Rosso Fiorentino Certaldo Review and Impressions

Now that I've had my Certaldo's for just over a month I wanted to share my initial impressions with them, especially after getting requests from @marvda1, @maxward, and @jumpindick.

First let's go through the room and associated gear as well as a little background. If you don't care for these details, just skip ahead. The room I'm in now is still new to me because we just moved back in August, so I'm still learning the problem spots and tricks with this room, while dialing in these new speakers. My previous room was my living room - about 15 x 20, speakers on the short wall (only a few inches off the wall) with the left side open to the dinning room/kitchen, bay window on the right. Tile flooring, large mirror on the backwall, TV on the front wall, and the couch was all the way up against the backwall. The only thing helping this room was that the couch was a large plush sectional, we had an accent chair, and a decent size rug. But overall, my previous room was bright, and the center image was always going to be drifting a little left.
The new room is massively different. A little smaller at 15 x 13, but this is a dedicated room now. The floor space in the listening area is effectively a little smaller because we have our records on the left wall, so the room is kind of 15x12 functionally. Speakers are also on the short wall now, and the room has new carpeting with a fairly thick pad. Two small windows on the front wall, and various art pieces around the room. Far from perfect acoustics, but Luckily I had my Usher T-515's in here for a few weeks before the Certaldos arrived. The room certainly isn't as bright, and the low end room gain was reduced as well compared to my previous space. Not bad things my any means.

For gear, I'm running vinyl, CD, and streaming. Vinyl gets the most play time, followed up by streaming than CDs. The analog side of the chain consist of the Mofi Ultradeck + MasterTracker cartridge feeding into a Sutherland 20/20. On the digital side, we have the Cambridge CXN pulling double duty as the streamer and as the DAC for the CXC CD transport. All the interconnect cables are Zu Mission cables, and for the coax I've been bouncing between a Kimber DV30 and Douglas Connection Bravo Digital. I think the Douglas is going to have a long term home in the system. I've also had a couple other coax cables and a Benchmark DAC3 on loan. The speakers are being fed by my Mastersound Duventi via Wireworld Mini-Eclipse 8 cables. Running in 20w pentode mode, the amp provides more than enough power for these speakers in my room for my listening levels. I don't think I'm hitting 100db at any point, but I also don't strive for that. Usually my averages are around mid 70s with peaks in the mid 80s via my phone db meter.

Now finally, on to the main event, the speakers! Like the entire Rosso line, the Certaldo's build quality is exceptional. Aluminum front, leather, glass side walls, solid base, robust cabinet build, quality spikes, magnetic grills with some quality styling. You can't ask for much more from these in the build department. The first thing that jumps out at me from the sound is the unique bass response. The speakers dig fairly deep, spec'd down to about 40-ish hz I believe, but they don't ever really punch you in the chest. Another review I read on these said the bass was "polite," and I think that's a good way to put it.
It works quite nicely in my smaller room, but I do think in a larger space the bass would feel lacking, something to keep in mind for anyone considering these. I also have to wonder if moving up to a higher powered solid state amp at some point might give them a little more oomph, but I'm in no rush to change things. I do regularly notice the bass digging deeper than the Ushers ever could. Prior to the Ushers I had JBL Studio 580s, and those speakers packed a wall of punch in the low end, but they were often one note. The detail and texture provided by the bass with the Certaldos is simply exponential compared to anything I've had long term in my home, and with the smooth laid back nature in the low end it never gets tiring and allows you to listen for hours on end. A lot of listeners love speakers with a good punch, and if you want that more visceral feeling from the low end you'll do better with the Elba 2s or moving up to the Volterra. Although I'm quite happy with the low end, that is one area I could see where people would wanting more.

The top end of the Rosso sound is one of the biggest things that keeps me coming back. I love a good soft dome tweeter as I'm fairly sensitive to a sharp high end or analytical speaker. I also seem to consistently prefer the tone on a well executed soft dome tweeter. I will admit, the current Usher diamond tweeters are very impressive. But that's also just not the sound I care for. The Certaldos provide massive amounts of high end detail, but does so without over accentuating anything, or moving into the range of being hyper-realistic. Again, this smoothness and balance gives me the ability to listen for hours on end without fatigue. Yet it someone also brings enough detail to the mix to keep things exciting and has me regularly rediscovering my collection.

Now the midrange is the real star of the show here. The way these speakers (most Rosso speakers) handle vocals is simply captivating. These speakers really do make all genres of music enjoyable, but a strong vocal performance is what sticks with me. Some of the strongest examples I've come across so far are Johnny Cash - American IV, St. Vincent - MassEducation (the acoustic one), and Djelem Djelem (thanks again for the suggestion @jumpindick!).