May 17, 2024

Atlanta Run and Surprise Purchase

Giles and I decided that we should get together at least one more time before I leave for Austin to have a listen to some fresh audio equipment. He discover Evolution Home Theater in Buckhead, that had both Wilson and Børresen, so I picked him up after dropping off the boys, and we made the drive, chatting about our usual geeky stuff all the way.

Evolution is a great space on the second story of an innocuous building on Peachtree. The main listening room is to the right of the front doors, where several different systems are set up—mostly Wilson speakers and a couple of Sonus Faber areas. We were greeted by David, and he showed us to a back room that contained the much-lauded Børresen X3s. We listened for a bit and the X3s delivered a huge and detailed soundstage, but sounded a bit analytical—likely due to the amp that was powering them. It wasn’t the Forté, but a German amp from a company I was not familiar with. I told David that the X3s were out of my price range anyway, and he led me back to the main room to listen to some Sonus Fabers—another company that I had only heard of.

There were two models set up, a floor-standing pair and a couple of bookshelf speakers, with a McIntosh MA252 2-Channel Hybrid Integrated Amplifier which is a beautiful piece of kit. He played the floor-standing models first, and they sounded lovely—much warmer than the X3s. I listened to several tracks before playing Lee Morgan’s “The Sidewinder.” Morgan’s trumpet was still strident, but warm and articulate; the other instruments were distinctly placed and also sounded great, like Lee Henderson’s tenor sax and Bob Cranshaw’s bass. I asked David to play the bookshelf speakers, and he plugged them into the MA 252. We listen to the the Morgan track again, and it had the same impressive presentation, maybe with a bit less bass—though the bass response was still sweet, even in such a large room. He played a dubbed-up cover of “Roxanne” by DubXanne, and I tried “Maui Waui” by Chuck Mangione—two very different sounding songs, but these little walnut beauties handed each like a champ. Giles and I were both impressed.

They are the Sonus Faber Sonetto IIs, and David told us that both pairs were just replaced with newer versions. The floor-standing models had already been sold, but the bookshelf models were available. New, they go for $2500, plus $1000 for the stands which are made for the speakers. He said that he could sell these to me for $1500.

Giles wanted to listen to a pair of Wilsons, so we did that for a bit. Man, they were impressive, but they should be for their asking price. I thought Steely Dan’s “Jack of Speed” sounded particularly awesome—the clarity, detail, and huge soundstage. I took the captain’s seat for the last song (we had lunch and Trader Joe’s to get to, after all): Michael McDonald’s cover of “Hallelujah” which I had never heard before. Holy cow: with the Wilson’s, it sounded as if MM’s head were seven feet tall, belting out Hallelujah in the center of the deep soundstage. When it was finished, I asked to hear the same track on the Sonetto’s. While not a huge, the Sonettos delivered an impressive performance—maybe 85% of what the Wilsons delivered. This was enough for me to buy them—a totally unexpected move, but $1500 seemed to be a stellar deal for these little gems.

As of now, I plan to couple them with a Heaven11 Billie and a pair of Morrow speaker cables. And done.

Now, I just have to get place to put the system.