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Let me break it down. On the one hand, handshakes were replaced with fist and elbow bumps, real smiles by eyes smiling over masks, whispers by conversations at regular volume. There were fewer attendees than at prepandemic shows, and fewer exhibitors. That situation will surely improve with time.

On the other hand, everyone there seemed to be having a good time. You could feel it in the air, the vibe; it felt like a mixture of relief and gratitude to be back among fellow audio passionates, reuniting with old friends and familiar faces, and seeing new…

Why is Stereophile publishing its fourth review (at least) in three years of a recording of Bach's Six Cello Suites? Partly it's because the suites, which were composed ca 1720 but remained in obscurity until a young Pablo Casals rediscovered them in a secondhand sheet music store in Barcelona in 1890, contain some…

Have you ever flexed a playing card (or a few) back and forth close to your ear? They generate a little sound. According to MBL company lore, that action and sound sparked the design idea for the original Radialstrahler omnidirectional driver.

Omnidirectional speakers are rare. I can think of only a few companies that make them: German Physiks. Morrison Audio. Ohm Acoustics. Duevel. MBL (footnote 1).

The MBL 120's design, like the design of most other…

Description: Three-way standmount loudspeaker with "Radialstrahler" radial carbon-fiber omnidirectional tweeter and midrange drivers and two side-firing 6.5" woofers with aluminum-membrane cones in a rear-ported enclosure. Sensitivity: 79dB/2.83V/m into 8 ohms, 80.5dB in-room. Crossover: fourth-order Linkwitz-Riley crossing over at 600Hz and 3.5kHz and with a second-order high-pass filter below the port-tuning frequency. Frequency response: 48Hz– 15.5kHz –6dB in-room. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms. Recommended amplifier power: 200W into 4 ohms.
Dimensions: 11.8…

Analog sources: Clearaudio Performance DC Wood turntable with Tracer tonearm and Talismann v2 MC cartridge; MoFi Electronics UltraDeck turntable with UltraTracker MM cartridge.
Digital source: MBL N31 CD player/DAC.
Amplification: VAC Sigma 170i iQ integrated amplifier; MBL Noble Line N51 integrated amplifier; Soulution 330 integrated amplifier with phono stage.
Cables: Ansuz Acoustics D2, AudioQuest NRG, and Morrow Audio (some interconnects).
Accessories: AudioQuest Niagara 1000 Low-Z Power Noise-Dissipation System with NRG 10 power cord…

I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the MBL 120's frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 mike to measure the nearfield responses. I used Dayton Audio's DATS V2 system to determine the MBL speaker's impedance.

Designer Jürgen Reis wrote in an email that the MBL 120's sensitivity on an axis level with the top of the tweeter magnet—the recommended listening axis—was 79dB/2.83V/m. Though my estimate was slightly higher than this, at 81dB(B)/2.83V/m, this is still significantly lower than average…

As I noted in previous Re-Tales columns, audio dealerships that stick to outmoded models after the world has changed may find themselves in danger of extinction. Such conflict between old and new has been with us since the beginning of time, or at least since the internet became ubiquitous. But the pandemic and its economic stresses and stimuli have accelerated the pace of change. So, how are dealers, um, dealing?

One brand—or, rather, one two-branded company—is rolling out a new hi-fi retail chain, along with another option for dealers.

Single-…

As I write these words I am listening to a pair of PSB's new Synchrony T600 loudspeakers, which cost $7999/pair and were designed, like the T3, by a team led by PSB founder and chief acoustic designer Paul Barton. Also like the T3, the T600 houses…