Sonus faber Lumina II Amator Bookshelf Speaker Review

Sonus faber is well known for its premium speakers but the Lumina II Amator Bookshelves bring high-end style and performance to your media room for $1,499. With bass down to 55 Hz and a high dispersion Damped Apex Dome tweeter, they deliver sound with precision and complexity. A leather-covered cabinet is fronted with a gorgeous choice of three wood veneers finished in a high gloss. They gush with style and sound as good as they look.

The front page of Sonus faber’s website says, “Crafting immersive sensory experiences.” As a speaker manufacturer, you might think this only means audio but look further and you’ll discover they are appealing to more than just your ears. Sonus faber is well known for its unique style and selection of materials. The Lumina II Amator Bookshelf Speakers I’ll be reviewing here are finished in leather and premium wood veneer that would be right at home in a Rolls-Royce or Bentley.

I’ll gush more about their appearance later. They also sound amazing thanks to a well-engineered crossover and a pair of thoughtfully made drivers. The wide dispersion Damped Apex Dome (DAD) tweeter plays up to 24 kHz while a paper cone mid-woofer covers frequencies down to 55 Hz. A clever port design raises the cabinet off its base to vent from below which avoids obvious holes in the cabinet and the artifacts sometimes associated with traditional ports. In the back, you get two pairs of binding posts for bi-wire and bi-amp applications. And the grills are magnetic, and believe me, once you’ve removed them, you’ll never want to use them again.

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The Lumina II Amator is a smartly designed bookshelf speaker. Though the term bookshelf is applied loosely in many cases, these can be put on a bookshelf easily because the port is on the bottom venting out a cavity in the base. While they, like any speaker, sound best when free of nearby surfaces, the Lumina IIs have an advantage over others in that they are more tolerant of walls and furniture.

The cabinets are finished in leather which has a soft feel, much like fine automotive upholstery. It is stretched tightly over the wood underneath with no padding. The front baffle is a sumptuous wood veneer that comes in Red, Walnut, or Wengè. The grain is set at 45 degrees downward in a chevron pattern and finished in a highly polished gloss. The grills are magnetic so there are no hardware bits to spoil the look. I did notice that removing them left little smudges on the finish. I wiped them away and left the grills in the shipping carton, never to be seen again. These speakers are so gorgeous that I could not possibly hide them in any way.

The Lumina IIs feature a 29mm Damped Apex Dome (DAD) silk tweeter with a shallow waveguide to help disperse sound. They do indeed play with a wide sound stage, large enough that you can set them wide apart if you like. The vertical lens in the center has a damper that is actually in contact with the dome using a tip about the size of a ballpoint pen. This also contributes to wide dispersion.

They sound best with the tweeters at ear level, but the vertical listening window is substantial. They are rated to 24 kHz and though that is outside the range of human hearing, I have found drivers like this to provide an airy sound which I am a fan of.

The mid-woofer is a 150 mm paper cone that plays down to a claimed 55 Hz. Given my observations which I’ll detail shortly, I had no reason to doubt this claim. The overall sound is rich and full, with plenty of bass for all kinds of music.

The range is extended by a clever port design that vents out the front, beneath the cabinet. The port comes down the back and flows into a cavity that is baffled, running the full depth of the speaker. This approach mitigates interaction with surfaces in the back or sides of the Lumina II.

Around the back, there are two pairs of binding posts joined by jumpers. Removing them allows for bi-wiring or bi-amping if you desire. Speaking of amps, you’ll need a bit of juice to run the Lumina IIs at their best as their sensitivity is 86dB (1W/1m) with 4 ohms nominal impedance. Though they are value-priced, decent amplification is needed.

Most bookshelf speakers I encounter benefit from a relatively close placement of around half to two- thirds the listening distance. Sonus faber recommends the equilateral triangle approach so I started there. I was pleasantly surprised at the large sound stage that resulted. There is enough dispersion that a phantom center image is created even at eight feet apart. I toed them in to ensure the tweeters hit my ears as well. They have a large vertical window but like any dome tweeter, it sounds best when you’re on-axis.

I left the jumpers in place and hooked up 10-gauge Blue Jeans cables with locking banana plugs to the binding posts. I appreciated that Sonus faber left out those annoying plastic plugs which are a pain to remove. Amplification was an Emotiva XPA-5 driven by an Anthem AVM-70 Processor connected via XLR. Since the AVM-70 supports Apple Airplay, I used Apple Music and Apple Classical to stream lossless tracks.

Strolling around my room revealed differences as I moved in and out of the central listening position. The horizontal window was immense and unless I was outside the triangle, the sound remained consistent. Vertically, I had about three feet on either side of the tweeter’s center axis before the highest frequencies rolled off. The Lumina II Amators are well suited for entertaining in a medium-large space where many people are present. Yes, they are party speakers.

But this is only a tiny fraction of their capability. Critical listening is what I’m here for and in that, they excel. Typically, when I review speakers, I spend time setting them up and making sure they work properly by playing a few familiar tracks for 15 or 20 minutes before I move on to another task. When I cued up bassoonist Sophie Dervaux’s latest collection of Vivaldi Concertos, I found myself listening to the entire album, then following it with Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony performed by the Chicago Symphony and Sir Georg Solti. The Lumina II Amators were instantly addictive.

I stuck with classical tracks for the first day. Mining the archives on Apple Classical, I found bassoonist Sherman Walt’s 1959 recording of four Vivaldi Concertos in a lossless digital remaster. These tracks have been scrubbed of hiss and the background noise but still retain their vibrance and character. Walt’s tone was a bit darker than what I remember from the Boston Symphony concerts I attended in the 1980s. The pluck of harpsichord strings created an appropriate backdrop for these fun and engaging concertos. The Luminas’ tweeters brought out the subtle partials in the bassoon and string sounds with clarity and focus.

Fast forwarding to 2024, I found a new recording of Stravinsky’s Firebird ballet by London’s Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Santtu-Matias Rouvali. Well-tempered brass and balanced strings were the stars here in what sounded like a live performance. The bassoon solo in the Berceuse came across with characteristic warmth and vibrato. I enjoyed the Luminas’ deep soundstage and expert separation of instruments. Never did even the loudest passages descend into mush. All parts were crystal clear and delineated.

Speaking of clarity, I thought a great test of the Luminas’ detail rendering would be some harpsichord selections. This instrument has one volume, so subtlety is up to the player, the electronics, and the speakers. Masato Suzuki’s performance of Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge checked all three boxes. He played the music expertly and the Luminas presented it all. One might think the harpsichord somewhat monotonal, but I felt the opposite as I listened to 45 minutes worth. If you are a fan of any plucked string instrument, the Luminas are a great way to enjoy.

Moving on to rock, I downloaded Foo Fighters’ new album But Here We Are. Dave Grohl and his cohorts are one of the best-recorded bands in my experience. The quality and fidelity of everything they’ve done since Wasting Light (when Grohl bought the Neve console from Sound City Studios) is on another level from any other modern rock band. The Luminas brought out the slightly processed vocals with ease and precision while layered guitars created a thick texture behind them. Again, everything was clearly delineated, no matter how loud.

Metallica albums are known for their compressed sound and honestly, they don’t sound great on any system. The Luminas are revealing speakers for sure, and they didn’t do the band any favors. I certainly like their latest release, 72 Seasons, but it just isn’t a great recording. Sonus faber won’t make mediocre material sound great. They are neutral as all speakers should be. Metallica sounds best when played in the car.

I finished up with a new single from Pearl Jam called Dark Matter. It’s the title track from their upcoming album to be released in April 2024. There was a lot going on and the Luminas managed to flesh it all out with ease. They will play very loud without distortion. I raised the volume as high as I could stand and never heard them put a toe out of line.

As I was finishing up, I thought, “These speakers have polite bass which makes them great for classical unless you plan to listen to Saint Saëns Organ Symphony.” Oh, I have that one here with the Utah Symphony. I cued up the final movement and was immediately impressed. Though the Luminas won’t replace a large subwoofer, they deliver controlled bass to the lowest organ notes. Tones down to 20 Hz are audible but at a reduced volume. At no time was there distortion or any lack of refinement.

The Sonus faber Lumina II Amator Bookshelf Speakers deliver a ton of performance and high style for a lot less money than you’d think.

There is nothing negative, or even non-positive, to say about the Sonus faber Lumina II Amator Bookshelf Speakers. They make the most of their size with clear, present sound and a tremendously wide stage. They are unfailingly neutral and clear with the precision and detail you’d expect from a much more expensive speaker. I had to keep reminding myself they only cost $1,499 when listening to them, and they are addictive, incredibly addictive.

My advice? Buy these for your media room. Show them off, no grills, so you can see their gorgeous cabinets. Set them up for entertaining or better yet, create an intimate listening space with just one or two seats and basic two-channel electronics for a high-end setup on a beer-and-pretzel budget.

This is my first experience with Sonus faber, and it won’t be the last. The Lumina II Amator is a gateway drug for sure. I can’t wait to try their other offerings. They receive my highest recommendation.