Sonus Faber Homage

The best experience I’ve ever had at a trade show was last fall. I’m so glad I finally get to talk about it. Our McIntosh/Sonus Faber rep, Mike Holzman, invited me to hear some new speakers while at the CEDIA Expo in Dallas. I had no idea what to expect except that we’d see some new gear. I met him along with four other people at the McIntosh booth and we headed out of the convention center. He put us in one of those limo busses to take us to a hotel. The bus was slick, so nice. And I thought it was pretty cool that it was just a few of us. We get to this beautiful hotel called the Joule and take an elevator to the penthouse. This is the kind where the elevator opens up right to the apartment because it’s the whole floor. While I’m being offered drinks and hors d’oeuvres, I see that one of the heroes of our industry named Will Kline is greeting everyone. I guess it would be similar to a football fan walking into a room where Tom Brady is shaking hands. We’re escorted to the dining room where there is a large TV on the wall at the end of the table. We sit down and Will gives us a 45 minute Ted Talk on all of the new patents that were developed as Sonus Faber reengineered the Homage Speaker Line. It was incredible. Edge of your seat, “are you kidding me?” “That’s just so crazy” kind of information. Mind blown. I wish so bad that I had a video of that talk. We were of course instructed when we walked in “Please don’t take any pictures of anything you see today. These aren’t releasing to the public for several months.”

Then Will says, “You wanna hear them?” We then headed over to the living room where I see the new Amati speakers powered by a pair of giant McIntosh Mono Blocks. Of course I made a beeline for the center seat. Have you met me?

There have been a few rare moments in life when I got to hear something that really surprised me. Not too long ago, we sold a pair of Sonus Faber Aida speakers that stand about six feet tall. These are $130K for the pair. I was listening to Justin Timberlake “Man of the Woods” and heard a low bass singer in the a cappella chorus after the bridge. I had heard that song a million times before and never noticed all the parts. Incredible.

Cheap speakers cause listening fatigue even at moderate volume levels. High end speakers do not. The new Amatis were so clean that there was no fatigue for me at all. We were even listening pretty loud. Will’s playlist was also crazy good. Some of my favorites were:

I Want To Be Ready — Ben Harper

Highwoman — The Highwomen

Warriors — Too Many Zoos

Kashmir — Marcin

During the song Warriors, there’s a section where a bass drum is pounding you in the face (1:12). The Amatis were pushing so much air, I felt like I was back in high school marching band with my head in front of the big tunable pitched bass drums. Incredible. It was loud and it didn’t hurt my ears at all. I don’t know how they do it, I wish I had taken notes while Will was explaining all of the new technology that went into this speaker design.

I have been of the opinion that if you have a great high end pair of speakers, they’ll always be great if you take care of them. And that’s true. But it kind of implies, you don’t need to trade up. I’m going to stop that line of thinking. I can say first hand now that pushing the envelope on design, improving materials, and insane quality control breeds advancement. Sonus Faber has raised the standard again. The new Homage series speakers are really something special.

https://www.sonusfaber.com/en/products/homage