High-End Audio Buyer’s Guide 2024: MBL 126

$14,800 (stands, $1490)

Musicality, transparency, and astounding spatiality underscore the brilliant MBL 126 Radialstrahler, the extraordinary little sister to the MBL 120. The sonics of this omnidirectional stand-mount are characterized by sweeping ambience retrieval, 3D-like immersion, and seamless top-to-bottom frequency response. As only an omni can, the 126 approaches the complex relationship between imaging, soundstaging, and envelopment in ways direct-radiating transducers often only hint at but rarely attain. Orchestral music assumes a naturalism and spine-tingling immediacy akin to the real thing. Low-level resolution and sensitivity to dynamic gradients abound. As a four-driver three-way, credit the superb carbon-fiber radial-mid and -tweeter drivers for spinning the sonic silk. Both are grainless, airy, and harmonious. Crafted and finished with extreme precision and taste, the MBL 126, though small in footprint, makes a grand sonic statement. (320)