Nearly 40 years ago, an Italian dentist and audio hobbyist named Franco Serblin teamed up with with some audiophile friends to form a company called Sonus faber. Dedicated to natural sounding speakers in gorgeous handcrafted cabinets, the company is still thriving today as part of the McIntosh Group. Sonus faber home loudspeakers range in price from $899/pair for the new Lumina I bookshelf speakers up to $140,000/pair for the flagship Aida towers.
Last year, in a partnership with Maserati, Sonus faber branched out into car audio, with a bespoke audio system for the Maserati MC20. The union of these two companies makes sense: both are born in Italy, both are luxury brands and both are known for high performance and distinctive design. This year, Sonus faber has expanded on that partnership with a state of the art performance audio system for the 2023 Maserati Grecale SUV.
The system is available as a 14-speaker 860 watt base configuration in all models of the Grecale. This is called the "Premium Audio" system. But for a few thousand dollars more you can get the Sonus faber "High Premium" audio option which includes 21 speakers and 1,285 watts of Class D power. We recently got a chance to check out the system in an extended audition which included a spirited drive through the Italian countryside.
Hitting the Road
Sonus faber's home loudspeakers enjoy an excellent reputation among audiophiles. And it's not just because of the beautifully crafted wood and leather bound cabinets. Sonus faber's speakers sound natural. They reproduce music well, with crisp detailed highs, natural human voice reproduction and solid articulate base. From the company's beginning their mantra has been "natural materials make natural sound." So we see the use of silk, paper and cellulose-based compounds in their drivers. This carries over to the automotive speakers.
Car speakers have different requirements from home speakers, of course. You won't see wooden speaker cabinets in the Maserati. Instead you'll see milled aluminum grilles designed to resemble the strings of a violin or lute. These grilles are also capable of holding up to the occasional bump, scrape or kick with a dirty boot. And the speaker drivers, crossovers and amplifiers must be designed to hold up to the abuse of a vehicle that is frequently out in the elements and may even be taken off-road. So Sonus faber teamed up with a high-end OEM manufacturer of car audio gear to design the various drivers, electronics and internal cabinets. Sonus faber provided detailed specifications as to performance and frequency response of each driver, then tested prototypes to make sure the partner met these requirements.
After the components were finalized and installed into a prototype vehicle, Sonus faber spent a week measuring and tuning the system for optimum performance. Company reps tell me they optimized the system's sound for the most important listener (the driver), but they also made sure that sound was enjoyable to front and rear seat passengers.
The Voice of Sonus faber
Sonus faber spent approximately two years in the design process of the automotive system, using physical measurements, semi-anechoic chambers, computer modeling and simulation to craft the sound of the system within the confines of the Grecale's cabin. The Sonus faber engineers had to convince the Maserati design team of the necessity of precise speaker placement in order to make sure that the car system could achieve the so-called "voice of Sonus faber." One of the company's guiding principles is to assure proper time, phase and amplitude alignment between tweeters and midranges. If midrange frequencies were to arrive at the listeners' ears at a different time or phase than treble sounds then the cohesiveness of the sound would suffer. And although some of this can be compensated for using electronic processing, physical placement is also important.
To create an enveloping and immersive soundstage in the car, the company uses twenty one different speakers, placed all over the cabin, from the dashboard's recessed center channel, to the tweeters, midrange drivers and woofers in the doors and support pillars. The subwoofer, which has its own dedicated 200 watt amp, is embedded inside the rear left hatch area, with a port that vents air outside the car to the wheel well. You won't see the subwoofer, but you will definitely hear it, and feel it.
Within the car's EQ adjustment there is a dedicated control just for the low bass - just for the subwoofer. And as hard as I tried to make it sound bad (cranking both the volume and the bass level to near the max), I couldn't do it. The engineers tell me they monitor the output voltage of the Class D amp to keep the amp from clipping and distorting the sound. Your ears will give up before the sound system does, even with the engine growling and the road rumbling under your wheels.
Pick Your Poison: Stereo, Surround or Immersive Surround
The High Premium sound system settings are integrated into the Maserati's infotainment system thanks to the Sonus faber automotive app. For "Surround" you'll find options for "Off," "2D Surround" or "3D Surround." When surround is turned off, you'll get 2-channel stereo sound, using most of the car's speakers to produce a standard stereo soundstage for front and rear passengers. "2D Surround" creates a surround sound stage all over the vehicle. "3D Surround" uses the height speakers above the ears to effectively remove the top from the vehicle and create a truly immersive sound experience from top to bottom. I experimented with all of the settings, closing my eyes to try to imagine an actual live performance (while someone else was driving, of course). I kept coming back to the 3D Surround mode for the most compelling sonic experience.
Similarly, you can select between two different sound profiles: Reference and Extrema (Ex3ma). Reference mode provides a more accurate representation of the source material, but Extrema worked better within the car environment to bring the listener closer to the performance. Additional settings are available for EQ, fader, balance, surround intensity, and more so you can tailor the sound to your liking.
We listened to a wide sampling of music on the system, from Daft Punk to Pink Floyd, AWOLNATION to The Beatles, Lorde to Creedence Clearwater Revival. Sound quality was consistent throughout: clear articulate male and female vocals, crunchy guitars, nice definition on drums and cymbals and deep bass that you'll feel in your core. The use of a center channel speaker in the dash helped to create a solid, well-defined front soundstage and the use of rear speakers in the doors and high in the side pillars extended the depth and height of the image. It's easy to forget you're sitting in a car when listening to music on the Sonus faber High Premium system; It's more like listening to a high-end home audio system, or even (at times) a live performance. But try not to get too distracted: this car doesn't drive itself.
The Sonus faber High Premium Audio option is available on all versions of the 2023 Maserati Grecale, which starts at $63,500 USD. On the Grecale Modena and Trofeo versions, the High Premium system comes in the "Premium Plus" package ($3500 on the Modena, $4200 on the Trofeo). US deliveries are scheduled to begin shortly.
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