Not much discussion around MBL

I have some bad news. I was in the room next to the MBLs in 2000, the same year you heard them. Not only did I have to put up with the loud thumping for two days but I went next door to see what all the fuss was about. The sound in the MBL was was quite tedious and loud. I trust they sounded better at your home. I was with John Curl and Bob Crump that year, and in the system was their Bar B Que amp and Blowtorch preamp and Number Cruncher DAC. Now, THAT was a good sounding system! No offense.

Sorry about your "bad news," geoffkait.   I don't like how loud MBL tends to do their demos; I don't think this helps the sound.

I can't be sure it was CES 2000, or the year before or after (or THE SHOW) as I attended a couple around those years. 

I understand everyone has different reactions to sound systems and the MBLs seem to be fairly polarizing.  (And part of this I think can be from MBL's tendency to blare such loud levels, and perhaps the trickier interaction of the omnis with different rooms).

The more holistic picture of the MBL sound came, for me, through successive encounters in better controlled conditions.

@prof 

I could not have said it better; really.

pokey77,

Of course these are subjective opinions.  But that's audio for you.

I've been comparing live vs reproduced sound for a long time. I had many speakers pass through my room and had live recordings I'd made of familiar sounds, my acoustic guitar, my sons playing sax, trombone, my wife's voice etc.  I used to play them through a new pair of speakers and compare them directly to the real thing, just to get a sense of what the system was or wasn't doing.

Nothing has reproduced those recordings with the realism of the MBLs.
They certainly pass the "other room" test with flying colors.   If I play the recording of my son practicing saxophone through the MBLs, at realistic levels, from outside the room it just sounds uncannily like someone is playing a real sax in there.  Same with my guitar recordings.  I've fooled a couple people that my son was playing sax in the next room when it was the MBLs.  It's not just the spaciousness or the way they energize a room, but the reproduction of instrumental timbre can be startling.

@prof 

I appreciate the further details. I do also appreciate they are subjective, but I do sense we probably like many of the same finer points of the MBL gear and certainly that includes the timbrel texture and realism, it just makes them sing so convincingly. I've never been in an MBL room I wanted to leave, some better than others, yes, but always that MBL siren-song calling you to listen just a little longer.