Speakers that disappear


I have been listening once again to mbl 101-Es last weekend and have been very impressed by the great illusion they create just by "disappearing", i.e. I could not localize the speakers with closed eyes.

Listening to these speakers got me interested again in speakers that create a large 3-dimensional image, "disappear" and do not sound "boxy" in the low frequencies (with boxy I mean that the base somehow sounds constrained by the loudspeaker enclosure, especially the massive drivers in the B&Ws and Kefs gave me that feeling, the very low frequencies had a slightly "wooden" sound to it - I listend to Richard Wagners Valkyrie amongst others and drum strikes suffered in particular).

[I am obviously aware that there are many other characteristics that are required to make a great speaker, i.e. transparency, etc. but i would like to focus on the above in this thread.]

The only two speaker brands I have listened to that did the trick in this respect for me are:
- mbl (the 101-Es, dont know if this applies for their smaller speakers)
- Wilson Benesch (ACT and Chimera, not as strong as mbl but still pretty good - unfortunately a bit too week below 40hz, even the Chimera)

In comparison listening to Sonus Fabers, Kef References, B&W 800Ds, Ayon all of them sounded "boxed in" in the low frequencies and the sweet spot was much smaller and perfect toe-in was far too important for getting a decent image and illusion. (I know these speakers do some other things very well so no need to mention)

Now there are a lot of other great speakers that I could not listen to yet. Therefore I would love to hear some opinions about the ability of some other speakers to create an illusion by disappearing and not sounding "boxed in".

One type of speakers that do a good job in the above seem to be planar speakers but I have listend to both Martin Logans (dont remember which one as they all look so similar) and Magnepans (1.6 if I remember correctly) but somehow they did not do the trick for me and while they disappeared the soundstage sounded a bit flat and lifeless to me. (Both were driven by McIntosh Pre and Monos).

Particular speakers I would be interested in are:
- Magico
- Wisdom Audio Sage Series
- Rockport

At this point I prefer soft dome and paper/carbon type drivers and have not been a fan of ceramic drivers, beryllium, diamond or aluminium tweeter (in those implementations that I heard). Nevertheless there may be great implementations that do the above very well, so I would also be interested in opinions about:
- Kharma
- Focal Utopia Series
- Revel Ultima

Also are there any mid-price speakers that do this well?
kaifupaddy
Good one Cerrot. I owned Martin Logan CLS. They did a wonderful disappearing act with a huge soundstage and incredible 3D imaging. They are fabulous speakers with the right electronics. They make you work for it, but it's worth it. Very high goose bump factor.
Rrog, I hear ya. I love reading speaker reviews where they say the reviewed pair does this and that...almost like...stats. My buddy has Magico Minis and I had an extensive listening session at my dealer with Dyn C4's (both systems electronics were top shelf-much, much more high end than mine) and neither system had the transparancy and detail and air my stats do. Dialing them in did take a few years and was like giving birth, but, oh what a pretty baby!
I've listened to most of the speakers that is on your list: Revel Ultima's, MBL 101's, the entire Rockport line, Kharma Exquisite Midi/Reference/Grand Exquisite. They were all in different rooms, different electronics, etc.

I agree with above posters that to make a speaker disappear I think room acoustics play the most important role. I feel like the room acoustics play at least a 50+% role in how great the speakers sound and disappear.

I can see how you liked the MBL's. They do create a sense of space very unique to omnidirectional speakers. For me though, I felt the timber/tone of instruments to be less accurate than the othe speakers, like that of the Rockports, which were my favorite. The Kharma's were great until the ceramic midrange shattered on me (they now use a different midrange), and the Revel's are not in the same league as any of the above speakers in my opinion.
I agree the room plays an enormous role in speaker disappearing, I once played a $250 psb speaker in a big warehouse and couldn't believe how good the speaker sounded, totally shocking.
Finishing up with the placement of my new Verity Sarastro II's and they are disappearing like my Ovations did.