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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
kaifupaddy OP
10 posts
 
Wow, lots of different speaker suggestions here!

All electrostatic and ribbon speakers have so far disappointed me. Even with high powered electronics and lots of room fiddling they always sounded a bit flat to me and had small sweet spots.

Hansen I have read about but they are difficult to audition. Wilson I really need to demo sometimes as they seem to cause a large amount of split views from different people just reading on these forums!

Quite a few brands above are very US specific and pretty much not available here in Europe so those drop out quickly for me.

ATC and PMC I find interesting as I seem to prefer their types of driver and soft domes to all those berylliums, ribbons, etc.

Thanks for all those inputs
rleff
1,065 posts
 
Maybe give Merlin a look;they are always a highly regarded speaker and have great tech support as well.
barry_e_cohen
83 posts
 
Gallo Reference 3.5. The 3.1 was great, the 3.5 is fantastic!
dracule1
1,085 posts
 
Kaifupaddy, the reason why you heard "flat" sounding electrostats or ribbons is most likely due to poor setup. I've owned multiple planar speakers in the past and they're a pain to set up correctly compared to cone speakers. Most dealer and audio show room setups do not do planars justice, unfortunately. But planars have a particular sound (eg, lack of chest thumpin bass slam, less meat on the bones, and more diffuse sound, although there are exceptions) and if you don't like it, no amount of autioning will convince you OTW. Cone speakers that disappear the best are usually 2-way montors which approximate point source better than most floor standers which are usually 3-way. The smaller size of 2-ways also aids in the illusion too.
owenlee's avatar
owenlee
21 posts
 
The Audience line arrays were mentioned here, and after hearing them at the Jacksonville show two weeks ago, I would have to agree, in fact I thought they were "mind blowing" and the little 2+2 was performing (as the dealer even pointed out) at probably 80% of the performance of $52000. large line array. Harry Pearson, upon hearing the small 4+4 line array and a subwoofer at CES said it was the best sound he had ever heard at a show. After Jacksonville, I now know what he is talking about.
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