Speakers that disappear


I have been listening once again to mbl 101-Es last weekend and have been very impressed by the great illusion they create just by "disappearing", i.e. I could not localize the speakers with closed eyes.

Listening to these speakers got me interested again in speakers that create a large 3-dimensional image, "disappear" and do not sound "boxy" in the low frequencies (with boxy I mean that the base somehow sounds constrained by the loudspeaker enclosure, especially the massive drivers in the B&Ws and Kefs gave me that feeling, the very low frequencies had a slightly "wooden" sound to it - I listend to Richard Wagners Valkyrie amongst others and drum strikes suffered in particular).

[I am obviously aware that there are many other characteristics that are required to make a great speaker, i.e. transparency, etc. but i would like to focus on the above in this thread.]

The only two speaker brands I have listened to that did the trick in this respect for me are:
- mbl (the 101-Es, dont know if this applies for their smaller speakers)
- Wilson Benesch (ACT and Chimera, not as strong as mbl but still pretty good - unfortunately a bit too week below 40hz, even the Chimera)

In comparison listening to Sonus Fabers, Kef References, B&W 800Ds, Ayon all of them sounded "boxed in" in the low frequencies and the sweet spot was much smaller and perfect toe-in was far too important for getting a decent image and illusion. (I know these speakers do some other things very well so no need to mention)

Now there are a lot of other great speakers that I could not listen to yet. Therefore I would love to hear some opinions about the ability of some other speakers to create an illusion by disappearing and not sounding "boxed in".

One type of speakers that do a good job in the above seem to be planar speakers but I have listend to both Martin Logans (dont remember which one as they all look so similar) and Magnepans (1.6 if I remember correctly) but somehow they did not do the trick for me and while they disappeared the soundstage sounded a bit flat and lifeless to me. (Both were driven by McIntosh Pre and Monos).

Particular speakers I would be interested in are:
- Magico
- Wisdom Audio Sage Series
- Rockport

At this point I prefer soft dome and paper/carbon type drivers and have not been a fan of ceramic drivers, beryllium, diamond or aluminium tweeter (in those implementations that I heard). Nevertheless there may be great implementations that do the above very well, so I would also be interested in opinions about:
- Kharma
- Focal Utopia Series
- Revel Ultima

Also are there any mid-price speakers that do this well?
kaifupaddy
OHM Walsh speakers are mid priced and have some similarities to mbl imaging. To differentiate the two concisely, OHM is perhaps more coherent top to bottom than mbls I have heard as a result of the wide range walsh driver used (German Physiks is the other well known brand that uses these) and are designed to go closer to walls and fit into most peoples rooms easily. mbl requires more distance from walls and created perhaps the deepest 3-d soundstage I have heard during audition.

I've also heard good things about Morrison speakers in regards to 3-d imaging but have not had the pleasure of listening to these.

I also have a small pair of Triangle monitors that are extremely fast and disappear about as well as anything I have heard.

Magico Minis did the trick extremely well also when I heard them (not midpriced though).

Some PSBs I've heard are mid priced and do the trick pretty well also.
Usually when a speaker does a good job of disappearing it is due to the electronics driving the speaker. The easier the speaker is to drive the better it will disappear. I was in a friend's store one day that sold Boston Acoustics and Klipsch speakers with NAD. I remember the sound always hanging around the speakers until one day a sales rep brought in a Boulder amp and preamp. It didn't matter what speaker the Boulder was connected to, the speakers disappeared. I have experienced this many times with various electronics and speakers and hard to drive speakers require expensive electronics. Try an inexpensive receiver on the MBL 101 with their 81db sensitivity and 4 ohm nominal impedance or take the electronics used to drive the MBLs and try it on any speaker. The size and shape of a speaker also affects our perception of a speaker's ability to image and disappear. The last large speaker I owned was the Dunlavy SC IV. The Dunlavys are great speakers with a very live and natural sound. Their imaging is very good, but I could never forget there were two 6 foot tall speakers a few feet away from me on the other side of the room. I never have this problem with smaller speakers.
Rrog,

Good points. I agree electronics are a big factor. Room acoustics and location within the room as well.

Some speakers are inherently fast and have good imaging and dissapear easier/faster than others though. I had never heard a speaker totally disappear in my old system (using Carver amplification) until the Triangle Titus monitors, which did. With my current system with better electronics, all speakers in my system disappear to various extents. The Triangles are still the champs, but the OHMs are close behind and the Dynaudios just a tad behind those.
A few years back, I had speakers that disappeared. I came home one night to find that the speakers, the amp, the pre-amp and the CD player all disappeared.