When 16-foot-high organ pipes reverberate with profound tones in a church nave, it's not just the ears that listen: the whole body hears. Loudspeakers can convey these same powerful sensations, but to do so, they need qualities like the Radialradiator 116 F. In addition to its mid-bass drivers, this floorstanding speaker also utilizes the diaphragms of two bass drivers. The entire sound spectrum is thus distributed across four drivers: As in all MBL loudspeakers, radial diaphragms handle the high and mid frequencies, their feather-light carbon segments flooding the listening room with perfectly even sound in all directions. Two 15-centimeter mid-bass drivers are responsible for the upper bass frequencies down to the cutoff frequency of 170 Hz, and the bass section ensures authoritative sound pressure down to the lowest acoustic depths. It is housed in a separate, 46-liter bass-reflex enclosure that remains stoically calm even when heavy bass passages are unleashed. This is ensured by the common-mode operation of the two drivers: They are rigidly connected back-to-back via a massive aluminum brace, allowing their diaphragms to move forward and backward simultaneously and thus neutralizing any mechanical forces that could act on the enclosure walls. The tweeters and midrange drivers are the heart of every loudspeaker. They reproduce the frequency ranges that are crucial for the emotion in music and the spatial listening experience. The human voice lies within this frequency range, and it offers the greatest localization of the sound source. The tweeters and midrange drivers developed by MBL and refined to perfection over 45 years radiate music in a 360-degree radius, unlike conventional loudspeakers which only project in one direction. Like in a concert hall, the entire room is filled with sound energy, creating a truly impressive spatial listening experience. And this benefits all listeners, not just the lucky one sitting in the so-called sweet spot, the point where the sound axes of direct-radiating loudspeakers intersect. This also applies to living rooms whose layout wouldn't allow for truly good music reproduction with conventional speakers. MBL radial drivers are therefore true problem solvers. And this is something all MBL speakers have in common, because the same tweeters and midrange drivers with radial driver technology are used in all MBL speakers.
