Sonus Faber Guarneri Memento

When, in 1994, Sonus Faber introduced the limited-edition Guarneri Homage loudspeaker to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the death of master violin maker Giuseppe Guarneri, the company embraced the musical-instrument analogy in the process of designing the speaker. Even the design of the enclosure relied more on techniques used to build musical instruments in the 18th century than on science-based, 21st-century loudspeaker technology.

The Guarneri's cabinet consists of 21 staves of thick, solid, hand-selected maple, separated by thin wooden strips, dyed aniline black, that are aged for two years before being kiln-dried. The wood is then shaped, assembled by hand, and glued, using heat and pressure techniques similar to those used for centuries in the making of violins. The cabinet's inner walls are lined as needed with copper sheeting (lead used to be in there as well, but use of the toxic heavy metal is no longer permitted), to distribute and damp resonances and produce cabinet-to-cabinet uniformity.

The cabinet's nonparallel walls are said to inhibit the generation of unwanted standing waves, and to help "guide" the backwave to the port. More important, the original Guarneri Homage, fitted with a custom-designed 6" Scan-Speak woofer and custom Dynaudio Esotar tweeter, received rave reviews across the board for both its measured and its musical performance.

TWEETER:
25 mm ultra dynamic linearity ring radiator
driver, with dual toroidal wave-guide.
MID-WOOFER:
150 mm ultra dynamic linearity driver.
CCAW/Kapton “eddy current free” voice
coil. Dynamically linear magnetic field
motor incorporating Kellog and Faraday
rings. All moving elements optimally ventilated
for “resonance free” response.
CROSS-OVER:
Designed along the philosophy of the least
interference with the musical path.
The conceptually minimalist implementation
uses 6 db/octave slopes and components
of the highest quality and coherence.
A unique structured Silver-Palladium alloy
conductors used, totally coherent on the
entire signal path. Cross-over point 2.500 Hz.
FREQUENCY RESPONSE:
39 Hz - 30.000 Hz, tuning port included.
SENSITIVITY:
88 dB SPL (2,83 V/1 m).
NOMINAL IMPEDANCE:
4 ohm.
POWER HANDLING:
30W - 200W, without clipping.
SYSTEM:
2 way vented box loudspeaker.
CABINET:
Lute shape design, constrained-mode
damping, enclosure formed using 21
pieces of hand selected solid maple wood.
FINISH:
Graphite or red violin piano gloss.
DIMENSIONS (with stand):
1230 x 300 x 480 mm (HxWxD).
WEIGHT (*with stand):
87,4* Kg per pair - net weight / 113,5 Kg per pair shipping weight.