I really wanted to hear that model, because the Lumina III was such a tremendous value (it won out Best Value Award for 2020), and I thought the Lumina I might set a new standard for sub-$1,000 dollar speakers.Ī few months passed, and I was invited to review the even newer Sonus faber Lumina II instead. It’s more than attractive, just not the ornate hand-carved piece of furniture that you’ll find elsewhere in the Sonus faber factory.Īt the time of that review, only two Lumina models existed-the aforementioned III and the I, which was a tiny 2-way bookshelf monitor that sold for just $899/pair USD. It’s a simple box consisting of nothing but right angles, the only wood a single piece affixed to the front baffle. The prices of the line are so low because the cabinet construction is so simple. The Lumina line, as you probably know, is made in Italy, using drivers that Sonus faber uses in their more expensive lines. When I reviewed the Sonus faber Lumina III last year, the flagship 3-way tower that retailed for a crazy low price of $2,199/pair USD, I couldn’t believe how beautiful they sounded. Why would I want to review a small pair of bookshelf speakers from a manufacturer’s “budget” line, even if that manufacturer is Sonus faber? Looks like I answered my own question there, but it’s really a simple explanation. I looked at these tiny little speakers producing such a rich, satisfying sound that I felt like throwing my notes and my clipboards into the air and wondering, once again, why I suddenly dig these latest Sonus faber designs so much. So this is now a story about the Sonus faber Lumina II, “Yulunga” and baseball? Well, let me put it this way-the Qlns may have gone yard with that whack of the drum, but the little Lumina IIs hit a stand-up double and scored a couple of RBIs. I suspected that yes, it’s possible that the Lumina might not even get on base. Once in a while, a little guy around the size of the Sonus faber Lumina II takes a swing at that big bass sound and misses completely. Some make it sound soft and bloated and without precise definition in space. Some, but still relatively few, give it the appropriate weight and clarity. That single drum beat, the first one up, the first one that signals that this entire album is such a gem of a recording-it can tell me almost everything about a speaker because it never ever sounds the exactly the same to me. But at least I’ll have a firm idea of their lower limits moving forward. This is where I’m going to trip up these little leather-clad boxes from Italy. What does this have to do with the very small and very affordable Sonus faber Lumina II monitors, the ones so small that they can’t even cover the top plate of the speaker stands I’m currently using? As soon as I swapped out the Qlns with the Luminas, I realized that I still had “Yulunga” cued up and ready to go. The sound of that enormous drum head being struck, yet still as softly as if Shirley Horn herself held the mallet, was just so perfectly round and possessed so much of the inner workings of such a precise collision. The Prestige One nailed it, perhaps better than any two-way I’ve heard save for truly expensive two-ways like the Vimberg Amea. There’s that part on “Yulunga,” a couple of minutes in, where the big bass drum/gong/whatever comes in, soft and deep and gentle, but still tremendously subterranean. It had been a while, and it was still as memorable as the first time I heard it. The Qlns are a fabulous monitor for a relatively affordable price of $6500/pair USD, and I recently spent an evening with these speakers listening to Into the Labyrinth. I’d been spending the previous weeks with the Qln Prestige One speakers, and one of the many things these Swedish loudspeakers do well, for a small two-way monitor, is deliver the goods on the bottom end. I had the Sonus faber Lumina II set up for failure. I still have people in the hi-fi industry remind me that the first time they heard this song was in one of my exhibit rooms. That old demo track from Dead Can Dance’s Into the Labyrinth has become a staple at high-end audio shows, and I take at least partial responsibility for that. The story of the Sonus faber Lumina II bookshelf speakers is also the story of “Yulunga,” perhaps my favorite reference track of all time.
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