MBL 101 E MK II Radialstrahler

The 101 E MKII is the direct successor to the MBL 100 of 1979 — the loudspeaker that established the Radialstrahler and, with it, the company. Its melon-shaped aluminium and magnesium alloy radial woofer is the shape most people picture when they picture MBL, and the principle underneath it has been refined across four and a half decades without being abandoned.

A Radialstrahler does not fire forward. Its membrane segments, called lamellae, flex outward from a spherical geometry so that sound radiates in every horizontal direction simultaneously. The midrange and tweeter units apply the same construction in light, rigid carbon fiber. What this buys is a stereo image that occupies the whole room rather than a single seat — and it sidesteps a problem most rooms have, where angled walls and reflective surfaces smear conventional forward-firing designs.

Below the radial drivers, a 12-inch twin-layered aluminium sandwich subwoofer sits in a down-firing bandpass enclosure, venting at the front so its output aligns in time with the drive units above. The system reaches 29 Hz and holds concert levels in rooms as large as 80 square metres. Each loudspeaker weighs 80 kilograms.

Passive jumpers on the rear allow the treble, midrange and bass to be tuned to the room and the electronics driving them — silver-plated wire to brighten a damped room, a thick solid copper run to calm a reverberant one, an iron powder coil to add harmonic weight to the lower midrange. Nothing active, nothing in the signal path that was not chosen deliberately.