Audio Research Reference 150 and Sonus Faber Cremona

 I drive a pair of Sonus Faber Elipsa SEs with a Ref 110. It is an excellent match.

 Generally they are known to work very well together. Audio Research is owned by the same parent company as Sonus Faber. They are demoed at shows together a lot and Audio Research uses Sonus Faber speakers in their main listening room.

You might want to browse the AudioAficionado.org board. There are a lot of people pairing Audio Research with Sonus Faber. They have a special section for both a Sonus Faber and Audio Research.


 

I'm powering my Cremona M's with a Reference 150.  I'm also using the Reference 5SE and Reference CD9 player/DAC.  It's fantastic.  The strong points are 3-dimesional soundstaging, phenomenal low level resolution, pinpoint imaging, very smooth but very extended high frequencies, and, of course, midrange bloom.  The electronics are also astonishingly quiet.  I cannot hear even a trace of electronics hiss when I place my ear right up to the tweeter.  I listen mostly to classical music and the acid test for me is massed strings.  This system does it better than any I have heard.  All the solid state amps I have tried have too much high-frequency edginess, which I'm very sensitive to. 

fundsgon
Audio Research Reference 150 and Sonus Faber Cremona

The SF Cremona need current, and a good amount of it if you want to hear the bass "at it’s best". This means solid state amps with big power supplies and bipolar (bjt) output transistors. (
I stipulated "at it’s best" because tube and mosfet amps will drive them and probably sound good, but they won’t get the very best out of them in the bass.

(I not sure if your Classe’s are mosfet or bi-polar) If bi-polar, you have the best amp already, look at other areas if you need to change the sound, source ect.  Because the Classe are 50kohm input impedance you can even try passive preamps. 

Sterophile quote:

However, that amplifier must still be capable of delivering a goodly amount of current. Even though the Sonus Faber’s impedance magnitude remains reasonably uniform at higher frequencies, it drops to 2.8 ohms through the upper bass, with a cruel combination of 4.5 ohms and a -53 degrees electrical phase angle evident at 73Hz (fig.1).

http://www.stereophile.com/images/archivesart/CREmoFIG1.jpg

Cheers George

Thanks guys. The Classe amps have bi-polar output, and I like a mountain of bass, or maybe more precisely I like bass that will rattle the foundations when it's in the music, so I'll stand pat for now. 

Hmmm, maybe those Olympics III's or maybe the Sabrina's by WA. 

fundsgon-

for cheaper money, Rogue Audio, is a sonic match for SF loudspeakers.
Happy Listening!

A pair of Pass amps have come up for sale...how would XA160.5 mono blocks pair with Cremona's? Overkill? Would the Cremona's be up to these great amps?

@fundsgon ,any updates on trying a tube amp?  I have found my ARC Classic 120s to perform nicely in reality.  We can drive ourselves crazy with theory and other's opinions.  Bottom line ARC tube amps are worth the trial in our system.

@georgehifi.....have you actually had a REF 150 connected in your system?