Pearl Audio and Sonus faber: more than twenty years

Most of this library is about the loudspeakers. This page is about us and them. Sonus faber has been in our showroom since the early years of Pearl Audio, and our acquaintance with the line goes back a little further than that. It is why we care about these loudspeakers the way we do, and why we think an older Sonus faber is worth keeping. Click a photograph to see it larger.

Taught to set them up

More than twenty years ago John Loranger, who founded Pearl Audio, attended the dealer course run by Sumiko, then the American distributor for Sonus faber and for REL subwoofers, at its headquarters in Berkeley, California. Dealers knew the course as STARS. It was about one thing: how to set up a loudspeaker and a subwoofer in a real room, by ear, until the system is right.

The class worked through the Sonus faber range of the day from the entry level to the top, the Concertino, the Cremona and its smaller sibling the Cremona Auditor among them. Each loudspeaker was set up from the beginning, listened to, moved a little, and listened to again.

John says it was in that room that he came to appreciate how magnificent these loudspeakers sound. He came home enthralled, and Sonus faber was part of Pearl Audio from its early days.

What we heard

What John heard that week is what people have long heard in a Sonus faber: a natural, warm and rich tone, a sweet and smooth midrange, and a sound that stays balanced and open. It is a refined sound, and a musical one.

The magazines of those years reached for the same words. Sound & Vision described the midrange of the Grand Piano Domus as sweet, smooth and well balanced, and noted that this was something Sonus faber was known for. The Absolute Sound, reviewing the smaller Concerto Domus, put it in one line:

“About refinement and balance and musicality.”

The Absolute Sound on the Concerto Domus. The review is still online.

How they were made

The other half of the impression was the cabinets. Franco Serblin, who founded Sonus faber, liked to translate the company’s Latin name as sound made by hand, and he built loudspeakers the way the violin makers of Cremona built instruments. The reviewers of the day wrote the details down.

• Guarneri Homage. The cabinet was made from 42 separate pieces of solid wood, walnut, maple and limewood, sawn by hand. It then received ten or more coats of varnish, sanded by hand between coats and polished to a mirror finish. (Stereophile, July 1994.)
• Amati Homage. The sides were curved maple staves, each built up from 21 layers, with solid maple above and below. The stain was applied by hand, followed by seven coats of varnish. (Stereophile, June 1999.)
• Cremona. The curved sides were 32 layers of maple, the top and bottom solid blocks of the same wood, and the finish was applied by hand. (Stereophile, January 2003.)

All three wore leather on the front and the grille of stretched strings that Sonus faber still uses. None of this appears in a specification. It is plain the moment you stand next to one.

In our showroom for nearly twenty years

Pearl Audio opened in Portland in 2005, and Sonus faber joined the showroom a couple of years later. In those early days with the line the Concertino and the Domus series stood in the showroom, with the Cremona above them and the Guarneri and Amati of the Homage collection at the top. The Toy series followed later in that decade, then the Venere from 2012, and the first Olympicas when they arrived at the end of 2013.

The names have changed since. The loudspeakers we show now are the direct descendants of those: the Cremona became the Olympica, and the Homage collection still carries the names Guarneri and Amati. The stories are told in The Cremona line, 2002 to 2013 and Olympica: three generations, 2013 to today.

An evening with a pair of Electa Amators

One visit from the early years of the shop has stayed with John. He went to a customer’s home to install a Pass Labs amplifier and a subwoofer. The loudspeakers already in the room were Electa Amators, the two-way stand-mounted design that first made Sonus faber’s name around the world in 1987.

As a courtesy he set the loudspeakers up properly while he was there, then integrated the subwoofer with them the way he had been taught. What came out of those small cabinets, he says, was remarkable. It is one reason we have never thought of a Sonus faber as only as good as its age.

The Electa Amator is still made. Its third generation, the Electa Amator III, arrived in 2018 for the company’s thirty-fifth anniversary.

Arcugnano, 2025: still made by hand

In September 2025 John and Tara of Pearl Audio visited Sonus faber in Arcugnano, outside Vicenza. They saw the listening room, the workshop floor and the stacks of Ohio walnut waiting to become cabinets. What struck them most was how much is still done by hand: wood selected, matched, glued, sanded and finished by people, one cabinet at a time. The care and the pride in the work were everywhere they looked.

It is the same way of building the reviewers described thirty years ago. More of our photographs from the visit are in the Journal: Sonus faber factory tour.

A violin in Venice

From Vicenza John and Tara went on to Venice, and one evening heard Vivaldi’s Four Seasons played by Interpreti Veneziani in the church of San Vidal. Around the hall, in glass cases, stand historic stringed instruments from the collection of Artemio Versari. Tara photographed one of them, a violin made by Giuseppe Odoardi in 1776.

They were fascinated by the age and the patina of the instruments in front of them, and found themselves asking what music each one had played, where it had been, and who had held it.

That is the tradition Sonus faber comes from. Serblin named his finest loudspeakers for Guarneri, Amati and Stradivari, took the shape of the cabinet from the lute, and finished the wood the way an instrument maker would. To see a violin from 1776 and a new Sonus faber cabinet on the same trip is to see the connection for yourself. Tara’s photographs from that evening are on our Instagram.

Why we tell you this

For two reasons. The first is setup. Where a loudspeaker stands in a room decides a great deal of what you hear from it, and we were taught that craft by the people who brought these loudspeakers to America. If you own a Sonus faber of any age and would like help with placement, or with adding a subwoofer, ask us.

The second is continuity. The loudspeakers John set up on that course are the ancestors of the ones in our showroom today, and Sonus faber has gone on building on them, by hand, ever since. A company that works that way makes loudspeakers that keep their place.

Start with a call

Call (503) 222-2599 or write to sales@pearlaudio.com. Tell us what you own and what you listen to, and we will take it from there.

See also: The Cremona line, 2002 to 2013 · Olympica: three generations, 2013 to today · What amplifier suits a Sonus faber.

The lute-shaped cabinet, sanded by hand. Sonus faber photograph.Click anywhere to close Lacquering a cabinet in the Sonus faber workshop. Sonus faber photograph.Click anywhere to close A cabinet sanded by hand at Sonus faber in Arcugnano. Our photograph, September 2025.Click anywhere to close Walnut on the bench at Sonus faber, measured and marked. Our photograph, September 2025.Click anywhere to close Violin by Giuseppe Odoardi, 1776, from the Artemio Versari collection, at San Vidal in Venice. Photograph by Tara, 2025.Click anywhere to close Interpreti Veneziani playing Vivaldi in the church of San Vidal, Venice. Our photograph, 2025.Click anywhere to close