Rowland Amps with MBL Speakers vs. All MBL System


My reference is the Jeff Rowland Synergy IIi Pre & Model 302 Power Amp.

I recently heard MBL's omni-directional speakers for the 1st time, and was absolutely blown away by their amazing life-like performance. They were in an all MBL system.

Regarding this, I am looking for input from folks who are familiar with both of these lines, or have done some head to head comparrisons of Rowland vs. MBL electronics.

1) In general, how would you decribe the sonic differences between these Rowland components in comparrison to MBL's "Noble" pre and power amps?

2) Do the MBL speakers need to be in an all MBL system to do their magic, or could the MBL speakers be a good match with my Rowland gear?

Any feedback from personal experience would be appreciated.

Thanks
barrelchief

Showing 1 response by raquel

You raise a good question, as the mbl speakers pose special problems for amps due to their unusually low sensitivity, at +/-81 db./watt.

If you look at the threads, you'll see that there is much support for CAT amps with the mbl omnidirectional speakers, particularly the JL-1 monoblocks (discontinued) or JL-3 monoblocks. Michael Gindi, formerly editor of the hi-fi magazine Fi, evidently ran JL-1's with his mbl's. Here is one such thread:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1099200096&openfrom&1&4#1

If you are committed to a using Rowland 302, they do have excellent power supplies and current delivery, and would thus presumably be as good a match as any solid-state amp, power-wise, with a speaker like the mbl's (I do not have personal experience with this combo, however -- I am speculating). My only concern is that this combo might produce an overly detailed sound, as both the mbl speakers and Rowland 300 series amps excel at detail retrieval. This is mere speculation, however.

PS - I own a Coherence II and Cadence, and ran Model 6's w/ batteries in one of my systems for several years.