muysal

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
Superb finish. build quality and great WAF. Excellent packaging. Insist on the original card-board & wood box, which is designed for double-box shipment overseas. Open, detailed, neutral, fast mid-range and highs. Tuneful base but will not deliver strong, extended base unless partnered with a good sub. I wouldn't say this is an all-around speaker but it's a very special speaker, winner of multiple awards and a design that SF kept for a number of years because it worked very well - test of time the final arbitrator. When something sounds good in general it's difficult to find in the used market. For example, it's very difficult to find a Berning EA-230, almost 30 year old design which had great synergy with Quad ESL's.

This is a very classy speaker with a classy sound. It may not be suitable if you listen to mainly rock, heavy-metal, grunge, punk, techno and hip-hop, OTH I personally like what it does with various types of rock including Afro-beat from Fela and Femi Kuti. Probably best suited for classical, opera, classical jazz and vocals.

As comparison I have Quad 989 and SF EA2's. The Guarneri compared to these has a leaner, un-colored but detailed, articulate, open sound - big sound-stage, great imaging and depth. They are not as fast as 989's on the transients and micro-dynamics but pretty close for a coil speaker. Their realism with strings and piano is highly impressive. In their price-range, I never heard anything more satisfying. To some they may be too lean. This is not a full-range speaker but as a stand-mount monitor it maybe one of the best designs in audio. I have listened extensively to SF Cremona Auditor and Momento. Cremona Auditor is probably OK if you are looking for an all-around speaker. I didn't care for the Momento butI didn't audition them with a front-end that I liked so it would not be fair to comment.

Guarneri's biggest asset for me is their ability to sound very special, like a pair of speakers not just not average or run of the mill. You immediately sense you are listening to a piece of art-work and I'm not talking about their looks - which is in fact a piece of collectible art. Speaker like this will probably not repeated, when one considers how much labor & materials went into building them.

Positioning is important but on the heavy stone slabs they sit on, you can slide them around to find your ideal position. It's important to place something under the slabs (facing the listener) raising the units few inches higher so they are tilted up & away from the listener. This all lows them to have tonal balance - from your listening position lean forward and back and you will not hear any tone shifts. The current SF Momento already comes with a stone slab tilted away from the listener - also the case with Quad 989's. I used a kitchen cutting board, split it half to place under each slab - probably not the best solution but it works.

If you find one between $4K-5K grab it and keep it. They are an easy sell because they are great truly speakers.

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
This review is in response to Drew and James King's reviews.

The Guarneri Hommage is a small speaker and is certainly limited in the extreme last 20 hz; i.e. the 20 hz - 40+ hz range. By the same token, there is a limit to the size of room that they will work in. Too large, and they may sound limited in output. ...but that's why there's the Amati and Stradivari to fill in the larger rooms.

They are also sensitive to room placement and toe-in relative to the listening position, and need room to breath. Get the toe-in wrong and the highs will sound harsh and metallic as mentioned by Drew. They are also power hungry and to really experience the bass that these babies can pump out within it's limitations, a minimum 100 watts is recommended.

With those caveats out of the way, these speakers are by far the most transparent and musical speakers in its price category. In a well set-up system with commensurate ancillary equipment, you hear a tonal purity that leaves little to the imagination of the instruments reproduced.

Images are life-sized, and have the density that again gives you the sense of live music played in front of you. With acoustic bass, such as the plucked strings of a double bass ina jazz quartet, you don't only hear it but "feel" it, and within the limitations of its bass, you come as close to the live event as is possible. It IS State of the Art in music reproduction.

If anything, I am still discovering the limits of this speaker since every upgrade upstream comes through with commensurate improvements in the reproduced sound. It is monitor that will help an owner separate wheat from chaff in equipment evaluation.

All I can say is, both Drew and James have obviously not experienced the magic that the GH's are able to evince. This could be due to poor system set-up or inferior upstream component weaknesses, but do not let their comments put you off from experiencing real magic.

The price of entry is high, but if you have a smallish listening area (mine was 18' X 12' - speakers positioned along the long wall) and have really heard what these babies can do, one will be hard pressed finding something better.

These are speakers that prove that beauty is not only skin deep!

Price Paid:  $11000.00 from Upscale Auidio

Summary:
Best minimonitor I've heard in my limited experience.

Strengths:
Very good on some music. Not as wide applications as led to belive.

Weaknesses:
Gave up a pair of Wilson Sophia. Should have kept the Wilsons at the end of the day. They are better.

Somewhat harsh and metalicy sounding. Has not gone away like dealer said.

Very limited listening area.

Similar Products Used:
Wilson
Dynaudio
B&W
Nelson Reed

Daveyf

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 4 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Visitors rate this review
4.17 of 5, 12.00 votes

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
The SF Guarneri's replaced my beloved and very well respected Hales System 2 Signature's. I do not replace my speakers very often ( I had the Hales for 15 years!). The Guarneri's are a special speaker. They are able to reproduce high's and mid's like very few speakers I have ever heard. Part of the reason for this is their excellent driver composition. The Dynaudio esotar tweet and Audiotechnolgie
mid/bass unit. Both are SOTA still in this day and age.I compared the Guarneri's to Kharma's,( both model 3 and 1 ceramics) and to Joseph Pearl's, Avantgarde Uno's and Duo's, Dali's, Wilson Duette's, Krell LAT 1's, Magico Minis, Dynaudio Special 25's, Maggie 3.6's,B&W 802D's, Quad 988's, Peak Consult Empresses and a few others that I cannot recall. The Guarneri's in my room offered more cohesion and naturalness throught the range than any of the above. They were more lifelike in their reproduction of the little things that I look for in a speaker;things like bloom, air, depth, ability to disappear, timbre reproduction and dynamics. I was able to hear more detail in all my LP's and CD's than any other speaker that I tried in my room. To best the Hales in these areas is IMHO no small feat. Compared to the other candidates that I listened to above, only the Magico had similar dynamics and lifelike reproduction of the highs and mid's. As far as WAF, the Guarneri's were uncontested. I am planning on keeping these for a long time, they are true pieces of art.

Strengths:
High's and mids are SOTA. Incredible imaging and dynamic ability and lifelike dynamics and palpability. Tremendous build quality.

Weaknesses:
Slight lack of bottom end.

Similar Products Used:
Magico Mini's, Krell LAT 1's, Joseph Pearl's, Hales Signature 2's, Kharma Ceramic 1's and 3's, Avantgarde Unos and Duos, Wilson Duette's, Quad 988's,Dynaudio Special 25's, B&W 802D's, Maggie 3.6's, DAli's, Peak Consult Empress

Peter Ulrich

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Visitors rate this review
3.86 of 5, 7.00 votes

Price Paid:  $9800.00 from Stereo Unlimited

Summary:
After 30+ plus years as an amateur musician, serious music lover, and audio gear addict who has spent obscene amounts of money to feed my habit, these are the only pair of speakers I have ever owned that I wouldn't even think of selling, ever, at any price. An incredibly satisfying speaker that combines physical and aural beauty like no other product I know of. I have owned many speakers that cost twice or more the Guarneri's price. They are all gone now, the SF's will stay until they or I expire. Yes, they require the finest quality of associated gear and yes, 100watt per channel tube amps are the way to go and yes, in big rooms an REL sub is needed. In my system, they are paired with Conrad Johnson LP140M monoblocks, a CJ ACT2, Nordost Valkyrja cable throughout and an REL B1 sub. This set up is worth (to me) every nickel of hard earned money put into it. If you love music, its hard to say enough nice things about the Guarneri.

Strengths:
Best tonal balance in speakerland at pretty much any price and capable of absolute state of the art performance with right gear. Resoultion of inner detail and microdynamics. To die for on vocals, small jazz, strings. Rare beauty and craftmanship in this world of "Made in China" passionless mass production. You don't need a fork lift to move them around. Even your musically illiterate friends or visitors look at them, walk around, and go "wow". Make their owner smile a lot, occasionally smug, and relieve any anxiety that you may need better speakers.

Weaknesses:
This is a speaker for the dedicated and well resourced music lover only. You need to spend serious money on ancillary equipment and cable to maximize their potential. I feel sorry for the poor guy who wants to hook this up to his Denon or Yamaha. Not for the room rattling throbbing bass lover (without a sub). Not many places to go from here for upward mobility. Contrary to some other comments, I found it took some real effort to position them optimally in the room but their smaller size and non-spiked base made that easier. Micro changes to toe-in and distance from walls (or almost anything else) are readily apparent.

Similar Products Used:
B&W 802, JMFocal Diva Utopia, Wilson Watt/Puppy 6.0

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