Very nice mate, those SF speakers are in a class of its own when it comes to impeccable cabinetry and craftsmanship. I cannot think of any other speaker manufacturer or designer that obtains such attention to detail in cabinet finish perfection, and as Admin rightly pointed out.
Just on a few points to share:
The SF journey for me was a very memorable one. Beginning with a pair of beautiful monitors back in 2000, partnered with a Premier 11A and a PV12, the musicality was stunning, just gorgeous! Sold it off to a very deserving customer, who still retains this system today, and absolutely loves it!
Fast forward to 2010, and I had the pleasure of seriously auditioning both the Elipsa and Stradivari. When I meant serious, I was actually considering the Elipsa's but then ended up with Quad ESL2905's instead.
Nearly all of the listening sessions were conducted with ARC amplifiers, being either the Ref 75, Ref150 & the Ref 250 monoblocks. The sound was quite good, an expansive soundstage and excellent dynamics but that was about it. The musicality was lacking, soundstage depth, resolution and refinement was lacking as well, it did not reproduce music quite the way natural tones are meant to be reproduced.
So the sale did not go through nor was I keen on SF's until... I managed to get the chance of trying out my very own CJ amplifiers on them, and on my! What a huge difference in everything! The soundstage depth, layering, resolution, finesse and most of all the musicality just set into place with such a sense of ease, it was marvelous!
By this time it was very apparent that the amplification is so important in getting the music right, it's not just the speakers. Although I must admit ARC amps are very good in every regard in terms of high-End amplification but they don't quite have that special sense of musicality compared to CJ, and only CJ owners will understand this.
The SF Strads require a much larger room to perform at their best, and with CJ amplification they were absolutely stunning! The Elipsa's on the other hand, given just about adequate space to breathe, perform beautifully, and they were the best fit in about any type of room, without too much hassle. That red finish is also a massive positive in the WAF dept, she absolutely loved it at first sight!
![😍](//cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/twitter/twemoji@latest/assets/svg/1f60d.svg)
Who wouldn't?
Anyway, time went by and my days with dynamic drivers passed on, as now I'm using the Martin Logan CLX's, as these were always my dream speakers.
However, I will say this, if I was to have it solely my way and be spoilt rotten, to own best of both - dynamic and stat, my first choice would be the Elipsa's without any hesitation! But since I'm a family man with certain priorities other than high end audio, we simply cannot have it all...
I truly understand the type of sound reproduced by your system, and specially with those Premier 8's and the ACT2, it doesn't get any better than this, really!
Enjoy to the fullest, that is another SOTA classic system you've got!
Cheers mate, RJ