In the just-published November issue, US audiophile magazine The Absolute Sound recommends a selection of world-leading audio components in its annual Buyer’s Guide. Once again, MBL’s superb high-end range features heavily, with eleven products highlighted in the 2024 edition.
Nothing like it: the one and only Radialstrahler loudspeaker
Unsurprisingly, MBL’s pioneering and peerless omni-directional Radialstrahler loudspeaker range features high in the Buyer’s Guide recommendations.
“I’ve never heard anything like this before!” declared reviewer Jonathan Valin on first hearing MBL’s latest iteration of its flagship, the 101 Xtreme MKII – despite having lived with the MkI version for four years! “The MkII isn’t just a little different sounding than the original. It is astonishingly different sounding – and astonishingly better.” Winner of The Absolute Sound’s Golden Ear Award 2023, “It will be my nominee for the annual Overall Product of the Year Award,” writes Valin. “Had we such an honour, it would be my nominee for Product of the Millennium.” You can read Jonathan Valin’s review in full here (published in the October issue of The Absolute Sound).
One step down from the flagship is the 101 E Mk II, “always the thrill ride of the high-end audio amusement park, with sensational dynamic range, superb transients, high resolution of inner detail and the most surround-like soundstaging this side of a full bore home theater system.”
Moving from the top two models down to the company’s two entry level loudspeakers, the MBL 120, specially engineered for medium-sized rooms, “spins silk from top to bottom” and “is the finest compact Radialstrahler yet”.
The 126 standmount “though small in footprint, makes a grand sonic statement” with its “3D-like immersion and seamless top-to-bottom frequency response.” “Musicality, transparency and astounding spatiality underscore the brilliant MBL 126, the extraordinary little sister to the MBL 120.”
Seven of the best electronics
By name and by nature: the Reference Line
MBL’s standard-setting Reference Line is the company’s ‘pinnacle achievement of uncompromising design’ and its flagship range of electronics.
The 6010D solid state preamplifier “has been around for decades” but “was so far ahead of the curve – technically and sonically – that all but a few supremely gifted audio engineers are still playing catch-up.” “Not only does the thing measure flawlessly, its sound is also impeccable.” “Hard to beat,” its “only genuine competition costs many tens of thousands of dollars more.”
The 9008A power amplifier is “a bulletproof technical and sonic marvel. Built using the finest parts, [it] is a beast with a velvet voice. Seemingly inexhaustible speed, power and plumb-the-depths resolution are here mated to a dark, rich, beautiful tonal palette.”
Sophistication in spades: the Noble Line
The Noble Line is MBL’s best-selling component series. The N11 preamplifier “is a solid-state preamp that doesn’t sound particularly solid state. It has the grip of transistors in the bottom octaves, but it also has some of the three-dimensional roundness and a good deal of the timbral richness of tubes in the midrange, and not a jot of solid-state brightness or edginess in the treble.”
The N15 mono power amp, meanwhile, is “unfailingly enjoyable, powerful and musical,” and fully capable of a realism that raises goosebumps and of a soundfield of head-slapping breadth, width and depth.”
If you’re in the market for an integrated amplifier, the Noble Line will equally deliver: the N51 “packs a powerful punch” in review tests, delivered “sonic results that a handful of other amps with higher ratings and / or prices didn’t quite match.”
Understated presence: the Cadenza Line
The Cazenza Line provides the entry point into MBL’s high-end electronics, yet features range-topping tech such as MBL’s renowned Linear Analogue Switching Amplifier (LASA) technology which efficiently monitors and controls complex loads, and the intelligent MBL SmartLink network which allows seamless communication and connectivity between Cadenza components.
The C21 stereo power amplifier “sounds more like a fine linear amp than the hybrid-switching amp it is” and offers “much of the sweetness, air and texture of MBL’s own Reference Line 9011 monobloack”. “An amp that can proudly stand next to the best in class – switching or non”.
When it comes to the C51 integrated amp “with its soft, understated lines, svelte controls, versatile connectivity and jewelry-like finish” it might be “easy to misjudge the depth, complexity and sonic excellence” of this amplifier. To do so would clearly be a mistake as the C51 is “a triumph in its category… it integrated individual criteria – frequency, imaging, dynamics, transients – and wove them together into a seamless tapestry of reproduced sound”.
Find out more about MBL’s range of omni-directional loudspeakers and electronics, and locate your nearest specialist retailer, at www.mbl.de/en
The Absolute Sound’s Buyer’s Guide 2024 is out now, in the November issue of the magazine.
David Denyer PR | The hi-fi specialist 