Sonus Faber Venere 1.5 Bookshelf Speakers

Sonus Faber first earned its stripes with its impressive 2-way Monitor high fidelity speakers. The term ‘bookshelf’ is often thrown around quite liberally when talking about speakers in this range. But these entry-level speakers in the Venere range are a fine showcase of the Italian manufacturer’s 30 years of accumulated experience.

Sonus Faber Venere 1.5 : Design and connetion

The Venere 1.5 is an elegant speaker model, designed to ensure no two cabinet walls are parallel to each other. Although the benefits of this unique design are well-established by now, it’s still no easy task and can be difficult to make aesthetically pleasing.

But Sonus Faber has mastered the art, producing beautiful results no matter the finish used – the wood finish is our favourite, but it is also the most expensive. Its curved lines have been crafted from 19mm thick multilayer wood panels.

As always with Sonus Faber, the quality of this speaker's finish and assembly is an industry benchmark. The value for money is unrivalled!

Particular care has been taken over the stands (optional): the Sonus Faber Venere speaker stand.

The excellent quality dual terminal allows for bi-wiring. It can accommodate large stripped cables, banana and fork plugs. We recommend using the latter, as they provide the largest contact surface area as well as excellent clamping force. 

Sonus Faber Venere 1.5 : Driver and tweeter

The backbone has been cut out of the same block as the cabinet. This speaker boasts a superb silk-domed 29mm tweeter, with a small inset to increase output and reduce directivity.

The 150mm mid-woofer has a composite membrane known as Curv™. These two drivers were designed in collaboration with the German designer DKM (Dr. Kurt Muller). 

The woofer uses a bass reflex system with front-firing port. This combined with the shape of the cabinet means that the position of the speaker in relation to the wall is not hugely consequential.

The baffle is slightly sloping, which ensures that the drivers are perfectly in phase.

Sonus Faber Venere 1.5 : Listening and test review

After a break-in period of around 50 hours, the results are very impressive! This little speaker delivers an open and highly expressive sound quality.

The sound stage is wide and deeper than its rivals.

The midrange is present, dynamic and highly informative. The timbre quality contributes significantly to the realism of the sound quality.

The bass is impressively deep and wide. The silk tweeter delivers a fast treble full of finesse and without a hint of aggressiveness to detract from sound quality.

Sonus Faber Venere 1.5 : Unboxing and setting up

Like all members of the Venere family, the Venere 1.5 is extremely easy to use and set up, and doesn’t require any special environmental conditions.

It does, however, work best with powerful, dynamic amps. For example, an integrated amp with an output of around 50W and high current would be ideal.

The Sonus Faber Venere 1.5 is one of the top two speakers we've heard at this price. But we’d even go so far as to say the Italian model is better than its British-made equivalent – we’ve fallen in love with its unrivalled musicality and aesthetic!

This is a truly impressive product. Highly recommended!

AWARDS:

The Absolute Sound
Stereophile