Equipment Report
Sonusfaber
Liuto
TheBadBoyfromItaly
Neil Gader
I’d just finished shutting off the system after a lengthy session listening to a wide range of LPs. There was The Police’s Synchronicity, a smattering of Jennifer Warnes and Holly Cole and Tom Waits, and, just for good
measure, the Atlanta Brass Ensemble performing Copland’s Fanfare For The Common Man on no less than the classic Crystal Recordings direct-to-disc LP. As the mighty Plinius Hiato integrated amp (with 300 raging Aussie watts per channel) cooled down I began noting my impressions, I thought to myself, mamma mia, a speaker even Slash would love. Meet Liuto, the latest addition to the Sonus faber family. The name is Italian for lute but any resemblance to the baroque-era gut-string instrument brought to life in concert by virtuosos like Julian Bream, Narciso Yepes, or John Williams is purely coincidental. This is the speaker your mother warned you about. One that’ll get you blacklisted by that stuffy condo homeowners association. Yes, a Sonus faber—the same manufacturer known for its elite Homage Series speakers christened with iconic names like Guarneri and Stradivari. The Liuto is the devilish bad boy of the lineup with no respect for its elders.
Technically, the Liuto replaces the Domus line, and falls between the Toy line and the Classic models like the $13k Cremona M. It’s available not only as the floorstander considered here but as the Monitor, a stand-mounted compact, and the Smart, a multipurpose surround/center channel. While Liuto maintains classic Sonus visual cues such as the lute-shaped side panels, Liuto is a cleaner, more contemporary take that should be an easier and more décor-neutral fit into most rooms. Dressed in a glossy rock-star black finish, Liuto is positively stunning. The only awkwardness is that the outrigger- style spiked footers stabilizing the rear have not been carried forward to the front—a visual mismatch.
The Liuto is a three-way, vented, medium-sized floorstander roughly 41" tall. It uses all new drivers including a 6" polypropylene/textile midrange, a 9" aluminum/magnesium woofer, and a return to the larger 1" soft-dome
90 January 2010 The Absolute Sound
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