From what I have heard and learned so far, it seems spending more than what a BW diamond speaker costs might be money thrown away. However, I haven't heard any MBL system! There's a guy at another forum who has egged me about going with him to CES the last two years . . . which I've never been to, but I told him to listen to the MBLs.
Josten, on the MBL's...good lord...
that room is exactly why you should have gone to CES. Where to begin, I listened in great detail to both the Noble line and the Reference line. The Nobles look a little like the robot from Lost in Space with an MSRP of 35,000 per pair. Each speaker was driven by it's own 2200w amplifier (not included in the 35,000 price..lol). You know what, they were pretty good....lol. As set up, the sound stage was about 12 feet wide but honestly, not very deep. When I closed my eyes, I could place the instruments well from left to right but not well at all from front to back. Given the price I'm going to define adequate sound as, with my eyes closed, could I tell the recording from an actual orchestra 6 feet in front of me. I can honestly say that with regard to vocals, horns, and cymbals, I would not have been able to tell the difference. In those areas, these speakers were the best I've ever heard. With regard to bass and drums, not as good. Honestly, I was disappointed in the bass. Earlier in the day, I listened to the much more intimidating in appearence Swanns. I would say that they were also perfect with regard to the horn section but not nearly as accurate as these speakers with vocals. The Swans were aided by two giant subs so bass conmparison wouldn't have been fair.
On the Reference, how exactly would you descibe the look. I wonder if you rub that thing in the middle if a genie will come out? For the 60,000 per pair MSRP, I'd definately need one to. There were no flaws whatsoever in these speakers. Each one was driven by it's own 5,000w amplifier...lol. Once again, not included. In the case of these speakers, the bass was awesome. I listened to a new Paradigm 7.1 set up with 4 subs that couldn't have matched the way these two speakers filled up the room. It was incredible. In the case of these speakers, I would never have been able to tell you the difference in live and recorded. in addition, I could picture where every instrument was located on the stage perfectly. i don't know how a speaker could get any better than these. Total equipment involved, MBL 1621a CD transport, MBL 1611F D/A converter, MBL 6010D pre-amp, 2 MBL 9011/9008 amps, MBL 101e Radialstrahler. Cost, more than a McDonalds franchise.
In summery, I'd say what's another 25 grand? You'll want to go with the References.
Rusty
He uses MA RS6s.
If I only had 2k, Id get a nice pair of bookshelves, prolly some Ascends, and sub.
Agreed with Matthew on the room. I've heard 802Ds in the worst room EVAH! I asked the guy if the tweeters were blown. Honest.
my 2 cents, if you don't listen to classical music, I think overspending comes very, very quickly. Just my impressions, atm. The demand for transparency throughout the range is not as great with other musics I find.
For instance, in my PSB Image setup that I use for the HT: people just LOVE the audio. Forget the HT recliners, multirow, huge screen, JVC projector, they just LOVE the audio. Yes it's a treated room. The Images are a good value, and I think they make for very good HT speakers for the money.
What they don't notice, however, if they are present, is when I throw on a classical music bluray. The midbass transparency is simply not there (compared to better speakers, like my stereo pair). If someone basically only listens to rock music, my guess is that lack of transparency will not be very missed. I would believe in fact that they might think spending more than my $600 pair of Images would be money down the drain. Just my impressions, atm.
