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Basics. Handing over at 300Hz to a standard dynamic woofer with higher Xmax than the Manger guarantees proper power-zone displacement. And that makes for the necessary impact and slam in the upper bass where it matters most. Here semi-powered wideband competitors like the Rethm Maarga with its lower 100Hz transition give up spunk and grippiness. Naturally Manger's chosen woofer can't move the amount of air the 12" Fostex in my customary Aries Cerat Gladius does. This renders the first two octaves inherently more lithe and quick than massive. LF click tests in conjunction with some room resonance showed surprising output at 25Hz. This dropped to nothing at 20Hz. But in rooms of standard size—say 16 x 24' or 5 x 8m—it's fair to tag the MSMs1 as a full-range speaker for 95% of all music.

Holoprofiles attach precisely via included alignment jig with built-in bubble level to shade the outer third of each driver
Dense bass pressurization—which to my mind always signifies too much speaker for the room by creating unnatural results—is not on the menu. Unless your space is simply too small. Such pressurization requires more brute weaponry, hence larger enclosures. And that would trade the smart concept for more excessive trophy hifi. This is a gentleman's transducer, not a hooligan pounder. Hard-core rockers in search for acoustic blow dryers will look elsewhere. The presence of electronic limiters implies power handling restrictions as well. 100dB peaks at the ear are rather loud if you sit at the apex of a 2.5m or less equilateral triangle as recommended. Increasing distance and overall cubic volume of the listening space meanwhile (or going back in time to when your hearing was still immortal) can generate conditions to trigger the limiters.

Here it thankfully involves no clipping but only momentary dynamic compression during peaks. So it's about the Rolls-Royce spec. Loudness and extension are perfectly sufficient for the audience intended. Expendables style home cinema simply integrates active subs with the 80Hz high-pass filter. For civilized listeners, all necessities and niceties are accounted for. On to brass tacks then. Live music is far more dynamic than normal hifis can reproduce. Referring to the Manger sound as life-like without qualification would be misleading hype. By not being as dynamically unfettered as high-efficiency hornspeakers or even 100dB Lowther types which still trail the real thing, it's actually twice removed on that count. Alas, once we invoke absence of effort to perceive everything—intelligibility built on superior precision—this sound does approach it.
 

That's because its transients are very natural and free of grit. It's ultra-fine needle work without the needles. Assuming that higher transient exactitude means sharper and edgier is a common mistake. To compensate for this reflexive presumption, we might introduce some type of softening language like a laundry additive. Unfortunately the limits of language then imply less exactitude as a lower level of precision. It's important to understand that the Manger sound is soft only in the anti sense. It's not soft per se. It simply doesn't equate time fidelity with samurai-blade slice 'n' dice. There's no needling, no leading-edge hype. Everything merely locks into place. It becomes transparently obvious. When things stop to wander and stand still, there's perfect clarity. In Manger speak that's precision.


Granted, their slogan of Precision In Sound has a laboratory ring. Well-publicized engineering focus plays further to that. Yet the manifestation of what they actually mean does not. It isn't clinical or sterile. It's more natural. Easier. If we subtract the semi-omni effects of his 180° Kynar tweeter—patents will expire in a few years to perhaps open doors to licensing the CDT tech—Anthony Gallo's work on the Reference 3.5 and subsequent Classico range pursues a similar path. I would simply say that the degree of artifice shedding is even higher with the Manger. It's easier yet. It's also less tensioned or driven. Its lateral staging isn't as broad due to HF directivity. Depth perspective is quite spectacular though. Besides a low system noise floor to not obscure micro data, this to my mind also relies on low phase shift. It creates proper spatial alignment of fundamental and harmonics to eliminate subliminal vagueness. This type of soundstage sorting, image focus and localization specificity has no need for sharpened outlines and unnatural lighting effects. Focus is achieved not by redrawing edges or raising contrast. It is achieved by internal alignment. This eliminates what Daniela calls small shadows.
To point at the same quality from a different angle (again by more saying what it's not), this focus involves no greater contrast. In the visual world, heightened contrast is achieved by orange-tinted sun glasses of the sort snipers wear. It's an effect paid for with color shifting, most heavily green. Hifi has equivalent means to pump up contrast. This appeals to visual listeners in particular. But Manger refuses to do that. In a profound sense their core sound lacks sensationalism. It's unspectacular. It's very easy and natural. It's understated, not flashy. The degree of precision or lack of common artifacts is such that no trickery is required to compensate. To fully appreciate this mandates maturity. One should have outgrown fascination with various sonic Technicolor schools to desire and recognize naturalness. Most audiophiles look for an enhanced sound. In various ways they wish to make up for audio's single-sense appeal—the ears alone—which involves not all of our five senses as does a concert. No enhancements with Manger.


On that most challenging of instruments—because it's simultaneously percussive and resonant plus massive of bandwidth—the Manger is blessedly free of getting a piano's lower registers messy. Unlike many others it seems to add no (or far less) resonances of its own. Put differently, left-handed ivory work retains a higher percentage of percussive qualities than is common. This must be a function of very low energy storage of the raw transducer. It doesn't hang on to notes but lets go like a finger recoils from a hot iron. The sealed alignment adds proper damping and impulse response.
Related aspects of the Manger sound are quickness and cleanliness. Wherever warmth is euphemism for blur and bloat, here it doesn't apply. Even so tone colors are finely saturated, not bland, whitish or washed out. Image density is just right though not pronounced as good SETs conjure up. Quickness manifests in the clarity of percussive strikes, string plucks and brass staccato though a Lowther, Voxativ or Rethm widebander has more violent startle factor, more lightning power. While Manger's magnetics are very stout, one presumes limits to how far they can lower their plate diaphragm's moving mass to behave as intended before it breaks up by being too thin. Here the inherently greater stiffness of a cone allows for reduced mass, hence higher sensitivity which more effectively translates sudden voltage spikes to dynamic crests.

Even though published measurements by 'Stereoplay' in a review PDF on Manger's website show a quite depressed nonlinear midband, the speaker doesn't sound sucked out. It's a case where measurements don't correlate in meaningful ways with the in-room ear response. Or where amplitude linearity is very secondary to something other which dominates and overrides. What does correlate is the stiff 30° off-axis treble roll-off which mandates steep toe-in to achieve the desired response.


Recommended setup thus has the axes cross slightly in front of the listener. With that in place top extension is the equal of a good ribbon and in an altogether different league than the usual whizzers. Unlike most ribbons there's no metallic coloration or zing either. Back on voltage sensitivity, the Manger won't come on song as early as a 100dB Voxativ or Rethm but its general precision serves low volumes very well. It's simply no full-bore music whisperer. As a mechanical device of far greater distortion than even cheap electronics, no loudspeaker can be all things to all people. The MSMs1 goes after no-stress precision from what must be superior timing and unusual freedom from cone talk or driver-related energy storage.


The latter is mere theory. But how else to explain this cleanliness when the enclosure itself is ordinary MDF, not some 'heroic' ultra-mass affair of X material or aluminium? Clearly orchestral bombast won't compete with the dynamic bombast of really big speakers. Even so the complexity of melodic and rhythmic lines overlaid with a very broad spectrum of tone colors gets deciphered, separated and sorted with astonishing accuracy. Forget the usual 2-way implications in the face of an electronic crossover and active tailor-made amps for each driver. This is not a speaker that gets tripped up and confused by convoluted fare. Try Mozart's Requiem for proof. Then follow up with Leos Janáček's Sinfonietta with its 16 trumpets plus symphony orchestra or the mighty Taras Bulba.

The Manger sound celebrates precision, articulation, transparency and exactitude. That means speed over mass, insight over romance, depth over width, focus over warmth. That sum total adds up to very high intelligibility which makes for extreme listener ease. And that great ease or mellowness—sitting as it were atop, around or behind very fine rhythmic articulation like a climate or mood—equates to greater naturalness. Think Braun-era Quad ESL with bass and dynamics. It means absence of strain, grain, glint, sharpness and edges. This sound isn't hung up on output fireworks or massive displacement. It's not about voluptuousness à la Sonus faber legacy or propulsive and driven like house Zu. It's about crystalline clarity plus suppleness.


The engineered package of self-powered speaker clearly favored attenuator-fitted DACs over additional preamps. This extended the theme of minimalism and integration to the source. With an optimized amp/speaker interface locked in, the remaining hardware variables made for rather smaller differences than usual. Power delivery—AC conditioning and power cords—was still a worthwhile upgrade for the built-in amps however. Owners of RCA-only sources will scoff at the lack of matching inputs. I agree that a home audio speaker would ideally sport selectable RCA and XLR inputs to eliminate adaptors or cable rebuilds. But as my only reasonable gripe, the MSMs1 secured its clean bill of health (no transformer hum!) and a most hearty recommendation with flying colors.


A second though not reasonable gripe is the Holoprofile. It looks like a tacked-on afterthought. Which it is on both counts - tacked on and thought of after the MSW had been finalized. Making the gripe unreasonable are two other counts. A, it's optional. B, it actually works. I appreciated it particularly in the depth domain and on image focus. Since it's undoable (it mounts with stickers and comes off easily) complaining about an efficacious tweak just because it's unattractive would be... well, so very non-audiophile. If other qualifications are in order beyond the already mentioned, it would be only on the level of propaganda.
The star of Manger—the actual proprietary driver—is unique. And in the present implementation it does work most effectively and impressively. It simply shouldn't be implied that this type of presentation can't be achieved by different means.


Disregarding voicing options with strategic amp and preamp choices to add more harmonic meatiness and a particular buoyant texture from line-level valves; and disregarding their obvious increase of bass power; my passive three-way speakers with sealed bass and deliberately bandwidth-limited Fostex widebander perform quite similarly. [At right, a drawing from the German Manger patent on the Holoprofile®.]

The most relevant difference isn't sound but money. My amp/speaker combo above wants €30.000 to get there. The Manger is €13.200. For that achievement I'd credit the MSW and active concept equally. And that extends at least similar potential to an equivalent AMT-based model by A.D.A.M for just one example. As a shopper, I'd personally consider the MSMs1 first on the basis of its active concept and compact dimensions and only secondarily on its choice of drive units. Naturally dyed-in-the-wool valve aficionados will feel curtailed. So will traditional audiophiles subscribing to the prevailing passive paradigm.
But the embrace of computer audio heralds a brave new world. It wants more cost-effective convenience, integration, performance and lifestyle cosmetics. Here active should have a real future. Unlike pro speakers still attempting to court consumers—Genelec comes to mind—the Manger MSMs1 is fully house-broken already. Its sticker reads stiff only until you ask how to secure equivalent performance for the same money the traditional route. It's close to impossible. That doesn't minimize this sticker. It simply pushes returns to the max. And that's what makes it smart modern hifi at its finest. Should you still need a 'sound in a nutshell' takeaway to condense all of the above in one easy sketch, it'd be 'B-squared' Quads (= balls x bandwidth). Even the concentrically outward rippling sound propagation of their flat membranes is similar.


PS: If you've read this for pure entertainment and edification because you're not in the market, I still recommend you spend some Manger coin. I'm talking of their fantastic Music wie von einem anderen Stern (Music as though from a different star). It's a 15-track test CD or LP that'll really take your system through its paces. And it does so with brilliant music and inspired performances rather than slamming garage doors and such...

Manger website