#CRANE SONG PHOENIX II DEMO FULL#
#CRANE SONG PHOENIX II DEMO PRO#
#CRANE SONG PHOENIX II DEMO SOFTWARE#

My understanding of this speaker, here for review, is that it is part of Sonus Faber’s more lifestyle-oriented Sonetto lineup of products. While I haven’t had a lot of experience with Sonus Faber products, I have always liked to imagine them as being hand-made by caring artisans in a small shop in Italy, in much the same way stringed instruments have been crafted there for hundreds of years. Founded back in 1983, this company has been satisfying the speaker needs of audio enthusiasts world-wide ever since. These little speakers have gotten me thinking about my long-held stance on sonic truth, as I’ll spell out for you as we move through the review.įirst, a bit on Sonus Faber, the company. So why bring up my lust for audio truthfulness in the context of my review of a new Italian monitor speaker, the $2299 (without stands) Sonus Faber Sonetto II? We’ll see what he thinks, but I suppose I may be too much of a purist to fully appreciate it, though I’m certain that others will. I took the thing over to Scot Hull’s place for him to try out. It was a fun experiment, but I tired of it somewhat quickly. As in more fleshed out, phasey, and dimensional. So yeah, Nelson’s little device made the music sound different. If so, take them up on the invite and judge for yourself. They’ll tell you all about it, and maybe even ask you over for a listen. Just ask anyone who’s been smitten by low power single ended triode tube amps. It helps make the music sound more real, or so they say. Why? It’s quite well-known that many folks appreciate a bit of that kind of sonic fuzz tossed their way. Yep, you read that correctly - a device that intentionally adds distortion to recorded music while on its way through the playback chain. It’s a second-order harmonic distortion generator. Just the other day, amplifier legend Nelson Pass sent me a little gizmo to try out. Perhaps a bit of distortion here or there is just the thing to help transport us to the venue itself, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing! Even so, I can appreciate that many audiophiles (and music lovers…) like a bit of embellishment, maybe as a filter to guard against less than stellar recordings of music they nevertheless enjoy. I prefer resolution and purity of timbre, even if it’s not always pretty.

#CRANE SONG PHOENIX II DEMO PRO#

That’s perhaps why I tend to gravitate toward pro audio DACs and speakers for instance, which are purposely designed to tell the truth: nothing more and nothing less. If it sounds good to you, then it’s probably good.

In the end, it’s ultimately up to the ear of the listener, and nothing else.

#CRANE SONG PHOENIX II DEMO FULL#

Luster starts more gently than the other four processes, but becomes as aggressive as Dark Essence when the process is at full scale.ĭesigned in the U.S.Should audio components always be 100% truthful to the source? Ahhh, that’s one of those questions that has resulted in untold audiophile angst, much like the supposed supremacy of analog over digital, or tubes vs. (The effect is a colour with a wider frequency range–when used on a vocal Dark Essence can reduce sibilance problems by increasing the apparent loudness of the rest of the signal) Radiant is characterized by a more aggressive compression curveĭark Essence is even more aggressive. This plug-in is the most similar to the tape knob on HEDD-192 Iridescent has a similar magnetic character, but with a fatter bottom and midrange. Luminescent is the most neutral sounding process of the five The PHOENIX II suite contains five separate plug-ins The PHOENIX II suite is not merely a downscaled version of the Crane Song HEDD192 processor, but a ground-up application derived from HEDD technology, and specifically engineered and optimised for the AAX architecture. The five “flavours” of PHOENIX II can solve the “digititus” problem common in digital recordings, resulting in a much more musical and satisfying sound. The result is added realism that is missing in “modelled” synths, EQs and digital samplers. Since then it has been upgraded and updated to the PHOENIX II and is an AAX plug-in for AAX Native and AAX DSP that is designed to put analogue colour into the digital domain by increasing apparent loudness without increasing gain (e.g., by modelling analogue tape compression).

#CRANE SONG PHOENIX II DEMO SOFTWARE#

Crane Song, famous for their class A range of professional outboard, released their first piece of software originally for the Pro Tools TDM architecture called Phoenix.

Crane song phoenix ii demo