Sonus faber Lumina II stand-mount loudspeaker

With a powerful modern recording from Christian Scott [Yesterday You Said Tomorrow, Concord Jazz] they sounded pretty potent, delivering a good deal of the torquey drum sound and the intensity of the trumpet without losing composure. The 86dB/4 Ohm load is not very sensitive but they seem to handle power well for their size albeit there is a tendency for the upper mid to project better than lower frequencies. This combined with good dispersion does enable them to deliver well defined, three-dimensional imaging and may also have something to do with the snappy sense of timing. It’s not a bright sound but it is a fast one, bass extension is clearly limited by the foot high box an inch of which is taken up by the integral plinth, but the Lumina II is not a lean sounding speaker. Rather it’s one that plays to its strengths, some small speakers are voiced to have bass that is impressive but because this isn’t what physics likes they tend to fatigue with extended exposure. The Lumina II doesn’t pretend to be a bigger box than it is but concentrates on delivering a revealing and controlled mid and treble with just enough low-end extension. The fact that there is a subwoofer in the Lumina range indicates that those after more bass welly but want a compact speaker would be best advised to invest in one.

I also tried putting the Luminas as close to the wall as the speaker cables would allow in an effort to extract a bit more bass but eventually realised that what they really need is space for the sound to unfold in. And at 60cm from the wall, everything came together with a sense of spaciousness that was very inviting appearing with nearly every track played. I also swapped the Moor Amps Angel 6 power amp for an ATC P2 which has, for want of a better word, a thicker sound. The deal with speakers is finding an amplifier that matches, and in this instance, the ATC proved the better choice because it took some of the emphasis of the upper notes and warmed up the lower end of the spectrum, which allowed the Sonus fabers to sing in very appealing fashion almost regardless of what was coming through them.

Bob Marley’s ‘Natural Mystic’ [Exodus, Island] was perhaps asking too much given that it has some seriously low notes on it but when it comes to defining rhythms these speakers are bang on the money; picking up the rhythm guitar and giving a taste of the bass line’s texture if not plumbing its depths. This in the context of an open and reverberant image that really seemed to be breathing in the room. Laurie Anderson’s ‘Gravity’s Angel’ [Mister Heartbreak, Warner Bros] was likewise beautifully spacious and pacey with both Anderson and Peter Gabriel’s vocals beautifully defined. This is a great recording and allowed the system to be cranked up without the Luminas complaining; in fact, they seemed to excel and produced greater image depth under fire.