We all know the refrain. Classical music is losing its audience. With shorter attention spans, the ascent of the iPod, a penchant for music (and spoken word masquerading as music) in the background, and the submergence of audio by home theater, fewer and fewer people in the United States are being exposed to art music of the past and present.

Best known for its omnidirectional loudspeakers, the German manufacturer mbl also produces three complete lines of high-performance electronics that, despite being large and built to jewel-like perfection, are sometimes lost in the shadow cast by the dramatic-looking&mdash;and -sounding&mdash;Radialstrahler 101E, which I <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/1004mbl">reviewed in October 2004</A>.

Best known for its omnidirectional loudspeakers, the German manufacturer mbl also produces three complete lines of high-performance electronics that, despite being large and built to jewel-like perfection, are sometimes lost in the shadow cast by the dramatic-looking&mdash;and -sounding&mdash;Radialstrahler 101E, which I <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/1004mbl">reviewed in October 2004</A>.

Best known for its omnidirectional loudspeakers, the German manufacturer mbl also produces three complete lines of high-performance electronics that, despite being large and built to jewel-like perfection, are sometimes lost in the shadow cast by the dramatic-looking—and -sounding—Radialstrahler 101E, which I reviewed in October 2004.

Best known for its omnidirectional loudspeakers, the German manufacturer mbl also produces three complete lines of high-performance electronics that, despite being large and built to jewel-like perfection, are sometimes lost in the shadow cast by the dramatic-looking&mdash;and -sounding&mdash;Radialstrahler 101E, which I <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/1004mbl">reviewed in October 2004</A>.

Best known for its omnidirectional loudspeakers, the German manufacturer mbl also produces three complete lines of high-performance electronics that, despite being large and built to jewel-like perfection, are sometimes lost in the shadow cast by the dramatic-looking—and -sounding—Radialstrahler 101E, which I reviewed in October 2004.

When most of us think about the folks who populate the high-end audio industry, we tend to conjure up the designers&mdash;the names above the titles, as it were. Or, in many cases, the names that <I>are</I> the titles: <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/688vandersteen">Richard Vandersteen</A>, <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/221">Jim Thiel</A>, Bill Conrad and Lew Johnson, Mike Creek, to name just a few.