Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

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.

Of the small number of times I have been totally swept away by listening to recorded music, a significant proportion have involved loudspeakers from Wilson Audio Specialties. It was my experience of their X-1/Grand SLAMM in the listening rooms of reviewer Martin Colloms, then-retailer Peter McGrath, designer Dan D'Agostino of Krell, and manufacturer Madrigal Audio Labs, that led me to name it my "Editor's Choice" for 1995 and join my vote with those of the Stereophile scribes to make it the magazine's "Loudspeaker of the Year." I wrote in my">http://www.stereophile.com//asweseeit/470/">my December 2001 "As We See It" about how a cross-country road trip had begun with a listen to the Cantus">http://www.stereophile.com//features/465/">Cantus CD on the Wilson WAMMs in their">http://www.stereophile.com//interviews/478/">their designer's Utah listening room. And, as I wrote in my">http://www.stereophile.com//asweseeit/557/">my April column, auditioning Peter McGrath's 24-bit Nagra-Dhttp://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/461/">Nagra-D; master tapes on Wilson MAXXes in the Halcro room was, for me, the highlight of the 2002 CES.

"You're a toy junkie!" laughed Trish, my fiancée. "Your life is a search for bigger and better toys!"

Sometimes it all comes down to the shape of the side panels. I was smitten by the gentle curves of the Burmester B99 loudspeaker's aluminum side grilles, which have uncommon grace. A love affair with an enclosure? Well, yes. After all, beauty is an intensely personal matter. In the words of Burmester's motto: "Art for the ear."

Interest in super-efficient, horn-loaded, compression-driver loudspeakers has grown in the past few years, fueled in part by a renewed fascination among many hobbyists with low-powered, single-ended triode tube amplifiers. But staring down the maws of two Tubby the Tubas is not every audiophile's idea of a good time—even when the resulting sound is spectacularly fast, coherent, and extended.

No doubt about it—Linn's top-of-the-line Komri loudspeaker is a queer-lookin' duck. It's a large, boxy thing, fairly deep, and weighing a hefty 176 lbs, including the base. Whew. I'll put it this way: rap your knuckles, break your hand.

Film sequels are a mixed blessing. If an action movie holds my attention, I can't wait to see the sequel: same characters, same actors, new adventures. And if the first film was successful, studios are more than willing to oblige. So Jurassic Park begat The Lost World, which begat Jurassic Park III. But the results are often unsatisfying.