Loudspeakers

Paul Miller and Keith Howard | Mar 10, 2011

After a long absence, Magnepan's iconic 'room screen' panel speakers are finally back in the UK Firsts linger long in the memory. That first school, first car, first kiss. . .

From the Vault Loudspeakers

Major to Minor

Ken Kessler | Jul 29, 2024

Apogee follows the Stage with the hybrid Centaurus Major and Minor but has it made its ribbon technology more accessible

Feeling a bit like the boy who cried ‘Wolf!’, I still can’t help but regard this new range of speakers from Apogee as ‘ribbons for the masses’. But unlike the last models that inspired this sort of reaction – the Stages [p129]and Calipers – the new Centaurs really do make Apogees accessible to a wide range of consumers. And not only by virtue of their cost.

Loudspeakers

Manger Audio P2 Loudspeaker

Review: David Price, Lab: Keith Howard | Mar 21, 2019

With its unique Manger Sound Transducer full-range driver, this high-end floorstander is as unconventional as it looks

It is refreshing to see that there's still a place for purple prose in press releases. While so many documents describing new products are rather dry, German company Manger does things differently. It talks about its 'technological masterpiece' opening up 'a new horizon' and of 'goose bumps' triggering emotions and 'touching the heart'. Such flowery fluff might sail over the heads of hardened hi-fi hacks, but it's hardly necessary because the £11,429 P2 needs no hype at all. In practice, it's an intriguing, thought-provoking design featuring transducer technology that's far from run-of-the-mill.

Loudspeakers

Marten Parker Trio Diamond ABR-loaded loudspeaker

Review: Mark Craven, Lab: Paul Miller | Apr 25, 2025 | First Published: Apr 01, 2025

With uprated tweeter, internal wiring, crossover and terminals, the Diamond edition Parker Trio is a jewel in Marten’s crown

Marten Parker Trio is not, of course, the name of a new jazz act. Marten is the Swedish loudspeaker manufacturer, established as a family business by Leif Mårten Olofsson in 1998, and Parker Trio one of its floorstanding options. Yet the jazz angle still applies, as the company's other speaker ranges are Coltrane, Mingus, and Oscar. Perhaps Olofsson, who heads up the company as its chief designer, has Monk or Davis in mind for the future...

Loudspeakers

MartinLogan ElectroMotion ESL X Loudspeaker

Review: Mark Craven, Lab: Paul Miller | Dec 20, 2021

Flagship of the ElectroMotion series, this hybrid electrostatic promises a taste of the range-topping Masterpiece loudspeakers at a more wallet-friendly price

The hi-fi market is replete with loudspeakers that look a little 'different', but few are as eye-catching as an electrostatic design where music appears to be coming almost from thin air. MartinLogan, the Kansas-based company established in the early 1980s, is one of the technology's best-known advocates. It began life with a 'static model, and even though its range has expanded since into conventional box-type speaker territory, its mantra remains 'wherever possible, we go electrostatic'.

Loudspeakers

MartinLogan Motion B10 Loudspeaker

Review: Ken Kessler, Lab: Paul Miller | Nov 13, 2023

The baby of MartinLogan's Motion range features a compact version of the brand's second-generation 'Folded Motion Tweeter' – this little box is full of big surprises!

How time flies: it's just over a decade since MartinLogan applied its expertise with hybrids to box-type systems instead of the usual electrostatic-panel-plus-cone-woofer which defined most of its models. Even though MartinLogan started out with a full-range ESL – the legendary CLS [HFN Feb '87] – its engineers swiftly excelled in the black arts of combining two speaker technologies, so the Motion range created a whole new field for them to plough. In this case, it's a cone woofer and a 'Generation 2 Folded Motion Tweeter', found here in the £1395-per-pair Motion B10 standmount model.

Loudspeakers

MartinLogan Motion XT F200 Loudspeaker

Review: Mark Craven, Lab: Paul Miller | Aug 07, 2023

American marque's flagship Motion tower is a three-way that showcases driver upgrades and a bold new aesthetic

Although MartinLogan is known for its electrostatic loudspeakers, culminating in the flagship Neolith [HFN Jul '16], and 'static/moving-coil hybrids [HFN Jan '17, Feb '18 & Nov '21], the Kansas-based brand has, since 2003, ploughed another furrow with conventional cabinet models targeted at a wider audience. And since 2010, MartinLogan's Motion range, now headed by the Motion XT F200 reviewed here, has employed a tweeter technology the company says offers 'electrostatic-like high frequency detail'. There's a strong suggestion that the move from specialist brand to mass-market competitor hasn't extinguished ML's raison d'etre.

Loudspeakers

Martinlogan Spire (£7990)

Ken Kessler and Keith Howard | Apr 24, 2009

Purists will never yield on the topic of full-range electrostatic vs hybrid. The reality is that ESLs need to be huge if they’re to deliver deep bass and high SPLs. So mazel tov to those who can house and afford, say, big Sound Labs. For the rest of us, hybrids are a sane compromise.

Loudspeakers

Martinlogan Summit X (£13,000)

Ken Kessler and Keith Howard | Nov 25, 2009

Blown away by MartinLogan’s Spire earlier this year [see HFN, Apr ’09], I assumed that it would replace the Summit. Before the ink was dry, the Summit X was announced, and at a higher price point to ensure that the gap would prevent customer confusion. But in order to justify the cost difference, for a speaker not that much larger, its performance would have to be instantly, audibly superior. Luckily for ML, the Summit X may be the best hybrid the company has delivered to date.

Loudspeakers

MBL Radialstrahler 101 E MkII Loudspeaker

Review and Lab: Paul Miller | Jul 01, 2021

The speaker with no sweet spot arrives on our shores, offering a sound that's as distinctive as its aesthetics

Few loudspeakers are as instantly recognisable as the 'Radialstrahlers' – directly translated 'radial emitters' – designed and built by German brand MBL. At every international hi-fi show their appearance draws crowds while the all-encompassing sound of those iconic 'melons' keeps visitors rooted to their seats. Am I giving away the punchline? Not really. Few seasoned audiophile travellers will not have heard these incredible music machines, but we have still waited a decade for them to reach these shores and be explored, inside and out, Hi-Fi News-style.

Loudspeakers

Mission 770 Loudspeaker

Review: Mark Craven, Lab: Paul Miller | Jul 25, 2022

Launched 44 years ago, the original 770 loudspeaker with its polypropylene woofer and white baffle was nothing if not controversial. Will the reimagined 770 also make waves?

Hi-fi's 'subjective' revolution was just picking up steam when Mission's 770 shovelled a heap of coal on the fire in 1978. The move away from heavy plastics (Bextrene) was reflected in its polypropylene bass/mid driver while the light but rigid ply cabinet doffed its cap to earlier BBC-inspired designs. Its sound, meanwhile, provoked more column inches over the years than possibly any speaker since! The 770 received a very favourable review in Hi-Fi News [HFN Mar '79, 'Milestones' HFN Aug '12 and 'From the Vault' HFN Dec '15] but, writing elsewhere, a fledgling author by the name of Ken Kessler was, shall we say, less enthusiastic...

Loudspeakers

Mission 792 (£500)

David Berriman and Keith Howard | Oct 25, 2009

These new Mission 792s certainly have kerb appeal, or maybe that should be curve appeal. With their contoured sides, wrap-around grilles and sculpted front, no one could accuse them of not standing out from the crowd – even if their looks are sure to divide opinion sharply. The shiny black finish is actually genuine piano lacquer, with seven coats applied to create a truly deep and lustrous gloss. This approach is both labour and time intensive, as each coating must be dried for 24 hours before it is rubbed down by hand and re-sprayed.

Loudspeakers

MoFi SourcePoint 10 Loudspeaker

Review: Mark Craven, Lab: Paul Miller | May 25, 2023

Hi-fi's 'go-to' speaker innovator, Andrew Jones, is behind MoFi's first loudspeaker – a robust standmount featuring a dual-concentric driver with nothing less than a 10in cone

Launched in the 1970s as an audiophile-grade record label, Chicago's Mobile Fidelity has acquired a celebrated reputation among vinylistas, particularly for its One-Step pressings [HFN May '17]. Its move into the world of vinyl replay in 2016, under a new MoFi Electronics division, was arguably a long time coming. The range now extends to cartridges [HFN Jan '22], phono preamps [HFN Mar '20], and three turntables – the StudioDeck [HFN Jan '20], UltraDeck [HFN Jul '19] and the luxurious, Fender-branded PrecisionDeck. And the next obvious step? Loudspeakers.

Loudspeakers

MoFi SourcePoint 8 Loudspeaker

Review: Jamie Biesemans, Lab: Paul Miller | Sep 18, 2023

With the 'proof of concept' SourcePoint 10 already under his belt, MoFi's Andrew Jones has engineered a more compact coincident driver array for the SourcePoint 8 cabinet

Speaking to designer Andrew Jones at High End Munich in May '23, he kidded that his latest loudspeaker could be considered the 'European' version of his larger SourcePoint 10 [HFN Apr '23]. 'People were often surprised by its size – it does host a 10in driver after all – so something smaller was needed', he explained. Cue the 'modest' SourcePoint 8, with its 8in version of the launch speaker's inaugural 10in coaxial driver.

Loudspeakers

MoFi SourcePoint 888 floorstanding speaker

Review: Jamie Biesemans, Lab: Paul Miller | Jan 17, 2025 | First Published: Jan 01, 2025

If you thought that MoFi Electronics’ SourcePoint 10 [HFN Apr ’23] was a sizeable speaker, then you haven’t seen anything yet.

Sporting a trio of 200mm drivers, the new SourcePoint 888 is the company’s third outing in the loudspeaker space and something of a beast – reasonably tall at 107cm, positively stocky at 32cm wide and 41cm deep, and hefty too at 43kg.

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