Floorstanding loudspeakers — Sonus Faber OLYMPICA NOVA II

The Olympica Nova II from Sonus faber ranks as the most compact tower in its Olympica Nova collection. Olympica Nova is the second generation of the Olympica family introduced in 2013, a line that was the first from the company to use drivers designed entirely in house. Walnut and wenge are the two wood finishes offered.

Key specs that matter

This is a 3 way floorstander with a full para-aperiodic vented box of the Stealth Ultraflex type. The tweeter is the 28 mm H28 XTR3 silk soft dome in a neodymium cup design motor, the midrange is the 150 mm M15 XTR2-04 with CCAW wire on an eddy current free voice coil, and a single 180 mm W18XTR2-04 woofer handles low frequencies, with the network set at 250 Hz and 2500 Hz. Frequency response runs from 40 Hz to 35000 Hz, sensitivity is 88 dB SPL at 2.83 V and 1 m, and nominal impedance is 4 ohm. Suggested amplifier output is 50 to 250 W without clipping, with a long-term maximum input voltage of 22 Vrms under IEC 268-5. The cabinet measures 1036 x 361 x 422 mm (HxWxD) and each speaker weighs 30.7 kg net.

Engineering and use context

Front baffle, top and sides are all hand-finished natural wood set into a solid die-cast aluminum plate. Italian leather, applied by hand in Vicenza, frames the tweeter and midrange pair the brand calls the Voice of Sonus faber and forms rings around the woofer. On the tweeter, DAD (Damped Apex Dome) damps the apex of the dome, the area that usually shows anti-phase behavior in soft domes, and a single aluminum die-casting now holds both the arch and the ring. The midrange cone blends air-dried, non-pressed cellulose pulp with Kapok, Kenaf and other natural fibers, giving a slightly rough surface of varying density that lowers cone resonance. The woofer cone, made in Italy, sandwiches syntactic foam between two cellulose pulp sheets for low mass and high rigidity. Walls use eight layers of bent wood with internal ribs, and the port is an extruded aluminum piece shaped like sea waves to limit turbulence.

Pairing

The crossover follows Paracross Topology, which is meant to make the network less sensitive to radio-frequency interference, improve transient response and lower the noise floor, and uses custom capacitors made for Sonus faber. Supports are solid aluminum bottom plates fitted with steel spikes.

Alternatives

The Olympica Nova III sits one step up in the Olympica Nova range and doubles the woofer count to two units of the same size.