I suppose MBL is now in the corporate underworld, you could write an opera about their chances of returning to the living world.[please forgive my poor English]
You couldn't have said it better yourself.
I suppose MBL is now in the corporate underworld, you could write an opera about their chances of returning to the living world.[please forgive my poor English]
You couldn't have said it better yourself.
Less Bauhaus? Bauhaus typified a functional aesthetic aimed towards mass production. MBL couldn't less Bauhaus. I'm not sure Bauhaus had any influence on audio design, but the Quad II and latterly 33/303 have a Bauhaus aesthetic and were designed for mass production, with incredible success. For me the MBL aesthetic is something out of a 1970s horror movie or the audio version of the acrylic outfit Terence Stamp wore as General Zod. It is a weird thing that whilst audio is meant to be about sound quality, so many brands are identified by their aesthetic. If you follow Rams' 10 principles for design you won't go far wrong. If anyone needs reminding:I suppose if they had made it more efficient and their amplifiers less Bauhaus
And cars have been around for 100 years, same old wheels on a body and a combustion engine, nothing new or innovative. ;-)MBL is/was an innovator in Speaker design , i wish them all the best .
Speaker innovation?
Box speakers with voicecoil / magnet driven membranes are about as old as rome .
A box , a Voicecoil / magnet driven membrane , some coils and caps for X overs and resistors for SPL adjustment is that " High Tech " lol
Modern membrane materials like ceramics , Synthetic diamond , carbon fiber etc fall short in regards to good cheap /old paper for the midrange for natural sound / long term listening. ( imo )
Alnico magnets were already developed in the 1930 s nothing new here .
So called Innovation in box speakers is often nothing more then marketing , " stick a bit of carbonfiber on top "
I design " Box speakers" so i m to blame as well , cabinet materials have improved but for the rest .......not much technically speaking , no fundamental progress , thats why some well designed 10- 20 year old speakers can sound as good as new products , because the fundamental tech. is...... THE SAME
So you would spend 150k - 200k on an audio system, and live contentedly without fitting analog in that budget?I recently heard the Odeon Carnegie horns (96 dB) with Airtight SE amplifiers and was quite taken with them. While not inexpensive, at $100,000, to my ear, they represented excellent value at up to 2X the asking price. This is especially true of their $ 50,000 Semper model. Drawing from my stable, I could pair them with a Trafomatic Rhapsody parallel single-end 300B integrated amplifier (20 watts per channel - MSRP $22,000) and either a Lampizator Posidean or Rockna Wavedream Ref Sig, and live contentedly for years to come.
It’s the old enemy: hedonic adaptation (mentioned elsewhere). It’s almost as if audiophilia was invented to prove that theory to be true. No audiophile lives contentedly. Itchy wallet syndrome is part of the territory....don't answer. It's a trap.
beautiful. Wish I could do that with my speakers (do all audiophiles have OCD?)...It’s the old enemy: hedonic adaptation (mentioned elsewhere). It’s almost as if audiophilia was invented to prove that theory to be true. No audiophile lives contentedly. Itchy wallet syndrome is part of the territory.
Good design lasts. Good design should provide high performance at low cost. Quad’s genius was getting state of the art performance from dirt cheap components. They have products that have been in production for 80 years. EAR is the same, the 834P was in production 50 years.
Incidentally, this is Bauhaus, designed in 1932, now being produced by the designer’s grandson. Proof that good design lasts.
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You have to be emotionally able to put cables under a rug or carpet. I suspect this is a WBF heresy.beautiful. Wish I could do that with my speakers (do all audiophiles have OCD?)...
...don't answer. It's a trap.
Looks very comfortable.You have to be emotionally able to put cables under a rug or carpet. I suspect this is a WBF heresy.
This is a very standard set-up for a small room, but there is a lot of hidden acoustic treatment and the furnishings do a great job getting a very natural sound.
Furnishings are of course a fundamental element of acoustic treatment. This room was a small part of a larger renovation and I did sound tests as things were progressing. I'm sure other people have done the same, but the change in sound quality as you fit out a room from bare walls is vastly more impactful than any change in component. It's quite a good antidote for audio-itis, because you realise minor component changes are far less relevant than room acoustics. But we do those changes anyway. Having just added a chair behind the speakers, the bass response changes and the speakers may have to come out a few inches.
MBL's design seems very dated. My dealer stocks it and I thought it positively ugly. I suspect there are many high-end companies that are so OCD that they don't take opportunities to drip down technology to cheaper, higher volume products that generate cash flow. It seems pointless generating brand value and not exploiting in mercilessly. Maybe instead of new money they need new ideas. Maybe they are not alone.
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Making great products does not mean you can run a great business.
In fact, it's very rare to find a highly intelligent / genius / innovative engineer, who also has the skills to run a successful business. Those two skill sets are almost mutually exclusive.
There are plenty of exceptions. But I don't know the full story - maybe he knows his limitations and hires professional administrators for the business side of things?Interesting observation. Nelson Pass seems to be an exception.
What makes you think an intelligent, genius (strong word IMO), innovative engineer is the one running the business? Does that mean he does testing, manufacturing, shipping, advertising, etc. also?Making great products does not mean you can run a great business.
In fact, it's very rare to find a highly intelligent / genius / innovative engineer, who also has the skills to run a successful business. Those two skill sets are almost mutually exclusive.
agree that perhaps running was not exactly descriptive. Bruno Putzeys, for example, did not run Hypex Electronics, but he did oversee the goals and design (including industrial design) of the Mola Mola gear. In other words, he had a vision of what he wanted to accomplish and worked with Hypex to build, market and service the gear. MBL used one of Hypex's amp modules (modified to incorporate Reis's innovations). I think of them as luminaries in their specialties.What makes you think an intelligent, genius (strong word IMO), innovative engineer is the one running the business? Does that mean he does testing, manufacturing, shipping, advertising, etc. also?
It will see better days if they make more realistic sounding products at reasonable prices which will expand the volumes sold. There is only so many times you can mock a select small bunch by selling them fake sound for millionsI do not know what will happen to high end audio but I hope this industry see better days in the future.
I 100% agree with you that they should make more realistic sounding products at much lower price but two things come to my mind :It will see better days if they make more realistic sounding products at reasonable prices which will expand the volumes sold. There is only so many times you can mock a select small bunch by selling them fake sound for millions
[please forgive my poor English]very sad to hear MBL [...] or any other high end company stop production.
You use the word many for a small population. The reason today that small population is many, is that the industry cannot attract a bigger population due to the expensive crap it produces, and the many will only become lower in number.1- many audiophiles prefer less realistic sounding
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