Replacement or Repair of Drivers on Sonus Faber Guarneri Homage.

[spook]

Hi all,

I've been offered a pair of SF Guarneri Homages at a price which is up for negotiation. Cosmetically they are good but the downside is that one of the speakers is dead, (ie no sound at all). The tweeter has a 'crushed' dome and the rubber around the cone of the woofer is perished. The other speaker works fine.

I currently have some SF Cremona Auditors (not the 'M' version), which to my ears are great. The voicing is very much to my taste, (I guess I've mellowed over the years). I run them with an Ayre V-xe power amp, a Classe CP-65 pre and stream through an Auralic Aries and an Esoteric K-03X on board DAC. I am hoping to get a better version of what the Cremona Auditors provide, (I appreciate the limitations of this type of speaker and it is not a great concern to me).

My question is: Has anyone previously replaced or refurbished drivers in the SF GH? Replacement items are getting rarer and expensive and I'm not aware of any company who repair/refurbish these on a regular basis.

The seller has asked me to make an offer which I am considering at the moment. They are a reputable dealer who I have bought some very good pre-owned hifi from before. I understand these were traded in some time ago and they would rather move them on at a discount than wait a long time to organise new parts and repair. SF apparently do not have the parts currently available but should do at some time but the timescale is somewhat open ended, as is the price.

Anyway, if anyone can provide the benefit of their previous experience or knowledge I would be most grateful. I need to consider the risk before arriving at what I beleive to be a sensible offer.

Many thanks.

Steve.

[spook]

Does anyone have any ideas where I could source a replacement bass driver for a SF Guarneri Homage?

[Beobloke]

The Guarneri Homages feature specialist drive units that were specially designed for the speaker so I would say that any repair attempt would be fruitless. You're certainyl very unlikely to be able to buy the correct surround for the bass driver and, whilst the tweeter dome might be able to be sucked back out using the good old vacuum cleaner trick, its performance will have already been compromised. Aslo, if the damaged speaker doesn't work at all, there's no telling what other sort of internal damage has been inflicted on it.

If you really want them, I would be inclined to wait until the correct drivers are available, otherwise you'll be listening to one Guarneri Homage and one speaker that looks like a Guarneri Homage but may well possibly only sound a bit llike one!

[Lawrence001]

Have you contacted SF or a UK distributor? If they're no help them your only hope is to find another pair cheap with one dodgy unit and get a working pair out if it. I suspect the dealers may be having similar issues which is why they seem like a bargain. They're probably not

[spook]

Thanks for the replies.

I figure that sourcing new drivers is a problem and the SF dealers are struggling with this. There is what appears to be a genuine replacement tweeter available from Italy but it's not cheap. As far as the woofer is concerned; as these are not off the shelf items used with other speakers I'm guessing these can only be sourced via a SF dealer.

Shame, as they would be a very nice pair of speakers if they could be repaired.