FRANCO SERBLIN Accordo

Franco Serblin Accordo measures only 36x19x36cm which implies ease of placement and physical disappearance in a room. Should you expect that you put the speakers on a shelf or a stand to the back of the room, you are completely wrong.

First, the Accordos sport a very complicated curvature. Apart from top and bottom boards there are no two surfaces parallel and there are no two surfaces just planar – all planes are curved to a precisely defined radius to the extent that the speaker practically does not show any apparent symmetry. In dark they look like a randomly grabbed piece of wood rather than something touched by a man’s hand. However, throw a little bit light on the speaker and it blooms to a unique form of art. You can simply feel the passion of Franco Serblin in every detail.

As said, not only is the craftsmanship attentive but it is a real work of art - a game that employs shapes and light to sculpt the unique enclosures and the unique sound. Sonus Faber speakers always tended to be much closer to a music instrument than to a sound making device and the same applies here. Seamlessness of the walnut cabinet is broken only by thin aluminum inlays that separate the cabinet’s bottom and top from its walls both visually and mechanically. Note that I used the word ‘walnut’ rather than walnut veneer as there is no veneer on the Accordos – everything is solid wood. The warmth of the walnut harmonizes pretty with polished aluminum that is used for grilles that are made from nylon-like strings in the typical Sonus Faber fashion and that are not removable. It is nothing that should bother you as the grilles are the most transparent and they are accounted for in final voicing of the speaker.

The speakers are ported with felt-lined ports firing to the back. At first glance the ports look elliptical but they are not and it is just the beveled rear panel that optically misleads an observer. Apart from the ports and serial number plates there is nothing else to be seen. No speaker terminals.

Well, this is the second reason why the Accordos cannot be considered bookshelf speakers – there is no way to get them play without the original stands. The monitors are connected to the stands with the help of a Speakon terminated cable that runs through the stand and then secured via two fixing bolts. The crossover assembly of low order is hidden in the lower parts of the stands, thus saving valuable space inside main cabinets to enable the Accordos go deeper with their minimum footprint. The speaker terminals are located at floor height and are not bi-wirable. Similarly to the main speakers the stands are also high gloss polished with Mr. Serblin’s engrave signature on them.