MANGER MSMs1 in IMAGE HiFi mag

PDF image-hifi.com 6/2012

Loudspeaker Manger MSMs1Author: Josef Bruckmoser Photography: Rolf Winter

The new Manger MSMs1 active

loudspeaker is another perfect ex-

ample of the bending wave transdu-

cer’s exceptional quality: The music

is totally purged!

Smooth and Pure

The Jadis audio player which has gained sort of reference sta-tus in my test (page 86) plays Fön by Hubert von Goisern. It isnot the latest CD by the folksy pop musician from Styria butstill one of his best. And it is perfectly suited as test software sin-ce the singer demonstrates all the possible – and almost impos-sible – qualities of his voice. For example, the song “Kalt”: Hu-bert starts with a pretty viperish and aggressive falsetto followedby his sonorous baritone which is complemented by a full-gro-wn choir as a third timbre. After my meticulous testing of the French player I had nodoubt that the Orphée 1 would process these three different andcontradictive registers very subtly and vividly. And my earlierencounters with Manger products made me look forward to he-ar how the MSMs1 Reference Active System would track all themusical dashes of color which the player was capable of repro-ducing. The elegant and almost graceful looking MangerMSMs1 surpassed my expectations.The bending wave transducer of the Manger Reference ActiveSystem has mastered an art which is hard to find even amongpremium monitors: it reproduces music without any sonic by-products and directs the attention of the listener completely tothe performing voices and instruments. The falsetto is beingraised above the other sources in such a clear and unaltered waythat you even understand the sense of the onomatopoeia – atleast you believe you do, although it is depicted in the volumi-nous booklet of the Fön CD only as mazy symbols ... well, ma-zy or not, you never know. With Hubert von Goisern, who isnicknamed the “Goiserer” in his home country, chances are thateven this onomatopeia has some kind of hidden meaning.Hubert sings: “Jessasmarantjosef ”, which means something li-ke “Holy mackerel”. And this expression is perfectly suited to de-scribe the vibrato and smooth texture with which the MangerMSMs1 reproduces the strings on Fön. A long gliding soundthat nonetheless can cut abruptly at the end.One of the most important qualities of the bending wave tran-sducer is the absence of “intervening periods” between musicaltime units and time units. The sound starts immediately with-

6/2012 image-hifi.com PDF

out physical preparation and when it’s gone, it’s gone. This cansound rather dry at times. But firstly, the ear gets used to it pret-ty fast, and secondly, you will soon be convinced that this isexactly the way it should be. The things you miss at first do ac-tually not belong to the music. What is missing are the side ef-fects, things that other drivers normally add because they arenot fast enough and/or their membranes are not even enough.On “Famous Blue Raincoat” (BMG 258418-222) Jennifer War-nes provides evidence for this quality. Very rarely have I heardthe newscaster’s voice at the very beginning so clearly even atlow volumes. And this transparency does not reduce the warmtimbre of the singer’s voice. Also remarkable is the wonderfulpresence of the background choir which never gets mixed upwith the voice of Jennifer Warnes and is clearly positioned be-hind her.New is the fact that this quality feature now sets in at a lowercrossover frequency of 330 Hz – earlier incarnations of the ben-ding wave transducer used a slightly higher value and theconnected woofer had to advance further into the upper fre-quency range. Now the relevant driver covers a very broad ran-

xxxTeammatesDrive: Kuzma Reference Pickup Arm: Kuzma Stabi Reference Pickup: BenzMicro Ruby Open Air, Benz LP, Ortofon Rohmann CD Player: Theta Data Basic (Phi-lips CDM-9) D/A Converter: Theta DSPro Generation III Phono Stage: Jeff Ro-wland Candence Pre-Amplifier: Jeff Rowland Synergy II Power Amplifier:Jeff Rowland Model 12 Cables: Brodman Acoustics (loudspeakers), Cardas Gol-den Reference, Cardas Neutral Reference (phono and line) Loudspeakers: Tren-ner & Friedl, Parker 95 (update 2005) Accessories: SID Analog (sound improve-ment disc “A”), Millenium Karbon LP Mat, Clearlight Audio RDC Cone, SIC (soundimprovement coupler), Audioplan Sicomim Antispike SIAS, ART damperxxxx


Loudspeaker Manger MSMs1

ge in which at lower frequencies the bending waves propagateacross the whole membrane up to the rim. At higher frequencies– up to 40 kHz! – only small portions of the membrane are ex-cited. This makes the MSMs1 a pure point sound source in therange of 300 Hz to 40 kHz.The woofer consists of a 200 mm fiberglass/polyester sand-wich-type membrane and is driven by a 250-Watt power ampli-fier with bipolar power transistors. The amp is integrated intothe enclosure and is able to supply the voice coil of the chassiswith the necessary amount of (peak) current. Themidrange/treble power amplifier produces up to 180 watts. Ac-cording to Daniela Manger the amplifier features exceptionallyfast DMOS transistors and a unity gain output stage. They aretypically used to ensure very clean and undistorted signal trans-mission. Maximum power bandwidth is 250 kHz and the analogfilter stages are equipped with BurrBrown op-amps. Fortunate-ly classic A/B amplifiers are used instead of off-the-shelf Class Dmodules, although they are not as energy efficient as switchingamplifiers during idle running times. But 25 watts power con-sumption is economical enough to leave the loudspeakers swit-ched on during weekends of intense listening. And on weekdaysit is sufficient to turn on the integrated power amps when youcome home. You can then enjoy your dinner and dive into thesonic universe of the bending wave transducer after the systemhas warmed up for about an hour. Compensation filters for bass, presence, and treble as well asnear-field monitoring, sensitivity, and polarity are available onthe back panel. The room acoustics switch is actually a high-pass filter at 100 Hz. The shelving filter for the treble range canbe used in steps of 1 dB starting at 10 kHz. Thanks to the balan-

Top: The diagrams on the back of the enclosure show the various roomcompensation options: treble, nearfield/presence and bass

Bottom: The two power amplifiers are housed in a metal enclosure and arethus completely separated from the loudspeaker enclosure

cond green LED turns red as soon as the maximum sound pres-sure level of 110 dB has been reached. During normal listeningI never came even close to this limit. It should be clear though,that this loudspeaker is not made for sound reinforcement in adisco environment. It is rather a very sensitive and subtle soundtransducer which embodies the sophistication of premium so-und studios. And with dimensions of 45” (1.14 m) height, 10.6”(27.0 cm) width, and 8.5” (21.4 cm) depth it is best suited formedium-sized central-European living rooms.My listening room exhibits a slight resonance around 2 kHz, soI first tried to attenuate the presence by 1.5 dB. But since theManger loudspeaker is very well suited for low volumes and I li-ke to listen to music late in the evening or at night I preferred toboost the bass a little and leave the presence flat. It was the bet-ter solution for this room and this purpose. In either case the in-tegrated amps and the active crossover facilitate such fine tu-

ced input connector the distance bet-ween loudspeaker and preamplifiercan be pretty large. In our privilegedcase Nordost Valhalla cables transmitthe signals from the Rowland pream-plifier to the MSMs1 power amps. Ahigh-quality Nordost power cablewith Furutech connectors suppliesthe loudspeaker with mains voltage.However, comparisons with afforda-ble Einstein power cords proof thatyou do not have to use rather expensi-ve Nordost power cables to get goodresults.An unobtrusive green LED lightswhen the MSMs1 is activated. The se-

The famous Manger star. The bending wave transducer is the result of decades of development and experience. Its star-shaped cover controlshow far the membrane is excited by different frequencies


ning and there is no need to use addi-tional passive equipment. Which brings us to the stickingpoint of “active speakers”. First thepros: An active design is almost man-datory for bending wave transducersand it is proved and tested. With thepassive versions the Manger companyspent many years of development toadapt the woofer chassis to the ridi-culously fast and clean point soundsource and its rise time of 13 micros-econds. The now available lower cros-sover frequency is part of the solutionwhich facilitates smooth interplayand coherent timing of the two dri-vers. The optimum, however, is theactive design of the Manger Referencewhich directly connects each driver to

its own amp. It is one of the best ways to control a woofer, to ac-celerate it and to keep it on track.The MSMs1 must be regarded as a coherent comprehensivedesign. And even finicky high-end aficionados, who would liketo hear how this fantastic bending wave transducer sounds incombination with their outrageously expensive and amazingpower amplifiers, will fall silent since the Manger MSMs1 is in aleague of its own. Not least because 13,200 EUR for a pair ofloudspeakers from Mellrichstadt definitely belongs to the cate-gory “Price of the Century”.This active speaker is the ideal basis for a minimalist audio sy-stem which only needs a high-quality D/A converter with adju-stable volume to be complete. For example, a device with valvessuch as the Lector Digicode S-192 which we tested not long ago.The active MSMs1 can be directly driven by such a DAC pream-plifier or a network media player – including title selection andvolume adjustment via iPhone oder iPad. Additional costs forpower amps can be saved and you are ready for a high-end ex-perience.

In addition to its own powerful drive the woofer is tightly controlled by an individualpower amplifier


Unless you belong to the club ofvinyl lovers like Allegro-HiFi, the bu-sy Austrian Manger distributor inVienna. In addition to the normalmust-have devices they installed pre-mium auxiliary equipment in their li-stening room to offer people an alter-native auditory impression. Thesignals are captured by a Van den HulDDT2 Special pickup and passthrough a “The Grail” phono pream-plifier by the same manufacturer be-fore they reach the “small” Audio Re-search preamplifier. Nordost cablesensure a transparent signal flow.The German loudspeaker was plea-sed to reproduce the beautiful “VierJahreszeiten”, interpreted by NevilleMarriner and his Academy of St. Mar-tin in the Fields, with utmost vibran-cy. The completely different characterof the Van den Hul compared to theBenz Ruby Open Air of the referencesystem at home was immediately no-ticeable.It was not only the vibrancy of the fi-nely nuanced strings that stimulatedthe attentive ear. The sound of theharpsichord unfolded an unexpecteddiversity of tonal shades, too. This wascertainly not only due to Marrinerand his Academy. The decisive contri-bution to this excellent performancecame from the smooth and dynamicbending wave transducer.But let us return to our reference sy-stem and the Fön CD. At first only twoor three tracks should be used for ourlistening test. However, the music so-unded so fresh and beautiful that wekept on listening just for fun. The sa-me thing happened with RonaldBrautigam’s pianoforte which he

The 200 mm woofer is equipped with a fiberglass/polyester sandwich-typemembrane

For extreme volumes: like the studio monitor version the MSMs1 provides aconnector for an additional subwoofer

No frills: the connector panel consists of balanced input, power socket, andpower switch



played during two of Mozart’s piano concerts on original in-struments (BIS-SACD-1894). Especially noteworthy is the wayin which the Manger transducer reproduces the depth of thestage. The pianoforte is located right in front and flush with thefront panels of the MSMs1 – virtually within reach. On theother hand, the stage seems to be unlimited toward the back.Each instrument group of the orchestra is assigned to a clearlydefined virtual section of the stage. The listener not only hearsbut almost sees that the woodwinds are sitting in the back andthe kettledrums are standing in the next row behind them.When you close your eyes the musicians on stage mutate into athree-dimensional sculpture. Nothing disappears in a diffuse orchestral cloud of sound andeach musical part, whether woodwinds or principal violinists,can be heard separately. Not in the sense that the orchestral so-und disintegrates into individual components and falls apart.No, it is a type of transparency which only few sound transdu-cers achieve and which makes the musicians “visible” row byrow. “Localization is pretty unfamiliar at first as the driver slipcompletely out of focus”, report the listening notes. “But thismakes you realize how strongly tones stick to the drivers withother brands”.The “Mirror” album by Charles Lloyd (ECM 2010) is an excel-lent example of this three-dimensional imaging of instruments.The upright bass played by Reuben Rogers swings and JasonMoran’s piano is clearly separated from Eric Harland’s drums.And, above all, float the alto and tenor sax lines of the pheno-menal Charles Lloyd. You can look at each instrument as youplease. Similar to a live concert, when you direct your attentionto one musician in particular and the other band members playalong.

Top: The rearward sound of the bending wave transducer is heavily dampedwithin the enclosure

Bottom: Toroidal coil transformer of the integrated power amplifiers


To hear how a large orchestra so-unds we listened to Symphony No. 2D Major by Jean Sibelius. On theChesky CD 3A Sir John Barbirolli hasrecorded Opus 43 together with theRoyal Philharmonic Orchestra. In thecrescendo sequences of the allegrettoyou can hear a resonance in the stringsection – but only if the resolution ofthe reproduction chain can depictthese subtle vibrations. The bendingwave transducer handles everythingwith ease and reproduces the resona-ting bodies of the strings even at mo-derate volumes. The strongly pluckedpizzicatos of the strings have a com-pletely different timbre than the sub-sequent full chords. In the back of thestage the sound of the kettledrums fillthe space while staying clearly separa-ted from the string section in front.Again, the excellent recording of theChesky CD exhibits impressive spati-al positioning of instruments andtransparent, diversified imaging whileretaining a coherent sound. The fullbody and the multifaceted timbres ofthe Sibelius symphony are always pre-sent. The same goes for the classic re-cording of Bizet’s opera “Carmen”with Teresa Berganza and the LondonSymphonic Orchestra conducted byClaudio Abbado (DG 437 007-2, Ab-bado Edition). The piccolo flutes andthe fresh and bright voices of the Wat-son’s George College Boys’ Chorusfloat above all the instruments in“Avec la garde montante”.The MSMs1 Reference Active Systemfrom Manger is a high-precision in-strument for music reproduction. Itspoint-shaped dispersion and uniquetiming make the bending wave trans-

ducer stand out from the crowd. The investment of 13,200 EURper pair is far more than the foundation of a high-end audio sy-stem. It is the beginning of sophisticated musical enjoyment.

xxxxLoudspeaker Manger ReferenceActive System MSMs1Functional Principle: active 2-way system Fre-quency Range: 30 Hz – 40 kHz, crossover fre-quency: 330 Hz Maximum SPL: 110 dB peakChassis: HF driver: bending wave transducer,bandwidth 80 Hz – 40 kHz, rise time 13µs, LF dri-ver: 200 mm fiberglass/polyester sandwich-typeAmplifier: LF 250 W @ 8 ohm, HF 180 W @ 8ohm, power bandwidth 250 kHz (-3dB) InputSensitivity: 6 dBu (1.55 V) or 0 dBu Input Impe-dance: 10 kOhm Control Switches: bass, pre-sence, treble, input sensitivity, polarity etc. Input:XLR (balanced) Finish: silk-mat RAL, Nextel or piano lacquer Dimensions(W/H/D): 10.6/44.8/8.4” Weight: 48 kg Warranty: 3 years Price per Pair: star-ting from 13,200 EUR

Contact: Manger Products, Daniela Manger, Industriestraße 17, D-97638 Mellrich-stadt, Phone: +49/9776/9816, www.manger-msw.de xxxx

MANGER MSMs1 in IMAGE HiFi mag

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