Followed up my dem earlier this week of the B&W Nautilus 802s with a home dem of the Sonus Faber Cremona, both with the new Krell SACD and with my existing Marantz/TAG combo. The SF speakers look gorgeous and sound superb on certain types of music - notably acoustic folk / rock and chamber music. Had I not heard the N802s I'd also have said that they did a good job on rock - in comparison to my old Celestion A3s. However, the difference between the speakers on stuff like Led Zep's Dazed and Confused was absolute night and day. The SFs gave a good representation, but the B&Ws gave a completely different order of magnitude of scale and dynamics - drums sounded like real drums. Same story on big orchestral crescendi. where the SFs for me got a bit shouty and strained. The B&Ws are probably a tad coarser but to me convey more emotion and the grin factor. Now the Krell... I had to plunge straight in with the biggest cliche in the book - Dark Side of the Moon, which have both on CD and SACD. I was able to flip between the Krell on SACD and my kit on CD. Big difference. I've got a Pioneer universal player in my second system, and there to be honest there's precious little difference to be heard. Here though there were huge differences, all in favour f the Krell, in terms of detail (I know this disc inside out but still heard new elements), texture and richness of bass, smoothness at the top end, volume without edge. As a straight CD player the Krell was also excellent, easily besting the Mz/Tag on most material (some stuff , like Mons Meg on Eliza McCarthy's Rice, just sounds good on anything so didn't differ). My next step is to get the Krell back with the B&Ws at home - and I suspect I'll be lining up the credit cards shortly thereafter.
