonus faber model that can evolve and improve via software update is even better.
Within the Omnia upgrade announcement you might have picked up on some clues about the Duetto sound – ‘the new sound signature’ mentioned earlier.
In our own listening Duetto proved to be immediately capable and sounded very much ‘as per review’. But we want more than just fresh out of the box sound and so have put a good month in before drawing conclusions. Any good quality speaker has a run-in period, and because the Duetto is not just a speaker but also has some quite complex internal electronics, we’ve found that the improvements made just by running over a month are considerable; bass is extended from new but improves greatly in terms of tonality and texture; midrange becomes more present, and vocals more intelligible. The top end definitely smooths out and develops considerable detail – initially I had found it just a bit forward relative to what we are used to with other Sonus faber models.
Now – there are some definite tricks when it comes to getting the most out of the Duettos. First there are adjustments on the app for several parameters. These are not ‘tone controls’ but very accurate adjustments that can be made at crossover level prior to amplification. So you’re able to fine tune, without loosing coherence, to compensate for room positioning, balance and the acoustic of the room, as well as your own personal listing tastes. I’d recommend a quick initial adjustment and then going back a month later to re-tune once the speakers have run in and you’re happy with the final physical position.
From the outset it’s obvious that the Duettos are great in any setting involving a TV screen. The inclusion of an HDMI input is a pretty clear signal from Sonus faber that this was always an intention and the Duettos bring both music videos and sound tracks to life in a way that we’ve seldom found with conventional stereo amp/speaker combinations. And are definitely well ahead of almost any conventional AVR based system regardless of centre speaker. The Duetto bass performance is seriously strong so soundtracks carry real impact and punch. And as you can see from the app control panel to the left, you can use the Duettos in conjunction with a subwoofer for even better bass and fine tune the performance as you listen.
Duetto delivers vocals, both in terms of spoken word for films and series, and within music with exceptional clarity as befitting the Sonus faber reputation.
In short we were off to a great start and it’s easy to see how you could really go to town with the Duetto in a setting where you both watch and listen.
There’s an interesting confluence with NuPrime in terms of the amplifiers built within the Duetto. NuPrime employ a unique hybrid design combining the best of Class A and D. Duetto employs 250 watts of Class D for the bass and a 100wats of Class A/B unit for the treble. NuPrime have also used different DAC chips from both Sabre and AKM to deliver district characters for their various component DACs and preamps. Duetto appears to follow a similar track and while I don’t know the details I suspect that there’s an AKM in front of the treble amplifiers and a Sabre chip feeding the bass.
When comparing different DAC chipsets (which we have been able to do in units from both NuPrime and Lumin), we’ve come to the conclusion that with each you can hear quite a different interpretation of any particular track or album. It’s more than just bass or treble – it’s the shading, tonality and complexity of the entire picture and so sometimes saying which is ‘best’ can be remarkably hard. And also understanding that while a particular DAC chipset may confer some qualities, the actual implementation and things like power supply also come into the end sound.
By combining different DACs and varied amplifier topologies Sonus faber have quite possibly come close to having the best of all worlds in that Duetto seems to deliver the optimal qualities of each element. I’m also staring to get the feeling that there’s been a lot of effort put into actually listening to various prototypes and alternatives. Anyone in the Sonus faber factory is going to be exposed to some seriously high-end designs and meeting those expectations at such an affordable level would have presented real challenges that no other designers would have faced, much less risen to, as they have with Duetto.
So you can see that with so much going on inside the Duetto, you would not want to fall into the trap of ascribing any particular quality to just one aspect. Or for that matter forming judgement based on a relatively short period of listening when so much can change with both fine tuning and run-in.
While the Duettos is very much an affordable option within the Sound faber range they are a by no means a compromise.
All Sonus faber speakers have core qualities – an organic natural sound, a tangible midrange presence: the Duetto brings it’s own personality to the party. While the Sonetto models look quite similar, the Duetto paints a far more vivid and dynamic picture – they are almost larger than life, whereas the Sonetto floor standers are almost the opposite – refined larger speakers that have the precision of the best smaller designs.
There’s another advantage with Duetto being controlled via an app – when you’re listening at lower levels, especially later at night, there’s a ‘loudness maximizer’ option which in the past I might have suggested would be a negative. But this is Sonus faber, not the mass market, and so what you actually get is the on-brand ‘red wine character’. In my office I’ve ended up with this on all the time but also have the bass trimmed back by the ‘near wall’ placement option and have dropped the top end ever so slightly as I’ve very much in the near field.
Ultimately I think that Duetto is the ideal small speaker for big rooms that need big sound. The prodigious bass rivals many far larger speakers and there are plenty of situations where it’s better to be able to have a shelf mount rather than speakers out in the room. The fact that you also get Sonus faber sound quality, wireless and amps built in, is what puts them ahead of the pack. Both HDMI and optical connectivity may well also be key advantages for you.
Duetto or Omnia? The arrival of the Duetto has resulted in the Omnia all-in-one being upgraded, so if we are to make a comparison, this will be a valid one since they share many features. The improvements made to Omnia are significant and have resulted in a consistency of tonal character between the two models The ability to place the Omnia in front of or below a screen means it’s a better option if dealing primarily with viewing as it’s better at tying the vocals to the screen. Both Duetto and Omnia have remarkable bass but the extra physical capacity and twin drivers mean that Duetto does have more real extension and power to the sound. The Omnia system is more than capable for filling larger rooms, and the ‘Crescendo’ processing makes for an impressive sound stage from a single box. Never the less, the extra separation, power and scale of the Duetto transcends the ‘Crescendo’ processing within the Omnia in an impressive fashion and justifies the cost difference. And the ability of Duetto to connect to a subwoofer for even more impact and extension can also factor in. That said, there’s no reason not to enjoy both in different rooms – our first paid sold are doing exactly this.
Summing up
Sonus faber now have a remarkably broad range of speaker options and the Duetto is a worthwhile and welcome addition to the portfolio. The Duetto character is dynamic and extended in a way that goes well past the ‘sounds bigger than it looks’ description. Having now spent over a month living with the Duetto I’ve come to really enjoy what it does; over time this speaker system has developed considerable subtlety and I’ve learned to make the most of the rich feature set. It’s more than a viable alternative to conventional amplifier/speaker combinations and offers more flexibility, simplicity and more useful modern connections than most.
Sonus faber Duetto Active wireless speakers – NZ$8400 the pair including GST and delivery
3 year extended warranty via app.
https://www.sonusfaber.com/en/products/duetto
