Are MBL omnidirectional speakers worth the $$$?

[Bjorn]

Do you need more room treatment with the MBLs than with "normal " speakers?

You do if you want anything resembling accuracy. However, if you a like washed out sound stage with poor imaging and loads of specular energy, you don't.

 

[fpitas]

You do if you want anything resembling accuracy.

In an anechoic chamber the omni won't matter anymore. Problem solved!

 

[Bjorn]

In an anechoic chamber the omni won't matter anymore. Problem solved!

Lol. A dead space isn't as accurate though as we might initially think.

But obviously one wouldn't buy omnis in the first place if one cared about accuracy. This would be one of the last speaker designs to choose for a mastering studio. There's a good reason why dipoles aren't used in those environments either.

 

[thewas]

In an anechoic chamber the omni won't matter anymore. Problem solved!

Or in the other extreme, a reverberation room

 

[Keith_W]

Sigh. Given that I have access to an MBL 101E I should ask my friend for permission to go there and take some measurements. It sounds absolutely neutral to me, so I would be curious to look at the sweeps. I do not have the ability to take spinoramas unfortunately.

 

[fpitas]

Sigh. Given that I have access to an MBL 101E I should ask my friend for permission to go there and take some measurements. It sounds absolutely neutral to me, so I would be curious to look at the sweeps. I do not have the ability to take spinoramas unfortunately.

mbl 101E Radialstrahler loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

www.stereophile.com

 

[mhardy6647]

I ask because I just auditioned a pair, and I was quite impressed, and I was considering a pair of the cheaper stand mounts. I have owned Quad 57s decades ago, outstanding speakers, but no SPL and also very fragile; most used 57s are full of holes due to sparking.

The ESL-57s with badly arced treble panels (the more typical situation, although yes sometimes the main panels have been immolated as well), I think , are usually symptomatic of folks using far too powerful amplifiers with those loudspeakers. 15 to 20 watts is about as high as it is safe to go, IMO and IME. The venerable Mac MC-225 does a very nice job with ESL-57s (again, IME and IMO). The worst thing about the original Quad ESLs, to me, is the really limited vertical dispersion from the treble panel. Otherwise, they'd probably be my daily drivers (so to speak)!

They have the reputation as being monsters to drive. But with serendipity, I actually found that probably my favourite pairing with my MBLs was a little
old 14W/side Eico HF81 tube integrated! On paper probably the worst pairing. Subjectively...wonderful IMO. (My room isn't big, and I tended not to play them very loud).

The HF81 is a fine little amplifier, so I am not (really) surprised at all.
Having "said" (OK... having written) that, though -- my HF81 sounded like doody when hooked to my much-beloved Polk Audio Monitor Series Model 7A loudspeakers, which have been with me since 1978 and for which I manifest a completely nonlinear but deep-seated affection.

Heck, I used a pair of AR3 loudspeakers in our basement with a Maggotbox ahem Magnavox pp EL84 console amp for many years -- speaking of, ahh, non-canonical combinations.

 

[Bjorn]

Horizontally the MBL 101E measures well. Vertically, it's messy as expected from such a design.

Some use MBL with a loads of diffusion. Good for those who sell diffusers for sure.

 

[mhardy6647]

In an anechoic chamber the omni won't matter anymore. Problem solved!

Gee thanks, @fpitas! My brain just 'sploded as I pondered the metaphysics of an omnidirectional loudspeaker in an anechoic environment.
This is problematic, as I was planning to use my brain for something later today. Oh, well, guess I need to revise my calendar...

 

[MattHooper]

omni obviously no image at all just sound pumped around the room but a similar response and level everywhere within the room.
Keith

You keep showing that you don't seem to have suitable experience with these speakers. Quoting B&O papers about parties is hardly a substitute.

I'm glad I didn't just take the word of an audio dealer on the internet about how MBLs perform. I would have been seriously mislead to ignore them, and missed out on one of the best speakers I owned.

 

[Soniclife]

I'm glad I didn't just take the word of an audio dealer on the internet about how MBLs perform. I would have been seriously mislead to ignore them, and missed out on one of the best speakers I owned.

Given how much you like them why did you change to something else?

 

[MattHooper]

Given how much you like them why did you change to something else?

Just answered here:

Message to golden-eared audiophiles posting at ASR for the first time...

Yeah, that's a great test. Should work just fine for demonstrating bias. Just like cars. My bad.

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Martin]

Cool!

I had the VR 4 Gen II speakers years ago, which also had the rear "ambience" tweeter. I'd owned Quad ESL 63s but wanted to move on to a dynamic speaker. The problem is after owning panel speakers most box speakers sound like...box speakers. I finally found the VRs which disappeared and imaged like mad, but also had a big lush sound. I haven't heard a single VR speaker model since owning those and I've always wanted to hear what they are doing now.

I always found dialing the ambience tweeter was finding the right compromise. Turning it up increased the sense of airy spaciousness, but also started to affect the tone of the sound, sort of "whitening" it, less nuanced.

Do you find a similar trade off? How high do you dial the ambience tweeter?

I had a pair of VR4 Gen III HSE that I replaced a couple of years ago with a pair of VR5 Anniversaries. I love the Von Schweikert sound. I've found the best balance between airiness and brightness to be a little less than half way, about 40%.

Newer Von Schweikerts are way out of my price bracket. Then again the VR5 Anniversaries I own were too until I scored a used pair at an incredible price, about 1/8th their original selling price.

Martin

 

[MattHooper]

I had a pair of VR4 Gen III HSE that I replaced a couple of years ago with a pair of VR5 Anniversaries. I love the Von Schweikert sound. I've found the best balance between airiness and brightness to be a little less than half way, about 40%.

Newer Von Schweikerts are way out of my price bracket. Then again the VR5 Anniversaries I own were too until I scored a used pair at an incredible price, about 1/8th their original selling price.

Martin

I found around the same - 30% - 40% ish dialing on the ambience tweeter.

Always great to score a pair of speakers that would otherwise be out of your reach!

 

[SIY]

But obviously one wouldn't buy omnis in the first place if one cared about accuracy.

No matter what the speakers and microphones, we take a three dimensional sound field and collapse it to two points, then create a totally different three dimensional soundfield with a whole new set of reflected signals. Any talk of "accuracy" after that is rather questionable regardless of the chosen polar pattern.

As a side note, I've heard various MBLs in different setups and quite liked them. Then again, what I use in my room are a pair of (sort of) conventional front-firing speakers or a pair of dipoles. The spatial presentation of all of those options differs among them, but none of them are "accurate" in the sense that electronics can be "accurate." So it's not accuracy, it's listener preference.

 

[Bjorn]

There's a huge difference between setups in regards to how much they are true to the mix. Omni dispersion is a clear step away from this. Nothing wrong with that if that's what one prefers.

 

[MattHooper]

There's a huge difference between setups in regards to how much they are true to the mix. Omni dispersion is a clear step away from this. Nothing wrong with that if that's what one prefers.

I still think this is exaggerating things.

Yes I agree, the MBL omnis have a somewhat different sound than the typical box speaker. That is after all the rational for the design, and why I got them in the first place.

But in terms of not being "true" to the mix, for one thing you'd have to know the speakers and room for each mix to know what degree the MBLs are departing...which you don't.

But more to my point, as I've said I swapped the MBLs in and out of my system, compared to many box speakers. I did not find any significant departure from the mix. All the elements in the tracks I've heard a million times showed up in the same places and relationships in the mix. All the same details were there. The imaging was not some big departure at all. So a sax that seemed 4 feet and a couple feet to the left of the right speaker on a box speaker would show up there on the MBLs.
It's just that the image seemed that much more "convincing" in it's corporeality, in the sense of not coming from speakers at all, floating in free space.

 

[Pearljam5000]

I still think this is exaggerating things.

Yes I agree, the MBL omnis have a somewhat different sound than the typical box speaker. That is after all the rational for the design, and why I got them in the first place.

But in terms of not being "true" to the mix, for one thing you'd have to know the speakers and room for each mix to know what degree the MBLs are departing...which you don't.

But more to my point, as I've said I swapped the MBLs in and out of my system, compared to many box speakers. I did not find any significant departure from the mix. All the elements in the tracks I've heard a million times showed up in the same places and relationships in the mix. All the same details were there. The imaging was not some big departure at all. So a sax that seemed 4 feet and a couple feet to the left of the right speaker on a box speaker would show up there on the MBLs.
It's just that the image seemed that much more "convincing" in it's corporeality, in the sense of not coming from speakers at all, floating in free space.

How do the your Joseph Audio speakers measure ?

 

[MattHooper]

How do the your Joseph Audio speakers measure ?

I have the Perspective 2s:

Joseph Audio Perspective loudspeaker Perspective2 Graphene

John Atkinson reviewed the Joseph Audio Perspective2 in July 2019 (Vol.42 No.7):

www.stereophile.com

 

[Bjorn]

But in terms of not being "true" to the mix, for one thing you'd have to know the speakers and room for each mix to know what degree the MBLs are departing...which you don't.

No, that's a common misunderstanding. You have know what researchers have shown in relation to accuracy and psycoacoustics and know the polar pattern of the speaker.
FIY: This has been studied over decades. It's well understood that much high gain specular energy leads to inaccuracy and is something we want to avoid in order to hear either the recorded signal as well as possible or the mix/mastering.