The Amati Supreme Room

Sonus faber built the Suprema as a statement and then had to answer an obvious question: how much of it survives in a loudspeaker that fits a real room? The Amati Supreme is that answer, and this room exists to let you check the claim against the Suprema itself, two rooms away.

What carried over

The Voice of Sonus faber platform transfers intact — super tweeter, tweeter, and the Camelia midrange. That is the driver set the company treats as its signature, and it is the reason a Sonus faber sounds recognisably like one across the range.

The crossover component specification carries over as well, in a Phase Coherent Level 3 network. Sonus faber makes that visible rather than hiding it: the network can be seen through a transparent Y-shaped window cut into the top panel. A manufacturer only puts a window over a crossover when the parts inside are worth looking at.

Crossover quality is where scaled-down models are usually economised, because nobody sees it and few buyers ask. Carrying the specification down rather than the topology alone is the substantive part of the claim this loudspeaker makes.

Why this room exists at all

Sonus faber could have let the Suprema stand alone as a halo product and sold the rest of the range on reflected credibility. Building the Amati Supreme instead is a harder commitment, because it invites exactly the comparison this showroom makes possible: walk two rooms down and hear the loudspeaker the engineering came from.

Most manufacturers avoid that test. Having both under one roof is the only way to answer honestly how much of the flagship actually survives the translation, and the answer tends to be more favourable to the smaller loudspeaker than people expect before they hear it.

Amplification

A pair of Burmester 911 MK3 Top Line monoblocks carries the loudspeakers, with the 218 running in stereo alongside.

The 911 MK3 is the closest derivative of the Reference Line 909 — 350 watts a channel in stereo, 770 once bridged to mono, with a damping factor of 2750 behind it. That last figure is the one that matters here. Damping factor describes how firmly the amplifier controls the driver’s movement after the signal stops, and a woofer that keeps moving when it should have stopped is what people hear as loose or thick bass.

The Amati Supreme takes 600 watts undistorted and asks for a minimum of fifty. The gap between those numbers is wide, which means this is amplification chosen for grip rather than for volume — the loudspeaker would play loud on far less, but it would not play controlled.

Running the 218 in stereo next to the monoblocks gives the room a second amplification option without changing anything else in the chain. It is a Reference Line amplifier rather than a lesser box brought in for contrast, so the comparison stays meaningful: same house, same design philosophy, different topology and different power delivery into the same loudspeaker. For a buyer deciding between monoblocks and a stereo amplifier, that is the question in its cleanest available form.

Sources

Burmester built the 111 Musiccenter as a complete digital source rather than a streamer with a converter attached. It holds the library, rips and stores physical media, and feeds the chain from local storage, which removes network variability from the signal path entirely.

Linn’s Majik DSM sits alongside it as the streaming alternative, so both approaches to digital are available in the room without swapping hardware.

The system in this room

• Sonus faber Amati Supreme loudspeakers — Voice of Sonus faber driver platform, Phase Coherent Level 3 crossover
• Burmester 911 MK3 Top Line monoblock amplifiers
• Burmester 218 power amplifier, running in stereo
• Burmester 111 Musiccenter
• Linn Majik DSM streamer

Hearing it

This is the room for anyone who wants a flagship Sonus faber and does not have a room that can hold the Suprema — which is most people, including most people who could afford either. The comparison with the Suprema Room is the whole point of having both, and it is the rare case where the smaller loudspeaker is the more useful thing to hear.

The Amati Supreme Room is in the Scottsdale showroom. Walk in during business hours, or book ahead if you want time with both this and the Suprema in one visit.