Stand Loudspeaker Reviews

A lighted dot on each side of that line—also tappable—lets you adjust the volume. As the level goes up and down, a much longer light strip expands and contracts accordingly. Nifty. Two other lighted strips round out the novel user interface: The middle one indicates a successful network connection, and the rearmost strip lets you know when a firmware update is in progress. Other patterns and animations indicate things like booting up, a factory reset, and the availability of new software. They're all just rare enough that I don't think I'd learn to match the light-strip behavior with the action the speaker is performing, except for the volume indicator, which is intuitive.

The speaker grille, which is not intended to be removed, runs in a 180° curve from front to back. The two sides are visually identical except for a small, silver Sonus faber logo at the top of the front fascia. If you were to peel off the grille, you'd see seven drivers. Facing you would be two 0.75" silk-dome tweeters (with neodymium motor systems, says Sonus faber) plus a pair of 3" paper-pulp–cone midrange drivers. On the bottom and firing down is a 6.5" long-throw aluminum-cone woofer. Sonus faber built 1.75" inverted-dome cellulose-pulp–membrane transducers into the left and right sides of the Omnia, firing sideways to widen the soundstage.

To limber up those drivers before listening critically, I played pink noise through the Omnia at night and music at moderate volumes during daytime—about 100 hours total.

But before I did that, I had to set up the device, which turned out to be trickier than expected.

Snags
The Omnia comes with a three-page quick-start guide that's heavy on illustrations and short on text (footnote 3)—where are those garrulous copywriters when you need them? I established a Bluetooth connection in no time, but preparing the Omnia to play lossless music wasn't as straightforward. (The speaker will play hi-rez files up to 192kHz.) The instructions say that to establish a connection, you can either use your iOS device's Settings app or tap "Add Accessory" in Apple's Home app—but then the Home app wants you to either scan a QR code provided by the manufacturer or hold your phone or tablet close to the device you're adding. When I placed my iPhone 12 Pro Max next to the activated Omnia, nothing happened, and there was no QR code on either the product itself or in the quick-start guide. The Home app told me that "Some accessories can be added through the manufacturer's app," but the Omnia doesn't have an app.

Eventually, I did find that scannable QR code; it was on the back of the warranty card: an odd place to put it. But when I scanned the code, a pop-up message said, "This site can't be reached." Only when I connected the Omnia to my router with an Ethernet cable did I "see" the speaker in my phone's settings. When I tapped it, it became the default output device. Was I now able to stream better-than-Bluetooth music files? Not yet: The Home app insisted that it had "No Internet Connection," even though I could pull in email and visit websites. Apparently an iPhone error not Sonus faber's fault but a snag nonetheless (footnote 4).

I rebooted my modem and both of my routers and then swapped in a new Ethernet cable. Presto: The error went away, and everything came together. Now I was able to load the webpage where Sonus faber lets you update the Omnia's firmware and change its settings. For instance, you can turn on a feature, loudness, which makes bass more pronounced and livelier at low volumes. This is also where you specify whether the Omnia is close to a wall, in which case a clever algorithm massages the sound to reduce boominess.

The webpage further lets you play with Sonus faber's proprietary Crescendo feature. The company says that Crescendo "combines a mix of in-phase bipole and anti-phase dipole sound schemes." When I asked Cucuzza to elaborate, he wrote, "Crescendo uses advanced signal-processing tricks ... to create a bigger soundstage and enveloping sound. To do so, we needed to work on how to design the side speakers and how to implement the right delays and create out-of-band EQ ... to enhance the omnidirectional feeling without introducing interferences with the on-axis radiation."

Crescendo is binary: on or off. There are no frequency bands to tweak or curves to adjust. You either like what it does, or you don't. Cucuzza says the sound profile he and his people chose "reflects our standard of sound, crafted by our team according to the Sonus faber DNA." With it engaged, the Omnia's sound was more spacious—and not, as far as I could tell, at the expense of accurate imaging. I liked it.

The Omnia comes with a remote: black with gray silk-screened function icons. Because it isn't backlit, and the tactile feedback is so-so, it's not optimal in a low-lit room.

One thing that differentiates the Omnia from the similar Naim Mu-so is that the Omnia has no dedicated app; control is via a remote control or a webpage, the latter of which you must bookmark—either that or type in a URL each time. Cucuzza, though, is adamant that a dedicated app is best avoided, and it's a fair point. "Customers find multiple touch points frustrating. They already know how to use that [Tidal, Spotify, or Roon] app. So, keeping things familiar made sense to us: one source of control, one source of content, and no clicking between apps." The webpage approach mostly works fine and even has some advantages: It works with any device with a web browser (as long as it's on your local network), and it isn't necessary to download, install, and learn how to use an app. A downside is that you can't use the webpage to change sources—although Cucuzza points out that this is usually automatic, since the Omnia switches to the currently active input. That's a good solution as long as you aren't switching among more than one active input, in which case one must use the remote control.

Cucuzza's team focused, he explained, on "a solid and excellent experience in the handover of the music, plus on the sound of the product—without needing to redefine a control-interface app that our customers told us they'd generally not use."

Getting an earful
It was time to play some music—but which source to use? Spotify is lossy. AirPlay and Chromecast have limited resolution. Tidal Connect serves up CD-resolution FLAC plus MQA.

But the best way to use the Omnia—at least the best way I tried—is with Roon. The Omnia is Roon Ready, which means it uses Roon's Advanced Audio Transport (RAAT). Roon allows playback of your whole digital library, plus Tidal, Qobuz—internet radio, too—at sample rates up to the Omnia's limit of 192kHz. With the unit on an open shelf about a foot off the floor, "Hunting Wabbits" by Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band (24/44.1 AAC, Tidal) induced happy toe-tapping, but the limited height of the soundstage was immediately noticeable. Soundstage width, on the other hand, was quite good, thanks no doubt (in part at least) to those side-firing drivers. Radiohead's "Everything in Its Right Place" (16/44.1 FLAC, Tidal) was particularly expansive via the Omnia.

The next day, I placed the speaker just below ear height and dragged my chair about a foot closer. Much better. The sonic image now was a bit taller and more involving. Next, I listened to the tone of some solo instruments, including Charles Berthoud's electric bass guitar on "Unstoppable" (16/44.1 FLAC, Tidal), which the Omnia rendered surprisingly close to life, producing that exciting, clean, metallic zing you get from fresh, flat-wound strings.

As you might expect from a 6.5" woofer in an enclosure whose interior can't be much bigger than half a cubic foot, bass is restricted in the lowest octaves. Erykah Badu's "Rimshot" (16/44.1 FLAC, Qobuz) is built on three deep bass guitar notes. The last one—a C1, two notes below the open E that's traditionally the lowest note on a bass—clocks in at 33Hz, and though the Omnia is rated down to 30Hz, the speaker reproduced that final note with significantly less energy than the two that preceded it. Definition and timbre were still quite good though. Most music I played had a proper foundation, with enough bass weight to satisfy, even seduce.

With about two weeks of critical listening left, I began switching between the Omnia and the Naim Mu-so 2, playing to each one the same recordings from Roon. The differences I heard were mostly small, but not inconsequential.

I started with "Wishful Beginnings," one of David Bowie's most unsettling recordings (16/44.1 FLAC, Tidal). It's less a song than a lurid, Lynchian soundscape. Bowie's pained, creepy crooning of "I'm so sorry little girl"—an apology to the child the song's character is about to murder—came through well enough on both speakers but with a chesty quality on both that I don't hear on my main rig.

On "Soul Driven," by Robert Miles and Trilok Gurtu (16/44.1 FLAC, Tidal), the barely audible monolog in the beginning sounded more real on the Naim. The sparse tambourine hits on Mark Hollis's "The Gift" (16/44.1 FLAC, Tidal) had more bite on the Omnia; but on the same track, the bass guitar seemed juiced even after I turned the loudness off via the Omnia webpage. On the Mu-so, the bass had a touch more clarity and definition. The Omnia throws a wider soundstage and, as I noted, adds that phono input. With complicated orchestral pieces at higher SPLs, neither speaker could equal what a good system of separates (with two large speakers) can do. Which is no surprise.

Sonically gifted
The Omnia wireless speaker is beautifully designed, well built, and sonically gifted. I'd pick it over the MartinLogan Crescendo X or the B&W Zeppelin in a heartbeat.

Naim's Mu-so 2 is a more serious competitor. The designs are very different. The stark, boxy Mu-so looks as if it was created by the set designers of 2001: A Space Odyssey. I could see people—and not just those who love Sonus faber's aesthetics—preferring the Omnia. The Omnia's design is more classically midcentury, which (ironically, considering the current calendar year) seems more now.

Given the high quality of the Omnia's drivers and the undisputed talents of the Sonus faber team, I wouldn't be surprised if different DSP profiles brought out more of the speaker's innate qualities in the future. Already though, it's a seriously stylish 21st century bridge between your hi-fi and an old-school table radio.

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Footnote 3: There is however a manual online.

Footnote 4: As I wrote in As We See It in the May 2022 issue of Stereophile, networking issues are fraught, and it can often be difficult to figure out who to blame.—Jim Austin