Yesterday I too had the good fortune to go and listen to the Manger MSM C1 active speakers at the home of Mr Khushrau Jilla (KJ) of Nexus Audio, Mumbai. So with Sonosphere's permission, I thought I should also pen down my impressions and append to what Sonosphere and others have already written on this thread.
Since the original thread does not have much mention about the technicalities, here is some technical specs for the technically inclined:
This is a two-way active monitor, physically quite large for a monitor. The photos fail to convey the real size.
The driver complement consists of an 8 inch Manger driver which can do 125 to 30,000 Hertz. For a single driver, that's a lot of frequency covered! This driver therefore performs midrange and treble duties. The second driver is an 8 incher from Visaton that does bass duty below 330 Hz, 330 Hz being the crossover frequency. This monitor is specc-ed for a useable response between 30 Hz to 30kHz. There are two amplifiers built in, and both can be tweaked from rear panel switches and pots to compensate for room responses. It comes with factory supplied stands. With the factory stands, the tweeter height tends to be higher than normal ear level when seated on normal listening chair. But I guess this height would be perfect for the studio engineer.
The one specialty of the Manger drivers is their lightning fast transient response, even faster than most panel type drivers. What I understood from KJ is that the rise time of this driver is of the order of 15 microseconds. So the challenge for the speaker designer is to find a very fast woofer that will keep up with the Manger driver, and integrate the two so that the bass doesn't lack behind the mids and highs.
The Setup: transport was an older generation unit from Meitner Design, model DCSD (CD and SACD) and DAC-cum-Preamp was Meitner Design DCC2. This transport-DAC-Pre combo is probably a notch (or two) below the dCS Scarlattis. Balanced IC from the DAC to active speakers was twisted GamuT. Power cords for the active speakers were run-of-the-mill cables. The speakers were placed about 9 feet apart in a room that was much longer along the width. So this necessitated a sharp toe-in of the speakers, and at the sweet spot, the speakers converge somewhere slightly ahead of the ears.
That sums up the technicalities.
How does it sound? KJ played a Madonna track. No fireworks there. Perhaps the track was too sedate, or perhaps I have never associated her with good music, or I wasn't familiar with the track. I'd never know. The next track (a western classical piece) took things down a few notches - it simply sounded horrible! But luckily, I learned later - and experienced it for myself - that these speakers abide by the principle of Garbage In Garbage Out (GIGO) when it comes to reproducing sound. No editorialising. Though that is not to say that bad records are rendered completely unlistenable. I guess the classical record was a poor one - sonically. But when a record is good, it sounded real good on these speakers. These are indeed very transparent speakers and demands fine program material, fine source, and a fine pre-amp. I am sure better power cords would improve things too.
The sound signature is something of a cross between a fast Cadence-type electrostatic panel or a magnetic planar like the Maggies, and good electrodynamic drivers. It has that openness and speed of panel speakers, while losing much of the boxiness of boxed speakers. Also, with this equipment combination and in this room, the sound was forward and wide.
Most of the music played was new to me, but I distinctly recall the way it brought out both micro and macro details in the music. And one doesn't have to listen loud (or extra attentively) to hear the micro details. It is distinctly there even at softer listening levels. At first this was un-relaxing for me as my tiny brain had to process the steady stream of details, the details coming in at a faster clip than I am used to hearing. Further, the unusually wide placement of the speakers expanded the soundstage and gave 3-D like placement of voices in their respective space. It took some getting used to! and it was a bit overwhelming at times.
The fast response of the Manger drivers made decay trails sound very natural. There was no artificial prolonging of decays as the drivers only react to decays that are present in the program material. By the same token, it displayed very fast attacks. And that seems to somehow make the tempo of the music seemed faster, though that is not really the case.
Another hallmark feature was the natural sounding tonality of the speakers. Acoustic guitar sounded uncannily like I used to hear live. And that includes the sound from the bass strings which didn't sound recessed or artificially highlighted, as it can sometimes do on lesser systems. There is just the right amount of resonance from the body. On acoustic piano passages, one can hear the strike of the hammer! as the keys are played. Also, it very clearly brought out the reverb tail on the Bryan Adams live recording of "Heaven". In this specific case, it was a bad thing as the echo from the concert hall was pretty annoying.
I have heard Michael Jackson's Beat It many times, over the years, ever since it was released in the early 80s. I must admit I have a special liking for this track due to the guitar solo by Eddie Van Halen, my personal all-time greatest guitarist. I've had it and heard it on compact cassette, CD and LP. But hearing it on the Manger, it sounded like I was listening to a new song. This sounds cliched and corny but I heard just too many new details on this song for the first time! And the CD wasn't even a prime pressing. In fact it was a well used example from KJ's personal collection, and had clearly seen better and brighter days.
The inbuilt amps have lots of power reserve and never once sounded strained. And they sure did not produce listening strain even after 90 minutes of fairly loud listening
Some experimentations: I asked KJ to boost the midrange more to what I thought would be to my liking but I found out that I ended up losing spatial cues and detailing. He had initially set it for -1.5dB gain at about 3 kHz to negate the naturally higher sensitivity of the human ear to perceive this part of the frequency spectrum. Flattening that response to 0 dB (which was actually a 1.5 dB boost in that band with respect to human hearing sensitivity) made a lot of difference to the tonality of the sound, and its ability to produce spatial cues - both for the worse. Next up, I listened with the bass boosted a bit but that too made it sound worse. So he had really optimised the setup for the room, and made me sheepishly realise that there is no point second guessing a seasoned pro like him. He really is the undisputed master when it comes to extracting the best from a setup in a given room.
For those who feel that the Manger bass is a inadequate, one listen to Chris Jones' "Sanctuary" (Stockfisch, I think) is all it takes to re-affirm that there is ample, deep and tight bass. The intro to this song and the refrain have deep men's voice chanting in unison, and this came out in all its glory.
I understand these speakers are voiced for mixing and mastering predominantly classical and jazz genres, but it played rock exceptionally well (we heard a few rock tracks from Steve Winwood and Elton John). Apparently the Swedish label 2L now uses this very speakers to produce their classical recordings.
The way it handled dense passages was exemplary. An example was Sophie Zelmani's "Fire" from the album Time To Kill. The song morphs from her gentle vocals, accompanied by a lone acoustic guitar, into a solo acoustic guitar accompanied - in anger - by the drums, finally joined by a sax to its climactic end. The solo part of this song is THICK but one can discern the various threads in the music with ease.
So this brings us to the million rupee question (give or take a few lakhs
) - it this monitor for you? Absolutely, if you must set up a world-class recording studio and need to have one of the best standmount monitors money can buy. Absolutely too, if you must have a powered, blindingly fast, detailed, and highly transparent speakers for your home. Think of the simplification in the chain - no amps to bother about - you just need a good line level source, and with a pair of good balanced interconnects you are up and running. But remember, this is first and foremost a studio monitor and not really voiced like a typical home speaker. But that can't take away the fact that this is one hell of a neutral sounding speaker. Will you like it? This really depends on what one expects out of a pair of speakers, and I get the feeling it will be more attractive to the more mature listener. To not put too fine a point about it, suffice it to say that it will not appeal to everyone, but to a niche audience of a certain age and vintage (which I mean in the nicest possible way).
It was a very pleasant 90 minutes spent on a Sunday afternoon but the fat lady had to sing. And what better album than Pergolesi's Stabat Mater with soprano Barbara Bonney (Decca) to do the honours! Even if you don't like western classical vocals much, I would urge you to listen to this recording. It garnered 100 (out of 100) for both Music and Sound in HiFiNews and Record Reviews magazine's review of it. I am told it still retains this unique distinction.
Here are some pictures:
1) Frontal view of the left speaker
2) Close-up of the 8 inch Manger driver
3) And this was the electronics
4) Side view of the right speaker. It is a difficult (photographic) subject owing to the high gloss finish of the automtive paint. Notice the heat sink at the rear of the speaker.
