It’s fair to say that you can achieve similarly impressive and enjoyable results by spending very similar money on a pair of passive speakers, an amplifier to drive them, a streamer to take care of digital-to-analogue conversion duties, and the cables to join them all together.

For this sort of money, it's possible to build a serious separates system consisting of stereo speakers, amplification, wireless streaming and digital-to-analogue conversion – and even include a turntable phono preamp for good measure. Yet whether it would come anywhere close to being as convenient, good looking or as animated in its music-making as Sonus faber's new Duetto is an entirely different question.

The Duetto speakers sound fantastic, and they nail the active speaker brief in a highly consumer-friendly way – targeting the same buyers as the company's all-in-one Omnia, but here with two boxes and so true hi-fi stereo performance

Sonus faber’s Duetto wireless speakers are as gorgeous to listen to as they are to gaze upon. They’re painstakingly crafted for equal parts style and substance, and loaded with streaming and input options, from Chromecast and AirPlay 2 to a built-in phono pre and HDMI ARC/eARC. They’re also incredibly expensive, with some underlying tech and design elements that proved unreliable and inconvenient, making them a tougher sell in a crowded marketplace.

The Duetto does a great many things and it does many of them of them very well while looking, feeling and - most importantly - sounding like a Sonus faber speaker should. The instability of the wireless link between the speakers is an issue however and needs a little more attention before the Duetto is truly ready to challenge for top honours.

My initial thought when I heard about the Duetto’s launch was that it was a way to achieve the typically amazing Sonus faber experience at a fraction of the cost. However, rarely if ever in life are things that simple. What we have here is the brand looking to attract buyers in a new, albeit complementary market to their mainstream products. They are trading on their enviable reputation to provide an audio solution they previously hadn’t catered for. And, in that regard they have not merely succeeded but done so with aplomb.