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Over the last two decades mbl of America has been a part of an amazing transformation in audio. Throughout this transformation there has been one essential challenge: Technology, it is what drives audio to the next level.
There was a time when the "Radialstahler" technology was only an idea on a sketch pad. An idea that many didn't believe would work became a patent. After countless awards and 30 years, thousands of audiophiles around the world are now closer to their music than they ever imagined.
The goal at mbl has never changed: Design the most advanced audio equipment and have it perform at a standard above all others, while never compromising our intense passion for quality. Every mbl component is designed, engineered, crafted and calibrated by human hands and ears from start to finish.
MBL of America represents mbl products providing our customers with the world's finest loudspeakers electronics, and digital source components—offering the kind of customer service such premium products demand.
The mbl Radialstrahler Technology
mbl's Radialstrahler loudspeakers are justly famous for their omnidirectional sound, meaning they radiate in a true 360 degrees pattern, just like musical instruments.
The German word "radialstrahl" means to emit a circular signal, and the radialstrahler technology was invented by mbl founder Wolfgang Meletzky. A music lover and electronics tinkerer at a young age, by the time he was eleven Meletzky had built his first portable radio. He designed various types of speakers while in high school, and went on to earn a degree in engineering. This was when he became obsessed with designing 'the perfect loudspeaker" one that would function as a pulsating sphere.
Meletzky's prototype, whose descendent is the current model 101E, was in fact made of three pulsating spheres. Bass frequencies are covered by a large bulb-shaped unit, the midrange by a smaller, melon-shaped driver, and the high frequencies by a unit about the size of a golf ball.
Building each handcrafted woofer, midrange, and tweeter is a highly labor-intensive process that is performed by only six of mbl’s senior employees. The first stage requires precision cutting of the individual “lamellas” that will be assembled into a finished driver. The tweeter is assembled from 24 tiny strips of carbon fiber, the midrange is made from 12 larger strips of carbon fiber, and the woofer driver is fabricated of 12 still larger strips of a magnesium-aluminum compound. Each lamella is painstakingly measured to insure it meets our tightly specified tolerances, which results in a 30% to 40% rejection rate. Final assembly involves aligning the lamellas in a circular group, adhering each lamella to a top plate, while finally aligning the bottom edges into a voice-coil similar to those used in conventional cone drivers. Although they cover different frequency ranges, each Radialstrahler functions identically: when an amplified signal is applied, the voice-coils move up and down, causing each sphere to pulse in a 360-degree pattern.