Sonus faber Factory Tour
by S. Andrea Sundaram

Among the hills and vineyards of northeastern Italy lies the village of Arcugnano. Here, over 25 years ago, Franco Serblin founded Sonus faber with the ambition of producing instruments of music reproduction that resemble musical instruments in design and function. Though the directorship of the company has passed from Sig. Serblin to Cesare Bevilacqua, who has been with the company for many of those 25 years, the goal has remained the same: to manufacture loudspeakers that do not merely reproduce sound but re-create the musical event.

In an industry in which many companies are, in fact, one or two individuals working out of a garage or basement, Sonus faber, with its 30 employees, can be considered a moderately large enterprise. The current factory, right next to the original, was constructed a few years ago. It houses design, administration, assembly and warehouse functions. All of the cabinet components are fabricated in a small woodshop near Venice, which is less than an hour's drive away. Every speaker in Sonus faber's lineup is made entirely in Italy, with the drivers coming from a few renowned Scandinavian companies. Having all operations in close geographic proximity affords the designers exceptional control over the final product.

Sonus faber speakers are designed by a team of four, including Sig. Bevilacqua. In this case, "team" does not only denote a group of individuals but also the way in which they work together. There is no chief designer. All decisions are made by consensus, and no speaker design can go forward until all of the team members are in agreement. This approach may be one of the reasons why Sonus faber speakers are well regarded by such a wide variety of listeners.

Even with a single design team, Sonus faber still manages to add a new speaker to its repertoire every year. With the typical model staying in production for five years, the result is a continuous expansion of offerings for a variety of listening situations and a variety of budgets. Sonus faber currently sells approximately 2500 pairs of speakers each year. Sig. Bevilacqua told me that the company's biggest business problem is that they do not have the capacity to satisfy demand for their products. You don't need an MBA to realize that this problem is a good one to have.

While most speaker designers try to minimize the interaction between the drivers and cabinet, Sonus faber subscribes to a different philosophy: create cabinets that interact with the drivers in a complementary manner -- much the way that the body of a violin interacts with the strings. Such designs require as much art as they do engineering-- perhaps more. While Sonus faber speakers can pull off the audiophile tricks of detail retrieval, frequency extension, and imaging very well, they are, first and foremost, instruments of music reproduction, not merely sound reproduction.

Visiting a company where the emphasis is on music, I spent a considerable amount of time listening to the newest creation, the Elipsa ($20,800 per pair). The listening room at Sonus faber is different from anything that is likely to be found at other audio companies or in most audio salons. The floor is hardwood, and there is a large window occupying much of the wall behind the speakers. The designers feel that this room better represents the conditions in their customers' homes than one that is well damped. Besides, they like the way it sounds.

After learning a bit about Sonus faber's philosophy of sound, it was time to learn about the company's philosophy of manufacture. Every Sonus faber speaker, no matter its price, is constructed meticulously by hand in Italy. Though there are a number of speakers in process at any one time, and specialized jobs are performed by specific individuals, one could hardly call this operation an assembly line.

Different areas of the shop floor are devoted to the different product lines -- Domus, Classic, and Homage. There are perhaps a dozen employees responsible for the assembly, testing, and packing of all speakers. The assembly area is a quiet and orderly place, where workers go about their tasks with the precise movements born of long experience. There are no conveyor belts here. A speaker remains at a particular station for the amount of time that is necessary to do the job properly, and only moves when the craftsperson working on it is satisfied.

The materials used in cabinet construction are natural woods and wood products, and leather, which absorbs energy that would otherwise be diffracted by the front baffle. The Homage and Cremona lines have finished hardwood cabinets and leather on the front baffle, and the Domus speakers have veneered cabinets with leather covering the baffle. If you have ever seen a speaker from the Homage line in person, you may have noticed the dark accent lines that wrap horizontally around the cabinet. Those are not simply produced by staining, but are separate pieces of wood. This sort of finishing is difficult enough on a flat surface, but requires exponentially more skill to accomplish on a cabinet with curved walls.

Some of the drivers are made specially for Sonus faber, while others are off-the-shelf products modified in-house. Even the crossovers are hand assembled in the factory. It may be more efficient to have some of these operations outsourced, but Sonus faber is not a company that is primarily concerned with efficiency. It is concerned with rigorous quality standards that are guaranteed by doing the work themselves.

Before packing, each speaker is tested to ensure that it matches the reference standard. It is then visually inspected to be sure that there are no imperfections in the finish. A skylight runs along the north side of the building so that lighting is consistent throughout the day. It is the attention to the most minute detail that makes these speakers the works of art that they are.

When you make an audio purchase, you are not simply buying a commodity -- you are investing in a philosophy. At Sonus faber, that philosophy is meticulous old-world craftsmanship coupled with the desire to produce something of great beauty, both visual and sonic.

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To find out more about Sonus faber, visit www.sonusfaber.com.