Hunt for hifi VI: The final showdown – before the bell

Later today I will sit down and compare the Focal Diablo Utopia with the MBL 121 speakers side by side. I won't purchase the winner today, and if I didn't have such a rich history of financial recklessness I'd say I may never buy them. But having bought into my own justification pitch, I realize I might pull the trigger eventually. Age has at least taught me to take a few deep breaths before I take the plunge. This will probably be the final comparison between the two, as I doubt there are more insights to be had with additional listening beyond this point. It's decision time.

I'm both excited and worried about the outcome, however.

I'm excited because according to my google-fu there is no documentation of any comparison between these two, which is somewhat surprising considering that these are two of the finest standmounted speakers on the planet. Surely this shoot-out should have happened by now? I'm also excited because they both have very unique and distinguishing treble elements; Focal has their beryllium tweeter, now larger and with greater spectral range than ever, and MBL have their proprietary Radialstrahler thingamajig. I'm also excited because while their trebles might steal the show, they have both proven to have extremely tight and well controlled bass (see my notes on playing Autechre's "Surripere" in part IV of this series). A clear winner in that category had made the race uneven and thus removed any reason for excitement.

My worries, on the other hand, are more about the long-term relationship with the speaker I end up choosing. If I go with Focal, will I miss the stereo precision and eerie stage depth of the MBL's? After all, I listen to Steve Roach more than any other artist and his Immersion : One lived up to its name more over ze Germans than with the Diablo's. But then on the other hand, Focal has a very slight but not insignificant advantage in terms of resolution and they give the sounds a little extra meat on the sonic bones (both speakers totally outclass my current ones in this regard, though). But is that fleshy Focal sound true? And what about the overwhelmingly impressive 3D scenery from the MBL's – is it a gimmicky effect that is superfluous when applied to my main diet of electronic music? I guess what I'm really afraid of is to not have a clear winner, to desire the best of both worlds. If I buy speakers in this price range I shouldn't have to long for greener pastures.

I'm bracing myself for what may well be a rather depressing part VII of this series.

Hunt for hifi V: Justification

I stole this image somewhere in an attempt to illustrate what is generally an accepted costly hobby. This really is over the top though.

While it's easy to point out when audiophile excess has entered the land of absurdity, it's a bit more interesting to look at the conditions where purchasing high-end components makes sense. Since all of my recent hifi posts are basically just flow-of-consciousness ramblings, here's a list off the top of my head:

If you can hear the difference, it's there. Anyone can hear the difference between a €5.000 and a €10.000 speaker, and even between two of the same price class. This goes for CD players and amps too, and even, albeit to a lesser extent, interconnects and speaker cables. While increased budgets give diminishing returns (the last percent of any audio parameter is infinitely expensive to attain), you do generally get better sound for more money. Some people are just not as focused on Return On Investment and thus are willing to pay a lot more money for a little more hifi.

Different sound is not necessarily better sound, but if you prefer hearing what comes out of one speaker over another, then it's better to you. If the sound is grating, lifeless, muffled, unpleasantly coloured or whatever, then you might want something else. If that something else happens to be more expensive, then that's just the way it is.

Finer equipment should ideally let you hear more of your music (in terms of detail, texture, and so on) with less sound volume, less distortion and less unwanted side effects. This in turn means that a good system will save you from ear fatigue and let you listen for longer sessions. Hence the cost broken time per hour of use might not be so much worse with a pricey system.

Some argue that the recording equipment is much cheaper than what the record is played back on, indicating that this invalidates the whole point of a high-end system. But this is a retarded argument; Even with a poor recording there is no point in making the signal even shittier.

An hour a day for 10 years on a €15.000 system means over €4 per day. That's not a super cheap habit, but smoking a pack a day probably qualifies as a worse investment. Spending €30 in a bar each weekend, which is not exactly unheard of, would amount to around the same thing. It would also be roughly equivalent of buying one or two new console games each month. And really, if you hardly ever watch TV (honestly!), don't have a car, boat, summer home or cocaine & prostitute habit, then what's so bad about spending that sports bike money (or equivalent) on what you're really passionate about?

If you work 12-hour days and then hit the gym and after that watch TV for three hours every day, there's just no time to listen to music. And an expensive system can't really be justified unless you actually listen to it. Unfortunately I find that personally I seldom sit down and just listen any more. It's like I have to do something else at the same time, which in effect relegates music to play the role of background noise. Now the million dollar question is whether this is because listening through my system doesn't excite me enough these days, or because I have some sort of ADD. It's probably a little of both, but I tell myself that if I buy the Focal or MBL speakers I'll change – I'll sit peacefully on the couch for hours on end, right in the sweet spot of course, reading fancy intellectual books while every now and then skippity-hopping around our vast music library using the Squeezebox remote, all while immersed in the highest of audio fidelity. This, of course, is the most delusional and self-betraying form of purchase justification. Damn it.

Hunt for hifi IV: Attack ov ze Germans

Having exhausted the options of speakers cheaper than Focal Diablo Utopia that has my preferred dry, tight and precise sound, I was beginning to think that I might have to either buy the damned things, buy something cheaper I wasn't fully happy with, or just keep what I have and take up knitting instead. But in a last attempt to make sure there were no options, I asked what else there was in the same price class as the Diablo's. After all, if I'm going to spend that amount on speakers I'm pretty much obliged to ensure I've scourged the market to exhaust all options.

Somewhat hesitantly the sales guy started talking about speaker technology, indicating that a regular loudspeaker with the membrane, coil and magnet is actually a fundamentally flawed principle of generating sound, but that it's prevalent mainly because it's relatively cheap and it gets you "close enough". He then explained how cones of sound projected towards your ears can never be fully like the real thing as for example the strings of a violin or whatever emits sound in all directions. And so with that introduction he pointed me towards these:



They're the smallest speakers from German manufacturer MBL, Who like Focal invent, develop and produce their own speaker elements. But where Focal have Beryllium, MBL have the Radialstrahler. It's essentially a set of lamellas that flex with the audio signal, generating a fully omnidirectional sound (at least for the treble and mids). I was cautioned that these speakers would demand a new way of listening, with a tone that almost assumed that I would not prefer them over the Focal's. But I gave them a listen anyway.

On my first go with the MBL 121's, they were in the setup pictured above, in a room as acoustically perfect as a box can be. They also had support of additional subs, something I was informed that they could not bypass for my session. So while I could not do a very fair comparison to the Focal's due to the radically different setup, I liked the very silky quality that especially voices had, but more than anything else I was extremely impressed by how the sound was just not in any way seeming to come from the speakers. Instead it was as though I could pinpoint in X, Y and not least Z axis where each sound was emitting from. I played some Björk off of Medúlla and I swear I could hear exactly where here head was as she was singing. Not only side to side, mind you, but in depth, about a meter in behind the speakers, and even the goddamn height. Yes, I could hear how tall (or rather, short) she is. Fucking amazing.

But the sound was in no way as insanely detailed as with the Focal speakers, as not only the treble but also the mids were a bit blurred in texture and resolution. I wasn't sure whether to blame the speakers, the room or the electronics but despite the absolutely mindboggling 3D imaging I would prefer the Focal's. I can't buy speakers knowing how much detail I'd still be missing. But I realised I needed to investigate these suckers further.

In my next visit to the store, I asked to compare the two. I started with the Focal's in the old spot, now with the Bel Canto e.One s300iD amplifier, passing up the on-board D/A for a Weiss Minerva DAC. Now the Diablo's too had that amazing silky quality I first heard in the MBL's - clearly the amp and/or DAC was the key here, so one less advantage for MBL. After this warming up session I moved into the acoustically trated room again to have a go with the MBL's, now playing on über expensive Spectral Audio amplification and an older GamuT CD. Again the subs were in, and again there was a muddiness to the sound. I'm sure the frequency response in the room is absurdly flat, but it felt boomy and muddy. The 3D imaging was there again, the silkiness too, but somehow, maybe, a very slight hardness of the treble compared to the beryllium-equipped Diablo's. Normally monodirectional speakers should be tougher on the ears, but the sick resolution of the Focal Utopia elements might get the edge anyway. But this is in a room with zero dampening, so perhaps it's acoustics?

Next up was to get the Diablo's into the treated room, also with the subs. The 3D depth was better here than outside, but still can't really match MBL. Detail-wise they fared better than MBL and the bass felt much more integrated with the rest of the sound. But I might still prefer how they performed without the subs and, perhaps surprisingly, without the diffusion-ripe room.



So the last test was to take the MBL's out to the open, slightly dry sounding area and play them on Bel Canto / Weiss. Here they sounded much better, even more so than I had hoped. Aside from the Diablo's they're the only speaker that has yet passed the test that is Autechre's "Surripere", including the growling bass weirdness starting at around 4:40, that most speakers just don't play at all. The 3D magic was somewhat subdued, but still clearly superior. Even here, sound wasn't coming from the speakers, it was just there, in the air.

The sub matching was clearly bad with the MBL's, as on their own they were much, much better, albeit not as deep. I could no longer sense the slightest trace of treble harshness either, but the Diablo's might still have the edge in resolution. I did not have time (after 4 hous of listening) to do an A/B test, but that will come soon and will the the final elimination round. For the longest time I was sure Focal were going to win, but the comeback that the MBL's did without the subs was astonishing, and over the last few days I've been going back and forth. I could really go either way; Do I stick with the Focal sound I love and possibly the best non-floorstanding traditional speaker ever, or with what is probably the speaker concept of the future with it's amazing immersion?

Whatever I end up buying now will probably be with me for ten years, or more. But it's not only I that will be affected long-term by this decision; These will probably be the speakers that my eventual children will grow up listening too, the speakers whose sound characteristics through which they will feel all those emotions that music can bring.

I don't know how much of a drop in quality it will be to go with the built-in DAC of the Bel Canto amp, but if it's within an acceptable range of the clearly superior Weiss Minerva, I´'m starting to think that I might actually be prepared to take the plunge now and buy a new system. I'll have downpayments for 3 years at least, but should still be able to buy a golden horn diffusor every now and then to try and tame the concrete ceiling of our apartment. And I'll have absolutely spectacular sound, so what else would I need money for? =)

Hunt for Hifi III: Trap doors and mirages

Audiophiles are often ridiculed for spending time and substantial amounts of money on snake-oil products. These can vary from little wooden blocks to place speaker cables on like a monorail so that it never touches the ground (presumably to prevent static electricity, or something) to all manners of vibration dampening hocus pocus. The criticism spans from entirely valid, as I would say is the case for the examples I just gave, to dubious, which is the case for things like analogue cables or Digital to Analogue Converters (DAC's).

The problem for the aspiring audiophile is that the boundary between sane science and sonic homeopathy is by no means a straight line; It is more akin to the outline of a fractal pattern, endlessly slithering through all aspects of sound reproduction. Take a speaker cable, for example: It makes sense on a physical level that an unshielded cable is more prone to pick up audible interference than a shielded one, and there are nearly endless measurable qualities of a cables conductive properties that have potentially hearable effects. But at some point it just gets retarded, because how can there be audible deterioration of the signal through a €5.000 cable? What signal transmitting problems are there in that cable that only another €5.000 can fix? I don't doubt that there may be audible differences between those two hypothetical products (though the prices are from real products), but at some point it just gets ridiculous. And that's when generously assuming that the full cost of the cable is due to engineering efforts to rid it of electric flaws.

In reality, there is no shortage of utterly retarded cables. How about audiophile grade USB cables, complete with wooden connectors? Can someone explain to me how a digital transfer protocol with signed packets benefits from fucking wooden connectors, and how the cable can affect the sound quality in any other way than "it works" or "it doesn't work"?

I have a strong skepticism towards small, enthusiast companies producing very technical and complex products. I just don't see how some guy in a basement or garage can match the research horsepower of larger corporations. For €10.000 I expect speakers with custom built, state-of-the-art elements developed from many years of experience and research, not some pricey off-the-shelf components but into a fancy box by some dude with a logo.

So ignore voodoo accessories, companies whos websites "technology" page reads like a physics students DMT trip report and any type of retarded claim of "revolutionary breakthrough". I once saw a japanese amplifier manufacturer that had rounded courners in the paths on the circuit boards, claiming that it made the sound smoother. Such people should be punched in the testicles immediately.

Instead, just listen to good components from companies that either have a good track record based on quality alone, or up & comers that seem to be driven by actual innovation rather than some wannabee me-too clinging to the hifi bandwagon.

Hunt for hifi II: What is good sound?

Some time back, before I bought my Logitech Squeezebox Duet, I was touring the hifi stores auditioning CD players. Not only is my CD player the oldest component in my system, but I had also heard some mantra about "source first" in composing a stereo system, not giving it any thought beyond the initial "sure, OK". I ended up with the Squeezebox instead, and have since made a complete 180 in terms of system design philosophy.

The speakers are affecting the sound more than anything else in your system, assuming that everything is reasonably normal products. So to effectively select a main course to go with the sauce is just dumb. But since you're listening to the speakers, it makes sense to select ones that, when performing backed by a very neutral system, sounds the way you want.

But what is it then that one wants to hear, what is the desired sound? Personally I have always gravitated towards immersion, resolution and precision rather than flow, rhythm and smoothness. If the music is harsh, it should sound that way! As stupid as this may make me sound, it was only very recently that I received and understood the advice that one should not listen for any specific detail or parameter, but what is "enjoyable". I must admit that when it comes to auditioning stereo equipment, I have never once just listened for what is the most enjoyable, instead hunting for resolution, transients and extreme frequencies.

The risk with this approach is of course that what is instantly enjoyable may prove to be sugarcoated, and too much of that and the sonic diabetes becomes inevitable. An overly discerning listening on the other hand might put undue emphasis on things like treble resolution and transient speed, as such parameters may sound impressive even though they're not always true to the original recording or presented in a pleasurable way.

Thus, auditioning hifi gear is an undertaking where the right decision is based in emotion rather than measurements and facts, albeit a sprinkling of analysis is inevitable. My current attempt at finding new speakers has been the first time I've actively tried to listen this way, and I've found it very rewarding. Not only does it help me listen the way the speakers will be used over the next ten years or more, but it has also helped me get rid of a lot of doubt and uncertainty in terms of what sounds "best".


One of my fears in the world of audiophilia is to end up a "parameter listener", someone who listens to sounds rather than to music. I don't want to think about upgrading some cable or buying custom feet for my amplifier when listening to music. If you do that, you've lost the plot. So I want to get this upgrade over with as soon as possible, so that I can forget about high-end nerdery and just go back to playing records. But at the same time, I realize that to avoid those traps, I must make sure I'm getting exactly what I want. Settling for second best is not the way to sonic nirvana.

So, back to my preferences. In listening to the Focal Diablo Utopia speakers I have realized how much more detail they reveal in each and every CD, while being many times smoother and easier on my ears than my current Focal/JMLab Cobalt 806's. In fact, I have always attributed listening fatigue to the room acoustics, blaming hard reflections and orthogonal angles. I was even contemplating doing acoustic room treatment before buying the speakers, so that I could audition them at home in an enviropnment that did them justice. I was eventually talked out of this both by hifi salesmen and on web forums, with everyone basically saying that you'll need a good speaker to assess the result of any dampening or diffusion.

The realization that it's actually my speakers that have a bit of tweeter harshness, in combination with the newfound love for auditioning with my emotions, let me immediately dismiss the most detailed monitor speaker I've ever heard, the Marten Design Duke. While it showed me musical details that even the beryllium tweeter from Focal couldn't dig out, my ears felt sore after ten minutes. So while immensly impressive, they are essentially useless for someone who wants to listen for hours on end. (Slight disclaimer: They probably sound a bit less harsh with a warmer sounding amp, but if I have to tame my speakers to stand them, something's not right.)

I was also able to dismiss the T+A Criteron TS 200 – they are an absolutely astonishing speaker for the price, and if I had never listened to the Focal's I would probably have stopped looking after these, bought them (at just over a third of the Focal price) and gone home very happy. But I have heard the light, and know too well how much smoother the treble can be, and how insane an amount of bass control is actually possible.

So far in all my research and auditioning, I have pretty much accepted that with my preferences, even if I now listen with my heart much more, nothing below the price of the Diablo's will outdo them. Unless I accidentally stumble across a substantial fortune, this is very bad news, because all my quest for better sound has bought me so far is discontent.

And it gets worse...

Hunt for hifi I: High-end fever

As a music aficionado I am concerned about sound quality, in the sense that I want to experience the music at its fullest potential, be it ultra minimalist ambient, goa trance, black metal or wall noise. Spending a fortune on hi-fi equipment will leave nothing for records, and to me it's clearly better to listen to a huge selection of great music on mediocre equipment than to listen to just a handful of records on great equipment. But there is a balance, of course – if the sound is too shitty you'll miss half of what's on the record no matter how many times you listen.

I willingly admit that a lot of my music may not be up to audiophile standards, and while my current setup has served me amazingly well over the past 8 or so years, I have reached a point where the experience of listening to music is burdened by thoughts of what might be – better bass, smoother high-ends, greater resolution, deeper soundstage and so on – in such a way that I find myself making exuses for the sound. "This has such beautiful shimmering highs" I tell myself, while well aware that my speakers are telling a different story. Simply put, the focus of my music listening has slowly but surely shifted towards what is not there.

In my many and long walks around the suburbs with my girlfriend, we often point out the most fantastic houses and mansions, jovially fantisizing about owning such a house. This daydreaming mindset is what I also slip into when reading reviews of absurdly esoteric hi-fi equipment, as well as when I visited the Stockholm high-end fair earlier this year. It's exciting hearing the worlds finest audio equipment, but I have accepted that anything within my budget would just leave me wanting more, so I'm not even envious as there's no point.

This year I was rather underwhelmed by what I heard. I was happy with this, because it made me feel content about my current equipment. There's no point in upgrading if there's no improvement to be had, right? When I reached a rig with a total cost of something like €100.000 that sounded downright bad, my audiophile pity was at an all time high. The very next room, however, shattered all illusions of my systems performance in the most brutal, heartbraking and mindboggling way concievable.

On display was the top-of-the-line CD transport, upsampler, DAC and master clock from British ultra-high-end company dCS. This system is prepostrously expensive, but it was not by any means the star of the room. Nor was the ASR Emitter II amplifier or the laughably expensive cables. What the room was about, and what outshone everything I've ever heard, were the Focal Diablo Utopia speakers:



I'm aware that you can't listen to a single component in a full system, but there is no DAC rig or amplifier in the cosmos that can make an average speaker do this.

I was nowhere near sweet-spot when listening; in fact, I was standing up, and in the back corner of all places. Yet the sound was just mindbogglingly good. Effectively showing how ridiculous the idea of a €20.000 CD transport is, while the dCS representative was still in the room, the demo was made with a Macbook Pro playing over USB to the DAC. The music was, as expected, nothing I care for. Yet I was completely spellbound by what I heard. Without spewing too much audiophile jargon, I can just say that anything they played, sounded like it was live in the room. For example, anything with voices sounded as though the singer(s) were RIGHT THERE, with realism much much greater than what I've heard speakers 15 times more expensive be capable of. The bass was impossibly tight and potent for the size of the speakers, but there was no sub-woofer in sight. I could go on, but this is long enough already.

Since that day, I have though about, abnd probably even spoken of, these speakers every single day. They are clearly out of my budget (€8.000 without the dedicated stands, which are €1.500 extra) – Saving up for them or doing a downpayment plan would take two years, at least. And it's not like they would blossom to their full potential with my old electronics, either. They were apparently in the same league as an €80.000 CD/DAC rig, so even if settling for a tenth of that the full system would be €20.000. So even if I'd bite the bullet and get the speakers, they'd be a bugatti with a moped engine for at least two years.

Suddenly sound better than I could even fantisize about is almost attainable – but just almost. So how the hell do I solve this? At the time of writing this, I don't know. I will be writing more about my thoughts on hifi and on how I try to find the cheapest possible path to sonic contentment, to hopefully entertain and/or inspire others. It might end with bankrupcy or with me selling all my records to go live in a cave. Or both. Stay tuned!