mbl - is there a problem?

Map,

The little MBLs are funny animals. They're designed with a low end roll-off that is supposed to match certain characteristics of the MBL subwoofer, making them a tough match for other subwoofer brands (according to my local MBL dealer, anyway - so maybe a grain of salt should be added to that statement). I don't know if the MBL subs are available anymore (I didn't see any on the web site last I looked), so I'm not sure where the 121/newer versions fit these days. The 121s that I've heard (in a small to medium sized room) on a couple of occasions lacked bottom end power (surprise!) as a stand-alone and (IIRC) the MBL subs they were paired with were too much for the room (to my ear, as set up by that dealer, anyway).

The "in-between" floor standers (111,116) seem to be the better choices for medium sized rooms. However, like the 121, these do not feature the radial midrange driver of the 101. I thought that the 121 w/sub, the 116, and the 111 each sounded pretty good in its own way - and shared a definite "family resemblance" to each other. However, at the end of the day, the 101 strikes me as a fundamentally different (and much more fun) animal than the less expensive models in the MBL line.

Marty

Caveat: All observations from a couple of years back when I was seriously thinking about buying MBL speakers and auditioning the various models with some frequency. The model line-up has since changed a bit and I can't be sure that these observations are applicable to the current line.

Marty,

Thanks for the info.

I'd love to try smaller mbls sometime in comparison to my Dynaudio monitors in the smaller room. It would probably require a significant additional investment to do it though, so it may be awhile with two kids to still send to college and all.

I heard the smaller floor standing models (don't remember the model #) in Steve Dobbins room with his "Beat" turntable at RMAF 2010. It was an outstanding sounding room. I think he had Allnic electronics. I kept going back to that room because the music just sounded right. It was a smallish hotel room and the MBL speakers were great. Perhaps you could contact Steve for his opinion.

Whenever I try to read anything about MBL speakers here on audiogon I stumble on this Dev character attacking people, making fun of their systems, repeating over and over than nothing compares to the sound of HIS MBL based set-up ... I am not quite sure what his agenda is. Is he trying to convince people that MBL are SOTA speakers or is he trying to prevent people to get any useful information about these speakers ...

Coming back to the original questions. MBL is a very serious company and I find it very hard to believe it will not stand behind its products irrespectively whether they were bought form the previous or current MBL official distributor. The new distributor should provide support also for the older MBL models (at least this is how thing usually work here in Europe). Of course, as already suggested it is best to call MBL in Germany (speaking English with them should not be a problem).

Regarding differences between Magnepan and MBL speakers, it is definitively worth mentioning that because the MBLs are omnidirectional they need tons of power (they are literally the opposite of horn speakers), larger rooms than the Magnepans, and are even more tricker to set up than dipoles.

Regarding the reports above about not very positive experiences with MBL set-ups, I should say that I too often heard MBL set-ups sounded unimpressive even though the MBL representative (a big typical geman guy) seemed every time quite happy with the sound. A few times, though, I was very impressed by the sound stage and the purity of their midrange and high frequencies. I should also say that I was never impressed with their imaging capability. I am not saying that they are incapable of imaging with pin point accuracy, just that because of the omnidirectional nature it is very difficult to achieve this - one needs a nearly perfect room.

If you want to know how important a good distributor is,
talk to any Halcro owner, or ex Halcro dealer.
Remember all the great rewiews & "Best Of Show" systems?
It all evaporated when the U.S. distributor got sloppy with dealer support, product support & advertising.......