The Sonus Faber Olympica Nova 1 ($6500/pair) is the company’s latest stand-mounted, two-way monitor—a lineage that began with their first speaker, the Minima, which I reviewed some 24 years ago.1 Like the products that followed, the Minima featured a 1" silk-dome tweeter and a 4" reflex-loaded paper-based midbass driver, both attached to a leather-covered baffle and housed in a beautiful wood cabinet, hand-crafted in Italy. I enjoyed the Minima’s sound, as did this magazine’s Sam Tellig, who praised its “sweet, forgiving, slightly rolled-off on top, and somewhat ripe . . . mid-to-upper bass,” with superb focus and imaging that was a “treat for sore ears.”2 I recalled fondly that tiny monitor’s imaging and midrange smoothness, so when offered the chance to review the Minima’s 2019 descendent, I readily accepted.
Design
The Olympica Nova 1 was designed by Sonus Faber’s Paolo Tezzon and shares many features with the $15,900/pair Guarneri Tradition so well described in John Atkinson’s March 2018 review.3 For example, the Olympica Nova 1’s newly designed cabinet walls are made from eight thin, cross-grained layers of wood, pressed together and bonded, then covered by several layers of lacquer to create a more rigid structure and to produce constrained-layer damping. The cabinet sides are asymmetrical, with minimal parallel walls. The front and top have the same veneer as the cabinet sides. There’s leather on the bottom and, of course, on the speaker’s distinctly shaped driver-mount area.
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