Sonus faber Elipsa
$20,000 pr. in Maple or Graphite Wood finishes

Elipsa, a major new introduction for Sonus faber, is placed at the top of the highly regarded Cremona range yet borrows its sonic and design cues from the ultimate, Stradivari homage.

Chief among the physical design elements is the use of the infinite baffle form pioneered on the Stradivari. Extensive use of sub-structural stiffening spars breaks up remaining resonance nodes. Wider than it is deep, this elliptical cabinet construction couples easily with even difficult room acoustics allowing bass to roll effortlessly into the listening space. Here, the form is more tightly tailored and the reduction in overall scale works to its advantage allowing it to be easily integrated into a variety of listening spaces.
 

 

 

 

For Sonus faber, the drivers are crucial to the sonic success of their approach. Sonus faber continues its recent tradition of reducing moving mass, stiffening the coned drivers, while asking the tweeter to extend out well into the 40kHz region. What makes this recipe so remarkable is that as with all Sonus fabers balance and harmonic richness is retained. For lesser designers, lightening and stiffening might well result in hard and brittle, but not here. Instead, we find a true baby “Strad”, powerful yet refined, dynamic and spacious.

The 10” Scandinavian-made bass driver uses a special magnesium-aluminum alloy cone, with a pole-piece extension of milled aluminum to assist with heat evacuation from the voice coil’s gap. The midrange is a black wood pulp of special origin from Scan-Speak, valued for its midrange neutrality, mated to its own vented acoustic enclosure. And the high frequency driver is a dual toroidal waveguide example of the extended bandwidth Scan-Speak ring radiator tweeter built just for Sonus faber.

Inevitability, the finest drivers and cabinets in the world mean little without brilliant crossover integration. This aspect of Sonus faber has always been a core strength, with much of the musicality and sweetness deriving from their ability to blend the various elements into an organic whole. Here, non-resonant low order crossovers are used for their inherent dynamics and openness, with crossover points set at a low 250Hz and 2.3kHz.

Elipsa builds forward the core virtues of the Stradivari flagship model at a much more accessible price, and as such forms the apex of the Cremona range.

 

 
System Type: 3-way floorstanding vented box loudspeaker
Cabinet: Elliptical shaped enclosure crafted using sandwich construction techniques with 20 hand selected wood layers of solid maple. Each layer is graded and oriented for optimized resonance control and the sub-structural ribs are strategically placed for absolute rejection of spurious vibration and standing wave control.
   
Driver Complement  
Woofer: 10 in. (260 mm) lightweight Aluminum/Magnesium alloy cone driver. Ultra dynamic performance and linearity. Special coaxial anti-compressors are used, designed to remove cavity resonance and distortions.
Midrange: 6 in. (150 mm) cone driver with Symmetric Drive Motor System and hand-selected “black wood” fiber cone treated for control of break-up. Driver features a dynamic linear suspension designed synergistically with its vented acoustic chamber.
Tweeter: 1 in. (25 mm) ultra dynamic ring radiator driver, with dual toroidal wave-guide.
   
Crossover: Non-resonant second order design with optimized phase characteristics for optimal space/time performance. Crossover points 250Hz and 2.3kHz.
Frequency Response: 35Hz - 40kHz, tuning ports included
Nominal Impedance: 4 ohms
Sensitivity: 91db SPL (2.83 V/1m)
Power Handling: 50-300W, without clipping
Finish: Natural maple multicoated with medium gloss ecologically sensitive lacquer
   
Dimensions: 21.75 x 49 x 18 inches (WHD)
550 x 1245 x 455 mm (WHD)
Weight: 214 lbs. (97 Kg) per pair – net weight 250 lbs. (113.5 Kg) per pair – shipping weight