Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

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Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
MartinLogan SL3 loudspeaker
Wes Phillips  |  May 12, 1997  |  0 comments
"Wow! What's that?" asked the pizza delivery boy, peering over my shoulder at the slender, 5'-tall Martin-Logan SL3 visible behind me.
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Floor Loudspeaker ReviewsAudacious Audio
mbl 101E Radialstrahler loudspeaker
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 23, 2004  |  First Published: Oct 01, 2004  |  0 comments
Back in the late 1980s, when I was writing for The Abso!ute Sound and couldn't afford any of the audio gear I was reviewing, my system consisted of an Oracle turntable with Magnepan unipivot arm, a pair of Spica TC-50 loudspeakers, and a heavily modified Hafler DH-200 power amp and DH-101 preamp. It was a fun system that imaged like hell, but my fondest audio memories of that time were of visiting fellow TAS reviewer Dr. Michael Gindi, who lived on Manhattan's West End Avenue, and listening to his mbl speakers. (With his shrink's paycheck, he could afford them.)
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Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
MBL 111 loudspeaker
John Atkinson  |  Oct 08, 2006  |  First Published: Apr 08, 1997  |  0 comments
The speaker review in the July 1996 issue of the German audio magazine Stereoplay didn't hold back the praise. "Absolut Spitzenklasse III Referenz" was their overall rating, which I guess translates to "You'd better hear this, buddy," in American English. So when MBL of America's Marc Lawrence called to find out if I wanted to review the subject of that review, the MBL 111, I didn't need to be asked twice.
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Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
MBL 111B loudspeaker
John Atkinson  |  Aug 18, 2002  |  0 comments
It was almost five years ago that I first spent some serious auditioning time with an omnidirectional two-piece speaker from German manufacturer MBL: the four-way MBL 111. When I reviewed the 111 in the April 1998 Stereophile, I had been extremely impressed with the speaker's stereo imaging, which was superbly stable and well-defined, with images that floated completely free of the speaker positions. The tonal balance was also excellent, with a rich midrange, superbly clean highs, and extended lows. "This Radialstrahler is one of the best tweeters I have experienced," I wrote. In fact, the 111 was let down only by bass frequencies that tended to lag behind the music slightly.
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Floor Loudspeaker ReviewsAudacious Audio
MBL Radialstrahler 101E Mk.II loudspeaker
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 06, 2012  |  9 comments
Take a casual look at the Mk.II edition of MBL's Reference 101E Radialstrahler loudspeaker, and you won't immediately see what's new compared with the original version, which I reviewed in October 2004. But the Mk.II has a shorter, sleeker bass cabinet, designed to, among other things, slightly lower the stack of omnidirectional drivers it supports. While the many other major revisions to this familiar and fascinating loudspeaker can't be seen, it's fair to say that, from the ground up, the Reference 101E Mk.II is a new loudspeaker in design, if not in concept.
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Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Meadowlark HotRod Shearwater loudspeaker
Chip Stern  |  Sep 22, 2002  |  0 comments
Though each link in the audio chain is significant in its own way, we seem to spend more time agonizing over the choice and setup of loudspeakers than any other component. Floorstanding or stand-mounted? Full-range frequency extension or minimonitor coherence? Multiple-driver complexity or two-way simplicity? Pleasurable and forgiving or resolved and revealing? And even when money is no object, how much speaker do you really want...or need? It might sound splendid in the shop, but how will it couple with your room? How will it integrate with your other gear? Is it easy to set up and drive or will it involve specialized gear and a massive overhaul of your current rig?
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Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Meadowlark Swift loudspeaker
Art Dudley  |  Jan 25, 2004  |  First Published: Jan 01, 2004  |  0 comments
Like most people, I'm not interested in long, windy essays about audio reviewing, having barely enough time and interest for audio itself. But I do perk up when the debate turns to the audio reviewer's purpose in life: Should I write about everything that crosses my path, or should I limit my attention to those products that interest me, and that stand a chance of being good?
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Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Meridian D600 digital active loudspeaker
John Atkinson  |  Sep 09, 2006  |  First Published: Nov 09, 1989  |  0 comments
In audiophile circles, it is the "Stuart"—electronics designer Bob Stuart of the Boothroyd-Stuart collaboration—who has received most recognition. The contribution of industrial designer and stylist Allen Boothroyd has gone relatively unremarked. Yet as I unpacked Meridian's D600 "Digital Active" loudspeaker, I was struck by Boothroyd's ability to make the humdrum—a rectangular box loudspeaker—seem more than just that. The man has one hell of an eye for proportion. From the first Orpheus loudspeaker of 1975, through the Celestion SL6 and 'SL600 (where AB did the industrial and package design), to this latest Meridian loudspeaker design, his brainchildren look "right," to the extent of making competing designs appear at minimum over-square and clumsy, if not downright ugly.
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Floor Loudspeaker ReviewsHi-Rez Disc Player/Transport Reviews
Meridian Digital Theatre surround-sound music system
Kalman Rubinson  |  Feb 13, 2000  |  0 comments
I am biased: On very little evidence, I remain convinced that, in the near future, high-quality music reproduction will be multichannel. While most multichannel demos are still egregiously and aggressively ping-pong, I have attended a few successful demonstrations of discrete multichannel reproduction that have impressed me so deeply that I hunger to have all the music I love transported to me (and me to it) in this way.
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Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Meridian DSP8000 digital active loudspeaker
John Atkinson  |  Nov 23, 2001  |  2 comments
Nestled south of the North Downs in England's southeast, the Kentish dormitory town of Sevenoaks is about as sleepy a place as you can imagine. Yet 20 years ago, in the unlikely circumstances of the back room of a Sevenoaks pub, I witnessed the world of consumer loudspeakers changing. Meridian's Steve Hopkins was showing a pair of the company's active M2 loudspeakers connected directly to a 101 preamplifier.
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Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Merlin Excalibur II loudspeaker
Jack English  |  Sep 05, 2008  |  First Published: Dec 05, 1993  |  0 comments
Despite displaying its products at nearly every CES since 1985, Merlin remains essentially unknown in the US. Problems have plagued the company in this country: key suppliers have gone under, marketing efforts have lacked focus, and the principals of the company seemed to have gotten caught up in audio politics.
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Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Merlin Music Systems VSM Millennium loudspeaker system
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 28, 2001  |  0 comments
"Viagra couldn't cure our voltage droop!"
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Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Metaphor 2 loudspeaker
Wes Phillips  |  Feb 17, 2016  |  First Published: Jul 01, 1995  |  7 comments
"Wow!" Jerome Harris—jazz guitarist, bassist, and composer—stopped talking and listened intently to the rough-mixdown dub of his latest album, Hidden in Plain View: The Music of Eric Dolphy (New World 80472-2 CD) (footnote 1). He'd brought it by my house in order to hear it on another system before pronouncing judgment. "That sounds like us! And I ought to know because I was there..."

It wasn't the first time the Metaphor 2s had totally transfixed a visitor with their accurate portrayal of a musical event. This time, however, they'd done it to one of the participants of that specific performance. It isn't as if it was easy stuff to disentangle, either. Jerome's disc is texturally dense: Marty Ehrlich and Don Byron on reeds, Ray Anderson on trombone, E.J. Allen on trumpet, Bill Ware on vibes, Bobby Previte on drums, and Jerome himself on acoustic bass guitar—occasionally all wailing away simultaneously. The Metaphor 2s have the articulation to sort out all of those interweaving melody and rhythm lines, the frequency balance to render them with astonishing timbral veracity, and the speed to ensure that, even with four drivers in a large enclosure, it all arrives at the same time and with swing aplenty. Does it sound as though I'm describing one hell of a speaker? I think so anyway.

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Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Mirage M-1 loudspeaker
Larry Archibald  |  Mar 05, 2006  |  First Published: Jun 05, 1989  |  0 comments
Mirage /ma-'räzh/ n [F, fr mirer to look at. fr. L mirari] 1: an optical effect that is sometimes seen at sea, in the desert, or over a hot pavement, that may have the appearance of a pool of water or a mirror... 2: something illusory and unattainable, like a mirage.
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Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Mirage M-1si loudspeaker
Thomas J. Norton  |  Dec 09, 2007  |  First Published: Jun 09, 1993  |  0 comments
I only found out after beginning my auditioning of Mirage's M-1si loudspeakers that the film 2001, A Space Odyssey was, at practically the same instant, undergoing a brief theatrical revival in major cities around the US. I might have known. Perhaps it was the persistent Strauss melodies that rattled around in my head as I set them up. Perhaps it was the two 5'-tall monoliths that subsequently stared at me as I sat in my listening chair. For whatever reason, the M-1sis were an imposing sight, and the association with out-of-this-world events was not a difficult one to make.
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