My ARC Reference 5 review
Had this ARC Reference 5 for about 6 weeks now so thought I’d give a My MBL 116F speakers review
Finally received my MBL 116F Elegance last week, thanks to the guys at martinandersonuk.com
They had a pair of used ones too, but my missus said I needed to take the new ones… So I did.
Funny looking things, aren’t they. Actually, in a Dalek kind of way, they look very impressive.
Totally minging if you take off the metal grille, though – luckily (and contrary to some of the reviews of MBL speakers I have seen) they sound fine with the grilles on.
About 4 foot high, with the grilles.
A 4-way design.two 8.5 inch aluminium bass cones, two 5.5 inch lower midrange cones, and one each of those funny Radialstrahler drivers for the upper mids (above about 650Hz) and treble.
One bass driver cone and one lower-mid cone on each side of the cabinet.
Those Radialstrahler drivers are what the speaker is all about, really. Carbon fibre ‘petals’ arranged in a circle. They flex along with the electrical signal and create a true 360 degree omnidirectional sound source. Clever stuff.
They are said to need 100 hours to run in, and I can well believe that. On first hearing the bass, the phrase “tight as a duck’s arse” sprang immediately to mind, and no real deep bass either. Whoops – these babes can do with loosening up a bit! But after about 30 hours of use so far, they are loosening up and going deeper quite nicely. And while the soundseemed very coherent to start with, that aspect is really coming on song now.
The resolution of fine detail seems easily on a par with the Martin Logan CLS2z full range stats I had last year, but they go deeper & better in the bass and the 3D imaging is definitely superior.
3D imaging? Jeezus H. C on a pushbike. Simply amazing. The musicians are in front of you. Simple as that.
I’ve been driving them with my little AVI Lab Series integrated. Don’t laugh! – a very fine amp with oodles of uncoloured power and control.
But I do wonder how they would be with some valve watts up them … something tells me that the MBLs would be in their element in many ways with a touch of glass behind them … so I have a Graaf 5050 valve power amp on order from the same guys at Martin Anderson Hi-Fi.
Fun times.
Anyway, enough prattling for now … I am sure there is a lot more running in to do and that the sound will continue to change and, hopefully, get even better as the days go happily and musically by.
