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Rosso Fiorentino Pienza Loudspeaker

Rosso Fiorentino Pienza Loudspeaker

In my freshman year of college, I was fortunate to have one of those professors whose passion for his subject was so palpably joyous that it was practically infectious. Since childhood I’d developed a bit of talent for drawing and painting, but this teacher’s subject was art history, and the way he conducted his oral and visual presentations was so exciting that I seriously contemplated majoring in the subject. 

I elected not to, instead selecting art itself as my major. For better or worse, that didn’t prove to be exactly, ahem, lucrative. But the appreciation, enjoyment, and occasional creation of art remains of great importance to me. 

So, when I was offered speakers to review by a company named Rosso Fiorentino, my memory flipped back to those distant classroom slide shows. Rosso Fiorentino? The “Red Florentine.” Renaissance, right? Born in Florence in 1495, Rosso Fiorentino (born Giovanni Battista di Jacopo but nicknamed for his flame-red hair) was a generation later than Leonardo and Michelangelo, and ten years younger than Raphael. And though naturally influenced by these masters he was clearly his own man, developing a freer technique and bold compositional approach in the Renaissance Mannerist style.

The founder of the Rosso Fiorentino speaker company, Francesco Rubenni, a proud Tuscan himself, selected his firm’s name as something of a nod to and inspiration from the painter’s iconoclastic nature. As the company’s website states: “The gauntlet he threw down to those who had already interpreted all there was to interpret is something that intrigues us and inspires our work daily.”

Rosso Fiorentino Pienza Loudspeaker

Rubenni’s eclectic background was described in-depth by Jonathan Valin in his sidebar to Robert Harley’s review of Rosso Fiorentino’s floorstanding Elba 2 (Issue 315, April, 2021), but a brief recap from JV’s piece here is worthwhile. 

Before earning his degree in electroacoustical engineering at Manchester’s Royal College of Advanced Technology, Rubenni studied harmony and composition in his native Florence (he’s also a percussionist). He would spend five years in Manchester, focusing on the study of transducers, acoustics, and psychoacoustic effects, as well as designing horn loudspeakers for the company GEA.

As Jonathan explained it, horn speakers were Francesco’s first love. When he founded Rosso Fiorentino in 2006, his goal was to build loudspeakers that would morph the dynamic range and sonic impact of horn designs with the refined Italian musical nature of, say, a Sonus faber and the English qualities exemplified by the likes of Spendor, KEF, and B&W. 

Above all, though, Rosso Fiorentino’s designs speak of Italy, and specifically the graceful beauty of art and design associated with Florence. (Short of a visit to the factory, as my colleagues were lucky enough to experience, I urge you to check out Rosso Fiorentino’s website, where you can explore photos of the company’s speaker line—from the flagship Florentia to the fiddle-shaped Voltera—as well as the breathtaking La Sala del Rosso (“red room”), Rubenni’s envy-inducing, custom-built listening studio/recording venue, to which a video may at least virtually transport you.)

Rosso Fiorentino Pienza Loudspeaker

Rosso Fiorentino currently offers four series of loudspeakers: Flagship, Reference, Prestige, and Classic. The newly released Pienza ($4900 for the standard finish, plus $1300 for the dedicated stands) is the second model in the Prestige Series, along with the slim tower Certaldo 2. 

Measuring 7.6″ x 9.3″ x 10.3″, the Pienza is most assuredly a mini-monitor. But as I discovered, it’s no small-fry when it comes to sonic performance. The Pienza can throw quite a large and deep soundstage, with plenty of SPL and notably good low-end output for its size. 

Within these modest dimensions, the internally damped, rear-ported cabinet is fabricated of solid HDF fiberboard, with aluminum front and side panels for reinforced rigidity. Though this rectangular box is relatively conventional looking, the build-quality is clearly top-notch, as are the tastefully attractive oxblood-red leather side panels found on my review samples, which one sees mirrored on the dedicated stands. (Other finishes are available—see Specs & Pricing below.) 

The driver complement comprises a 1″ silk-dome neodymium tweeter and 5.25″ glass-fiber-composite midrange/woofer cone. Magnetically fixed grilles are supplied, but the speakers sound best without them, as the owner’s manual points out. 

The manual also suggests equidistant triangular placement between the speakers and the prime listening seat—spot-on both for performance as well as for practicality in my small listening room—which landed the speakers roughly four feet from the rearwall and 18″ or so from the sidewalls. 

After settling on this room placement and further breaking-in the speakers, I began my serious listening with an audiophile favorite, one that, no matter how clichéd it may be, remains one of the reference standards for evaluating staging, three-dimensionality, ambience, air, tonal naturalness, and subtle dynamic shadings—the Ernest Ansermet-conducted Royal Ballet Gala Performances. This is one of the greatest RCA recordings of the golden era, available on countless reissues as well as rare original pressings, limited only by how much pain your pocketbook can handle. 

The Pienza immediately revealed its myriad strengths: a lovely, easily natural tonal balance wherein brass and winds were richly textured, warm, and convincingly fleshed out, with a fine semblance of instrumental body and of the glorious, seductively silky massed strings on this record. I would say the Pienza’s balance is on the warmer side of the spectrum, which brings a beautiful, if slightly romantic tilt to things.

I also loved the musicality of the Pienza’s silk-dome tweeter. Unlike many metal domes, there was no ringing here. Triangles pinged delicately; cymbals shimmered; flutes and piccolo were sweet; and all were bathed in deliciously warm yet crystalline air.

The Pienza’s staging was impressively open, too, quite box-free in the way that the best mini-monitors can be, with a fine sense of ambience, layered depth, and air “breathing” around individual instruments. And unlike some minis—the original and still magical LS3/5A is a perfect example—the Pienza didn’t present a miniaturized “view” of things. (Like looking through the wrong end of binoculars is how this magazine’s late founder Harry Pearson once accurately described it.) 

That said, the Pienza didn’t recreate quite as lifelike a sense of stage and instrumental size as larger cabinets will or as my Magnepan 1.7s do. This was evident on Analogue Productions’ knockout UHQR pressing of Jimi Hendrix’s Axis: Bold as Love (stereo version). Here, the diminutive size of the speakers became evident, the music more clearly sounding as if it was emanating from a smaller point source. And though the dynamic range was impressive enough, the slightly diminished slam did speak to the laws of physics that naturally apply here. Nonetheless, that fine mid/bass driver was fast and taut, and quite seamlessly melded with the tweeter, with no false sense of the trompe l’oreille bass bump found in some minis. 

On Analogue Productions’ 45rpm pressing of Thelonious in Action, a killer-sounding live set from 1958, I learned that, as with all speakers, playback volume makes all the difference. On “Blue Monk,” for example, once locked into just the right playback level, the Pienza lets Johnny Griffin’s tenor sax rip—rich, fat, brassy, sassy, reedy, squawking, soaring—as Monk’s funky front-parlor piano plonked away, slightly out of tune, Roy Haynes’ insistently snapping snare drum yapped like a terrier, and Ahmed Abdul-Malik’s bass walked a bouncy tightrope. And then, quite thrillingly, Haynes’ drum solo exploded impressively from these little guys, with plenty of wallop and percussive snap, before the tune rolled back together into a boozy, bluesy conclusion. Very nice.

Switching to the more Zen-like zone of Beethoven’s final, sublime piano Sonata No. 32, as performed by Evgeny Kissin on a live DG release, I felt my shoulders drop and my attention lock in, as I was swept away by this exquisite performance, one of the most complete I know from the dramatic opening chords of the first movement, through the jaunty, ragtime-like middle section of the second, to the sublime conclusion where the music finally slows down and time stands still. The Pienzas did a wonderful job conveying the atmosphere of the live hall and the instrument’s placement within—not, as with studio recordings, placing the piano in your room but placing us in the auditorium. The speakers’ warm accent nicely enhanced the sound of the piano, with a welcome sense of top-to-bottom coherence, layers of harmonic complexity, and good dynamic scale—from the thundering opening bass notes to the delicate trills of the treble keys. 

At the end of the day, a checklist of a product’s sonic attributes is one thing, but our emotional response to that sound, to the music, is another—and for me what high-end audio is all about. 

A few months back I attended one of the few live concert events I’ve experienced since this pandemic began, and what an experience it was. The brilliant Cécile McLorin-Salvant was in town for a few nights at the SF Jazz Center. Knowing her records well, however, I admit to being unprepared for the emotional impact her art would have in person. McLorin-Salvant is an exceptionally giving performer, who brings a rare grace as well as playfulness to her audience, so much so that I and my guests felt we’d been in the presence of genius, an uplifting spirit. 

Her records are uniformly fine sounding, a few so much that they’ve made their way to this magazine’s Super LP List. On her third release, The Window, you’ll find her moving take on “Somewhere” from West Side Story—a wonderful live recording on which she’s accompanied by collaborator-pianist Sullivan Fortner in a breathtaking give and take. All the qualities I’ve attributed to the Pienza were in evidence—wonderful purity, warmth, texture, a more-than-impressive sonic vanishing act. But ultimately it was my getting lost in their performance, actually tearing up at the song’s conclusion, that made me truly appreciate what Francesco Rubenni and his team have accomplished. Bravo! 

Specs & Pricing

Type: Two-way rear-ported mini-monitor
Driver complement: 1″ silk-dome neodymium tweeter, 5.25″ glass-fiber composite cone mid/woofer
Frequency response: 50Hz–30kHz
Impedance: 8 ohms nominal, 5 ohms minimum
Sensitivity: 86dB (2.83V/1m)
Recommended amplifier power: 50–100W
Cabinet finishes: “Exclusive RF silky matte black coating,” black carbon-fiber pattern leather (front panel and side stripes)
Dimensions: 7.6″ x 9.3″ x 10.3″
Weight: 20.9 lbs. each
Price: Standard finish, $4900/pr.; red leather, $400; stands, $1300; red leather finish on stands, $300

AUDIOTHESIS (U.S. Distributor)
Arlington, Texas 76001
(682) 444-3121
audiothesis.com
rossofiorentino.com

Associated Equipment
Basis 2200 Turntable, Basis Vector 4 arm; My Sonic Lab Signature Gold moving-coil cartridge; VTL TP6.5 Signature phono preamplifier; VTL TL5.5II and Sutherland N1 preamps; VTL S-200 Signature stereo amplifier; Norma Revo integrated amplifier; Magnepan MG 1.7i loudspeakers; Nordost Tyr 2 interconnect, speaker, and power Cables; Nordost Qx4 power conditioner and Qb8 AC distribution center; Finite Elemente Spider equipment rack

Tags: LOUDSPEAKER STANDMOUNT

Wayne Garcia

By Wayne Garcia

Although I’ve been a wine merchant for the past decade, my career in audio was triggered at age 12 when I heard the Stones’ Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! blasting from my future brother-in-law’s giant home-built horn speakers. The sound certainly wasn’t sophisticated, but, man, it sure was exciting.

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