LOUDSPEAKERS

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go to: Contents | Features | Bookshelf, Stand-Mount and Desktop | Floorstanding | Editors' Choice Awards EQUIPMENT REVIEW - MBL 120 Loudspeaker and Corona Line Electronics MBL Corona Line Electronics Corona represents the fulfillment of a promise for MBL. As president and CEO Christian Hermeling said in a 2011 interview, “Our main goal for the future is to be a major player in the industry that not only offers single products but offers complete solutions to audiophiles and music lovers around the world. And complete solutions means MBL will offer everything that is necessary to bring as close to perfect sound as possible to our customer’s living rooms, as the only viable alternative to actually sitting in the concert hall. With our Radialstrahler loudspeakers and our electronics we are already very close to that aim. And with our new Corona Line we offer this ability to an even broader customer base.” It’s also worth noting that MBL’s products are now distributed in the U.S. by MBL’s wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary. The Corona line is a six-component lineup that includes the CD player, C61 tuner, C11 preamp, C21 stereo amplifier, C15 monoblock (500W into 4 ohms), and C51 integrated. To my eye, Corona electronics are a tour de force of stylistic bravado and ergonomic elegance. Lines are fluid and symmetrical from component to component. The central polished top plate (a $1500 option) flows unbroken into the front control panel, which houses a fluorescent blue display. The components are available in black or white, with gold or Palinux-plated metal accents. The front panels of all Corona-line electronics are piano lacquer as standard. An MBL logo aboard each unit encircles a 40mm top-mounted pushbutton (a paneldisplay dimmer, in fact), its lighted circumference producing a soft halo of light, literally a corona. Engineered with a Mission Control mentality, the components are linked via a Smartlink network (you’ll need a couple of Ethernet cables) which enables remote input selection plus sequential on/off, the latter underlined by a simultaneous “goodbye” from the front panel of each unit. Standby power consumption is in the environmentally friendly range of below 1W. Construction quality, as you might expect, is superb. The robust Corona chassis resembles a double-hulled ship wherein the outer bead-blasted aluminum casing encloses a second subassembly of reinforced steel, which houses the internals. All power supplies and transformers are not only fully electrically isolated but screened off by magnetically shielded partitions of MU-metal alloy. The Corona mbl C11 preamp features a sophisticated analog volume control via a motorized potentiometer. The back panels are laid out well; RCA and XLR inputs are spaced conveniently, and connectivity is excellent. Simple firmware updating is possible via a standard SD slot on the back panel. Important functions are accessed via small soft-touch buttons; the only knob is the volume control. All additional functions are shuttled off to the remote control. My only operational complaint was the front-panel volume indicator. For keen eyes only, it was frustrating to make fine volume adjustments. As visually arresting as the Corona components are, this was the only feature that seemed like an afterthought. The C21 stereo power amp outputs 180Wpc into 8 ohms and 300Wpc into 4 ohms. Power aside, it represents MBL’s and Reis’ take on Class D or switch-mode technology. Described as LASA amp technology (Linear Analog Switching Amplifier), it features a robust linear power supply (non-switch mode), and a series of technologies, which can be further explored in Reis’ illuminating white paper. In fact, the only similarity MBL claims with contemporary Class D is low heat radiation. According to Reis, in comparison to typical switching amplification LASA technology overcomes a key hurdle—it’s capable of the same high damping factor (low output impedance) at high frequencies that typical Class D designs enjoy at low frequencies, plus the same very low harmonic distortion values across the entire frequency bandwidth. The result is that frequency response will not change with load and THD will not vary with frequency. The take-away is that the speaker load will not affect the LASA amp. If Reis’ stated goal was to produce a switching amp that acts and sounds more like a fine analog amp, I’d say mission accomplished. Perhaps it is not quite in the league of MBL’s own Reference Line 9011 amps, which offer almost unfathomable amounts of sweetness and swat, but in tandem with the C11 preamp the C21 has much of the air and dynamic energy that MBL’s big electronics output in such abundance. As I listened to the chime of upper harmonics from solo piano and the bursts of high frequencies from Anne-Sophie Mutter’s violin during the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, the C21’s top end, the region where Class D struggles, was smooth and extended, not glassy. It didn’t invite comparisons to the low-ceiling, darker, drier treble of earlier switching attempts. The low end was elegantly controlled but not over-torqued; rather it had a darkish velvety bloom, an attribute that helped give acoustic music the full measure of harmonic and ambient decay and timbral resonance. This is an amp that can proudly stand next to the best in its class–switching or not. In today’s computer-driven marketplace the C31 CD Player can just as reasonably be considered a DAC with transport. It features a high-quality slot drive and has inputs for USB, TosLink, and S/ PDIF connections, plus RCA and XLR outputs. The DAC supports sampling rates up to 24-bit/96kHz resolution, perhaps a disappointment for the number-driven, but MBL’s Reis emphasizes the superior jitter performance of his DAC design, the psychoacoustically optimized filtering, and measured timing accuracy equivalent to a 192kHz sampling rate. Additionally, all the digital inputs and outputs employ galvanic isolation between each other and ground to prevent high-frequency eddy currents. In keeping with C31’s purist design, only a single crystal oscillator is ever running at a given moment. 84 Guide to High-Performance Loudspeakers www.theabsolutesound.com previous page NEXT page
go to: Contents | Features | Bookshelf, Stand-Mount and Desktop | Floorstanding | Editors' Choice Awards Sony SS-AR2 Chip Off the Old Block Robert E. Greene The Sony SS-AR2 is a smaller version of the Sony SS-AR1 that appeared to general acclaim a year or so ago. Sony is at some pains to make clear that the AR2 is not in any way a compromised version of the design principles of the AR1. It is simply smaller, to fit acoustically, as well as physically, into smaller rooms. The same standards of speaker design as high art are applied in the AR2 as in the AR1, and both are creations of the same designer, Yoshiyuki Kaku, who has worked at Sony for many years studying how to make the sound of speakers as nearly ideal as possible. In my view, the AR1 was a remarkable speaker, and so is the AR2. It is just smaller. Smaller does not mean small in sound, however. In a room of anything like ordinary domestic size, the AR2 produces abundant bass and life-like dynamic levels. (In fact, at the 2012 T.H.E. Show in Newport, Sony demo’d the AR2 in a large ballroom, a situation that the AR2s handled with aplomb and distinction, producing one of the best sounds at the show.) And it has extraordinary sonic qualities of its own, independently of its big brother. Before the AR1, for all its size and importance in audio, Sony was not usually thought of as a major source of high-end speakers. The AR1 changed that, and the AR2 solidifies the change. Sony is definitely here to stay in the high-end speaker market, and the AR1 turned out to be anything but a “one-hit wonder.” Like the AR1, the AR2 is a combined work of technology and what one can only call art. The technology is there in the high driver quality. (Although the sizes of the drivers are different than those in the AR1, they’re still custom-made by the same manufacturer, Scanspeak.) But the art is the part of the picture that is most unusual. Many speakers today have high-tech, ultra-quality drivers. Few have cabinets designed and built like musical instruments, made of specifically chosen wood from special locations, Finnish birch and hard maple from Hokkaido forests in Japan, harvested at the time of the year when the wood is at its hardest. As with the AR1, one thinks inevitably of stories of Antonio Stradivari going out into the forests to listen to the trees fall and picking the ones that “sounded right” to him as they fell as the source for wood for his violins. This is just one aspect of the remarkable attention to detail that makes this speaker what it is. Seemingly every aspect of the design that has sonic significance has been extraordinarily carefully considered. And it shows: The sound of the AR2 has a refinement that goes far beyond what most speakers aspire to—without sacrificing dynamic punch and bass. Not to put too fine a point on it, the sound of the AR2 is really something! But it sounds somewhat different from the AR1, as it happens. Appearance and First Impressions of the Sound The AR2 is a floorstanding speaker of moderate size, 37½" high with an 11" wide by 16" deep footprint. It has a superbly executed “piano-black” finish that is very attractive visually but makes the speaker inconspicuous, more like a guest with exquisite manners than the bodybuilder flexing muscles that is brought to mind by a lot of high-end designs. 85 Guide to High-Performance Loudspeakers www.theabsolutesound.com previous page NEXT page
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