SBL/Mana: Final report

Having accepted the recommendation of yours (naming Emil and Adam on the first place with the biggest influence on me) I acquired a pair of Mana Sound Base to put under my SBLs. I’ve used them 11 day long then I re-packed them and now I’m a happy man again.

No doubt SBLs are in the need of some improvement and a lot of SBL owners present in this very Forum are touched by the temptation of buying the Bases. If they can’t manage it they try to find some cheep substitution (screws, balls, MDF and glass plates etc.) instead. So my aim with this report is not to make quarrel only to see (or show) the reality more tinged than our manaist friend do.

Let’s NOT decide whether Mana is good or bad. I’m ready to accept the whole business is environment or taste dependant. What we should do is analyzing the effect itself.

I’m perfectly convinced Sound Base under SBL is nothing else but an effective high/low pass filter and a dynamic filter at the same time. I may refer to my past where at many a time I had the possibility to be present at progresses of instrumental measurements and evaluating the result. It’s well-known in acoustics that you can’t simply damp out any resonance without some consequences. These consequences mainly are:

1. The resonant peak will be lower in magnitude but will expand into a broader frequency section.
2. The frequency range of the peak may be somewhat shifted.
3. The resonance will expand in time. In other words: the energy won’t be lost only changed.

And that’s exactly what I got from Mana. An und für sich (sorry for the German) it won‘t be a bad thing. Contrary to the view of some SBL fans this remarkable speaker’s merits are coupled to serious faults. The “clinical”, “analytical” attributes clearly point out these drawbacks, originating of a certain discontinuity in the speaker’s response in the presence region. Very, very modest speakers (e.g. the tiniest Heybrooks in my practice) produce much better in this region if they are put onto the extraordinarily good stand section of the SBL. In other respects they, of course, can’t produce what SBLs are capable of.

The “Mana effect” does fill those gaps in a way by grasping the speakers loose highest and deepest peaks with an iron hand and pushing them into the upper presence, and the upper bass section, respectively. It results in an extremely warm and soft sound picture coupled with an increased and distorted upper presence. Now you’ll be able to hear more players in the orchestra, the trouble is they all play with the same colour. Timbre differences are forgotten, e.g. gone the wonderful flute (recorder) solos of the SBLs... In addition to it the whole scene becomes close-miked, the music is played in the listening room or inside of head of the listener and it’s the worst possible thing (for me, at least). If you happen to be familiar of the PWB effect then you know what I’m talking about. Yes, with such distortion-producing means I’m ABLE to produce similar effects. Hic et nunc.

The choices are, at present:
1. SBL’s on the floor (+Chips) the honest poor man in his normal environment. I may visit him and have talks with him on life’s problems, e.g. what our next buy should be: a better amp or rather twice the cheaper amp and going active.
2. SBLs on Mana: the newly rich in an expensive house built on the basis of a rather dubious taste. I don’t likely visit him and have no common topics with him.

So I have a pair of hardly used Sound Base to be rid of them. Adam, Richard: in your views, does it all really seem a classified ad?!...

graphoman