2024 Golden Ear: MBL 126 Loudspeaker

"If you asked an AI computer to design a state-of-the-art loudspeaker materialized from another galaxy, you’d have MBL Radialstrahlers. This applies most particularly to the diminutive 126. But, of course, there is no need for AI when you have Jürgen Reis, the gifted Chief Engineer at MBL. Year after year, the littlest Radialstrahler remains on my short list of exhilarating compact loudspeakers. It speaks in one concise and authoritative voice with a speed and transparency that knocks on the door of planars, ribbons, and electrostats. Three-dimensionally expansive, with imaging and orchestral layering that, for want of a better word, is nearly holographic. Tonally sweet and pure, dynamically powerful and extended beyond its modest dimensions, the three-way 126 omni still drops jaws and perks up ears, lighting up a listening room with its sheer musicality and provoking more questions from disbelieving and delighted listeners than any speaker I’ve plopped down in my room. And as a source, it flat out disappears from the room, kind of like, well, poof. So open and expressive was its opulent and tactile midband that even now I continue to pinch myself that I’m listening to a “mere” stand-mount just shy of 14″ tall. Like a tractor beam, it draws listeners into its orbit like few other speakers in or out of this world. If ever a loudspeaker was deserving of a Golden Ear nod, the MBL is it. (320)"

REVIEW  by Neil Gader ,The Absolute Sound Jan 28, 2025

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