Mbl Magic?

Hi Semi if you refer to my first response to this thread you will see I said "MBL speakers like any other speaker will be a personal flavour, some will appreciate what they do and others will not and prefer other speakers and that's life."

I will say after reading your response you obviously have never heard a proper MBL set-up or possibly you might just fit into this category of not liking them which is okay but the issues that you mentioned defiantly don't exist in my MBL 101E set-up.

I don't use MBL electronics with my set-up, I did try the MBL 9008 mono blocks within my set-up but most definitely prefer the CAT mono blocks.

No doubt, the magic of the MBL omnidirectional models is the dispersion pattern—the linear polar response and power response. Dipole speakers also do this well with the advantage of less room interaction at the sides where the front and back wave cancel. I find either superior to conventional speakers, all other things being equal. Still, all speakers do benefit from breathing room. It's best to keep first reflections delayed by several milliseconds.

Not to surprised about the disappointing bass. I believe they use a bandpass configuration for the bass unit.

I believe they use a bandpass configuration for the bass unit.

Bose does this...the famous "acoustimass" bandpass design which they pretend to have invented and patented! Amazing amounts of bass from a very very small enclosure but often and particularly in the case of Bose - a recipe for one note bass. You rarely see this in high end and MBL's implementation is, of course, absolutely superb.

Never heard MBL so cannot comment on how they compare to other designs.

HAving owned Maggies and now Ohm's, which are fairly omnidirectional (though not totally) in design, and also various more conventional designs, like Dynaudio monitors, I can say with confidence that one almost has to learn how to listen to the performance and recording differently with an omni design compared to more conventional designs. The sound dispersion patterns and queues delivered to your ear are totally different and more like those you would receive at a live performance, in my opinion.

If you are used to listening to traditional dynamic box speaker designs only, your ears may be trained to listen a certain way and not be tuned in properly at first to the omnis.

Once you tune in properly and your ears adjust, then the magic occurs.

Even my Dynaudios, which deliver the goods extremely well in most every way for a pair of tiny monitors, leave me a bit dissatisfied in that I know I am listening to a (very good) reproduction on a pair of speakers when listening.

The Ohms leave me more convinced that what I'm hearing is much like what I would hear at a live performance.

I would expect similar characteristics from other good omni designs as well, like MBL, German Physiks, and Duevel. Unfortunately, I have ever had the pleasure to hear any of these, but I would love to, even though they may be out of my price range.

Hi Pedrillo I seem to be the only one so far responding to your thread who is an actual owner of MBL's. There seems to be some reference regarding the bass etc. Pedrillo anyone who actually owns these (101E's that is) speakers knows that they can change the over all sound easily which includes the bass so there is no issue here.

I would suggest anyone with this issue look elsewhere within the set-up they are listening to and not faulting the speakers, possibly set-up issues, room issues, associated electronics etc. I have found most only speculate from set-ups they have heard which is either at shows or dealers locations which is not a ideal situation nor the proper way to evaluate any product but to only get a flavour for it. All I can tell you that I have no bass issues and I'm driving them with tube amps, well not just any tube amps but CAT JL3's and they produce more realistic bass than the actual MBL amps I had tried and Pass X600.5's. I preferred the Pass bass over the MBL amp bass also. If you like what you are hearing now just wait until you get them into your place and get them dialed in, you will be in for a real treat and your speaker journey will come to a end. I will say that these speakers have been the easiest to set-up and a pleasure to listen to from any seat in the house.

The over all sound is so realistic and the stage presence is "scary real" holographic.