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Have had some misgivings on whether I would post this review in its entirety which was my original intention. At some point mid-way, I started leaning towards providing this as a detailed "feedback" for Mike Lenehan (which I have provided) but a bit of a change of heart today after some further discussions - Hopefully this will provide a good feel for the speakers and how good they really are - No they are probably not the best there is - every speaker has its own strengths and weaknesses (which often depend also on the listeners' subjectivities, partnering equipment, and perhaps most importantly room acoustics) but the ML-1 plus (as opposed to the standard ML-1) are in my opinion, competitive with the top tier of standmounts.

Also, please keep this discussion civilised. I have no commercial relationship with Mike, and am providing this as an honest appraisal from the perspective of a member of SNA looking to continue contributing to our community here.

Summary (a review for those who are in a rush or learning to read Engrish)

Overall: The ML1’s are a fabulous little standmount speaker. They do lots of music very well, especially on vocals, solo performances and smaller scale ensembles (think chamber music, small jazz bands), and give a very good account for the larger scale works. To me they have a warm tonality, with very good clarity in the mids and treble, but are relatively forgiving of poorly recorded material. Very musical, relaxing and engaging.

Pros:

- Very Musical and Enjoyable (by far the most important measure!).

- Very fast, muscular dynamics and dynamic range, dig impressively deep especially considering the size (but certainly not full range and a good fast sub certainly improves),

- Excellent imaging and coherence, very broad and fairly deep sound-staging

- Smooth treble, warmth is seductive on vocals,

- Lots of detail available without (artificial) highlighting of any one area

Cons: Not too many and mostly minor and see note below on listening position…

- Slight softening of attack (less snap/bite),

- Very slightly warmer sound that emphasizes the mid range more than ideal,

- Lacking in ultimate treble extension and air

- Less decay/reverb.

Note also that I have discussed this with Mike in some detail and it appears to be that some/most of the Cons are because my normal listening position is closer than “average†(2.5m Vs. 3.5m away) thus not allowing the designed in room reinforcement to fully materialise, leading to a slight dip in the ~2khz range rather than a flat response. I have been told that a nearfield switch that Mike has built for studio monitoring applications may be the best solution for my room.

Preamble

The next few sections don’t actually get into the meat of the review. Nope. Why? I feel strongly that prior to sharing my experience, I think it important to first set the context of the review. By this I mean firstly the reviewer (Muah) – some background, what I like and don’t like in terms of music, the system – partnering equipment and room, and benchmarks/references.

System / Room Context

Logitech Transporter feeding into a KRK Ergo room correction / DAC (optionally), Supratek Sauvignon Preamp, Pass Labs X150 Power amp. Reference points are my speakers: Sonus Faber Cremona Auditors, Aslan Mini Monitors, Yamaha Soavo 2, with/without the Rel Strata 5 sub. Also the headphone setup: Sennheiser HD650s fed by a Squeezebox / Lavry DA10 and Musical Fidelity X-PSU, X-Can V3 headamps. Room is far from ideal: L-shaped with roughly 4.2m (speaker side) x 3.3m (right side) x 7m (left side) and ~2.8m high ceilings. There is a large coffee table about 0.5m high directly in front of the left speaker and a little cupboard of the same height in front of the right speaker (these form a barrier so that the little one doesn’t get any naughty ideas). Small room. The Lenehans were moved around a fair bit to try and optimise the sound and finally rested around 2.4m apart (~20cm wider than my SFCA’s) with more toe-in (about 5° off-axis) and just under 1m from the rear wall. Listening position (normally 2.3m away) was increased to about 2.7m away from the plane of the speakers. This setup is smaller than is ideal (see above note on listening position).

The Reviewer

I have a classical music background and training: 13 years on the piano and about 4 years on the violin and the cello somewhere within that. I still have an L. Mus qualification in both Performing and Teaching (unfortunately not terribly useful now) and, if I had chosen a different path, would probably still be a pianist or music teacher today. I still have my Kawai Grand piano (parents house, unfortunately in a different city) and in those days had lessons on Steinway Grands. Currently use a nice Kawai upright in my little living room.

Now this background is just for informational context – Although I no longer practise seriously (stopped 15 years ago), I do know my way around the piano and other classical repertoire. However, I was never going to be the next Horowitz nor am I claiming so. Please do not take this as an opportunity to point that out and diss my aborted career.

The Music

No great surprise given my background. Though I normally listen to 90% classical music, 10% jazz and other, I’ve expanded that over the course of this review to a more even mix - probably around 70% classical, 20% jazz and 10% other. For classical, a heavy weighting on the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods – From Palestrina to Stravinsky with particular emphasis on Bach (Partitas, WTC, Goldbergs, cantatas, concertos), Mozart operas, piano concertos, masses), Beethoven (piano & violin sonatas, string quartets, piano trios, symphonies, piano concertos), Brahms piano & violin concertos). Ie. Reasonably varied stuff that most classical fans (more instrumentalists than opera buffs) know and love. Some notable albums (more like list of my favourite classical albums):

Piano: This (solo or with orchestra) is quite dominant: I have several versions my favourites that I am very familiar with: eg. Goldbergs (Gould ’81, Perahia, Hewitt, Schiff) or Beethoven Sonatas (Gilels, Kovacevich, Gulda, Ashkenazy, Arrau, Brendel, Schnabel) or Beethoven Concertos (Perahia, Kissin, Arrau, Zimmerman, Pollini) or even Mozart Concertos (Perahia, Ashkenazy, Uchida).

Orchestral: Numerous but the favourites were Mahler No.2 (Ivan Fisher) and Tchaikovsky’s Manfred (Pletnev). Besides the piano concertos above, Brahms No.l & 2 by Nelson Freire was also used

Vocal: Notable albums included Misa Criola (Mercedes Soza), Maria (Cecilia Bartoli), Bach Cantatas (Various albums including Eric Milnes, Gardiner, Suzuki). High Resolution (24/96) Linn albums (Barb Jungr)

Violin: Bach solo sonatas and partitas (Versions by Hillary Hahn, Julia Fisher, and Janine Janssen), Beethoven Violin concerto (Perlman, and Hillary Hahn),

Cello: Bach Cello suites (Truls Mork, Rostropovich, Isserlis), Dvorak cello concerto (Rostropovich)

Chamber: Beethoven String Quartets (Takacs, Guarneri), The Trout (Takacs), Haydn Piano Trios (Beaux Arts)

The Review (…for those that have not yet dozed off…)

Although the summary at the top relates to the ML1 plus, I have also spent an enjoyable but short time listening to the ML1 standard and signature versions (not the latest version but what Paul had). However, this was not in my system - it was at Paul’s who was most welcoming and generous, and we had an enjoyable but short time listening to his system (from memory a heavily modded Marantz cd63kis, AR LS2 preamp, Musical Fidelity A3Cr power amp). Now I am going to be quite clear that the results may not be directly comparable and Paul’s tastes may (and almost certainly are) different than mine in terms of how he likes his system to sound. In his system, while I thought the ML1’s (standard) sounded quite good, they were not exceptional relative to what I was seeking. Good points were a quite smooth, organic, coherent sound. Downsides were that they were a bit veiled, and that I didn’t think the soundstaging was particularly deep nor three dimensional – possibly the speakers were a bit further apart compared to what I was used to. They were good, but not quite enough for me to sit up and take notice. Now, the signatures which I only had maybe 10-15 minutes of listening seemed to address these shortcomings to a large degree – they had more promise, enough to get me more interested. Note that these were just impressions that came from a short listening session (about max 1.5 hours all up).

Now the ML-1 plus. In my system.

First impressions on build quality are very positive – certainly covered in other reviews already but worth pointing out that these are very well built, very heavy for the size and pass the knock test with flying colours (no resonance cabinets) – a bit like knocking on a block of concrete…

To start with Paul and I played several different bits of music on my setup (SFCA) so that we (more he) could both have a reference. Paul being the guest, it was jazz vocals (some Norah Jones…eek…, Diana Krall, and then Mercedes Soza in Misa Criola which is one of my favourite albums and this view was certainly endorsed by Paul). I believe he shared my opinion (or at least some of it) of my system – very good detail and clarity, with good scale and slam, good extension and bass definition (with sub equalised by the KRK Ergo), neutral sound, good tonal density/richness, accurate tonality, good attack and decay and an airy extended treble. I believe the whole system is more than the sum of its parts and there is good synergy within the individual components within my room. I have also rarely come back wanting for more after listening to other systems – even some megabuck ones…

Replacing the Cremona Auditors with the ML-1 plus, the initial impressions were immediately very positive and this was without any tweaking (speaker positioning, toe-in, etc…). I am pretty sensitive to how my system performs and it was immediately clear that these were definitely worthy comparison points. The overriding impression that continued throughout the time I have had them was smoothness and warmth. One thing that was immediately apparent was that unlike the standard ML1’s that I heard above in the other system, the ML1 plus did not have that slightly veiled sound (now this is relative of course and my benchmarks are mine and also some of the best systems that I’ve heard). The soundstaging width and depth were also very good (better than my original ML1 impression) and this conclusion did not change over the next few days of listening. Some areas that I felt (and with similar observations from Paul) Lenehans came up short in comparison were: Less ability to hear into a dense mix for the lower mid range (eg. Misa Criola – Kyrie), lesser treble extension and air.

Sound-staging

Another key difference was that the soundstage presentation – where the Cremona Auditors staged from between the plane of the speakers and then extended back, the Lenehans started a little behind the plane and then extended back. Both imaged very well, and in terms of depth, I would say that the Lenehan’s had subjectively deeper soundstaging – this was very close and may have been partly because the lenehans started a bit further back anyway. I have heard many other systems that have a more forward presentation (Focal 1007BE, B&W 805s, and even the Aslan M1’s) and feel that the Cremona Auditors are fairly neutral and even a touch laid back, so this is all relative – my Yamaha Soavos 2 are subjectively more recessed, especially with the grills on as I usually have them, and this is exacerbated by that those are a slight but noticeable step down from both the Lenehans and Cremona Auditors in terms of resolution (detail retrieval) and mid range / upper bass clarity.

Resolution

These are a highly resolving speaker, at or close to my SFCA’s. However, the one particular trait is that the detail is there but is not highlighted and does not call attention to itself – especially for the treble. Again, the SFCA’s are no slouch here – very smooth and extended treble and less forward than many others (I do not think they are bright and enjoy them, though for some others they are too bright).

Tonality, Attack, and other misc bits and bobs

However, for piano and vocals, the tonality was actually presented quite differently. I feel (note again the observation on the upper midrange dip) that the mid range prominence that gives a warmer tone, while seductive in its own way, is slightly inaccurate. Voices sound a bit more mellow than I believe they actually are, brighter and dry-ish recordings (Gould – 1981 goldbergs) are made slightly warmer and more neutral, but on the other hand warmer recordings (Perahia Goldbergs) sound a bit too warm. On the piano and also on the violin, the snap / bite is less than on my SFCA’s. This is, to be clear, very slight and does not impact at all on believability or enjoyment. Although it was more pronounced in the initial set up with Paul, increasing toe-in (5° off-axis compared to about 15° off-axis for the SFCA’s) and sitting slightly further back (maximum allowed in my listening space) alleviated this to somewhat, though it was still noticeable.

By Frequency Range

Treble – Slightly less extension and air than the SFCA’s though lots of detail is there. It feels more relaxed and smooth – find it non-fatiguing and enjoyable. Some other speakers I have heard a number of times would be the Harbeth C7es3, which I felt was wonderful but more rolled off in the treble than I like. I would place the Lenehan’s somewhere in the middle between the two. Another worthy comparison point would be the Thiel (cs2.4) which I heard partnered with AR amplification – this was, to me, far too bright and clinical sounding. With good recordings, I would give the SFCA’s the nod, but with brighter or lower quality recordings (especially compressed), the Lenehan’s are more listenable.

Midrange – More prominent especially on the lower end (see above note on the upper-midrange/lower treble dip in the 2-3khz range). The midrange quality is, to me, the highlight of the Lenehans. It is very natural sounding (some reservations on tonality aside). Vocals sound very rich and warm, without any thickness – just natural and wonderful. I feel that the minor issues with tonality that I had were mainly on the piano which I am quite sensitive to, and these did not make the rendition any less believeable – more an observation… Again, the upper mid/lower treble dip that relates to the voicing is thought to be the reason. The other main thing that needs to be mentioned is the lower midrange and upper bass. With dense and complex mixes (choirs and orchestral), the SFCA’s favouring of the leading edge and definition makes it easier to hear into the mix (in my room). I find that the Lenehan’s have less separation, massed strings blend together whereas with the SFCA’s the individual instruments/voices are slightly better delineated. From memory, the Lenehans presentation of the mid-range has many similarities to the Harbeth C7es3’s, which is huge praise for any speaker. Compared to the SFCA’s, it depends on the music – I would actually give the nod to the Lenehans more often (for vocals and smaller scale works) whereas the SFCA’s would be better for the larger scale and denser works.

Bass – Very full and well controlled. Goes lower than the SFCA’s with more muscle but less definition. By itself, I would give the nod to the Lenehans over the SFCA’s.

Bass with Subwoofer – Adding my Rel Subwoofer (with ERGO equalisation) and the tables are turned. On the SFCA’s, the subwoofer fills in the lowest bass but also adds richness to the upper bass and lower mid region. This, together with the better definition and clarity in the SFCA’s makes for a very good partnership. With the Lenehan’s, the subwoofer cross-over needs to be lower and the volume turned down a notch, otherwise bass would be too overpowering. It certainly adds to the lower register and improves the Lenehans quite significantly but the benefits relate to extension and less so on the richness. With subwoofer, the SFCA’s certainly are at an advantage here.

Final Thoughts

In a nutshell, if you haven’t already guessed, I love the ML-1 plus. The strongest recommendation is their musicality and that there is no obvious trade-off in terms of scale (ie. Compared to a larger bookshelf or floor stander). It is good across all genres of music, and where it is weakest (large scale orchestral), it still provides a very compelling and believable performance.

Compared to my SFCA’s, I have found that the Lenehans are better for background or long listening sessions (eg. 8 hours in the background while working from home). They are also somewhat better for smaller scale classical, and definitely better for poorer and bright recordings. For good quality recordings, especially for piano and orchestral works, I prefer the SFCA’s. Now which do I prefer overall? Call me indecisive, but after 2 weeks, I still cannot make the call. I just want to hang on to both!

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Excellent review AB, very wll thoguht out and presented.

I was particularly interested in your comment about a near field switch - I recenly bought standard ML1's and am still gathering my thoughts about them. I use them in quite a small room so if there is something that makes them work better in that set up I would be quite interested. I may mention it to Mike when I send my feedback through to him.

I am still tossing up whether or not to move my Rel Stampede in to the ML1 setup when I get my new Rel R505 - your bass comments are quite useful as well.

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AB: What a wonderfully written review!:D:cool: If only the UK magazine reviewers could write with such clarity and freedom from the commercial constraints they have of having to 'lie in bed' with the equipment manufacturers ...

As I have heard the awesome little Lenehan's (standard version) in my house on two occasions I'd have to agree with most of the comments in the review. The ML-1's do a marvellous job of juggling all the balls and keeping them in the air with most types of music - to do this within their $3K price point is a marvel indeed.

Products such as these are made to sound as accurate as possible within the constraints of their price point, selected driver quality and box size. And in this, the ML-1 succeeds. Loudspeaker choice is very personal and whether you live with a speaker long term depends greatly on how engaging they are for you personally. A Proac 1SC an LS3/5A or SFCA while maybe not quite neutral are still very engaging and that is their appeal. Proacs in particular have an upward tilt and a slight zing while having a bit of a midrange dip (a Stuart Tyler signature), to produce their reknowned musicality.

In the end its a bit of a toss up based on personal taste, the Lenehan ML-1's sound very good and are well engineered to please the majority of people.

Regards,

Steve M.

Edited by Steve M
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Thank you all for reading!

As I mentioned, this review snowballed significantly - my 2 pages of handwritten notes in the first day or so rapidly became a stack as I tweaked and moved things around, re-callibrated with the ERGO, and tweaked the sub settings.

I was particularly interested in your comment about a near field switch - I recenly bought standard ML1's and am still gathering my thoughts about them. I use them in quite a small room so if there is something that makes them work better in that set up I would be quite interested. I may mention it to Mike when I send my feedback through to him.

If you haven't already, I would strongly suggest that you contact Mike. From his description, it seems like a worthwhile addition that does not detract at all from sound quality - flip it back and it defaults to the standard settings but if you engage the nearfield switch, and additional resistor piggybacks on to the main one. Not terribly sure how that works but given that the speakers were voiced for an average sized room (of 4 x 6m from memory), it stands to reason that in a smaller room they may not be able to perform as intended.

I am still tossing up whether or not to move my Rel Stampede in to the ML1 setup when I get my new Rel R505 - your bass comments are quite useful as well.

You can but try... I find that the integration of the Rel was certainly easier with the Lenehans than with the sonus faber. Thes SFCA were a pain to get right and only integrated beautifully with the KRK correction. (after listening to them with KRK, you will not want to have them without) With the Lenehans, although the KRK also provided a boost, the difference was not as marked.

hehe mine come tomorrow, hopefully =)

will add my initial impressions to this thread :cool:

Go for it! I have set this up as a separate review to reflect that the ML-1 plus is a distinctly different model from the standard version rather than put this into the other review thread.

AB

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Audiobugged this question may not be phrased correctly, especially in the light of recent forum debate on musicality versus accuracy but here goes.. You refer to the relative merits of the ML1's and your Sonus Faber's on piano music. Are you in a position to say that in the setup you auditioned, how do the ML-1 Plus' rate with respect to accuracy of the piano sound; in other words, how close are they to your experience of the sound of actual pianos.

Thanks,

Jeff

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Some nice comments lately on the ML-1's.Well written indeed.Thanks AB and Steve.

I am not sure whether I will go the retrofit to upgrade mine from the standard ones I have. Awaiting word back from Mike as to the costs at the moment. I just love the standards as they are, maybe hearing a +1 and my pair in an A/B demo may sway me... will wait and see.

And from the newsletter I received from Lenehan Audio, an excellent stand for the ML-1 is currently being developed too( Mike seems quite excited with their capabilities) so I also look forward to seeing how they perform.

Chris

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Audiobugged this question may not be phrased correctly, especially in the light of recent forum debate on musicality versus accuracy but here goes.. You refer to the relative merits of the ML1's and your Sonus Faber's on piano music. Are you in a position to say that in the setup you auditioned, how do the ML-1 Plus' rate with respect to accuracy of the piano sound; in other words, how close are they to your experience of the sound of actual pianos.

Thanks,

Jeff

Jeff,

This is perhaps not as easy a question to answer as it appears - many speaker manufacturers reference the piano as one of the benchmarks for their speaker designs to replicate. However, in my experience no speaker/system I've heard can come close to claiming that they are accurate in terms of reproducing the piano. By this I mean that I'd be very surprised if I couldn't get 10 out of 10 in picking out a real piano Vs the recorded version of that same piano in a DBT. (how's that for combining two contentiously debated topics in one sentence?!?)

There are a whole range of piano "sounds" (kawai upright vs kawai grand vs steinway grand vs yamaha grand etc.. they all sound very different. (and perhaps more importantly to pianists, the touch is very different - going off topic, I was quite surprised initially to find see a yamaha advert that they were the official piano at last year's sydney int'l piano comp, found out later that the pianists could choose between Steinway, Kawai, and Yamaha and found it quite amusing but not unexpected that 5 of the 6 finalists went with the Steinway and remaining one went with the Kawai), and then there is the room (live concert, empty concert hall, studio, etc...) and recording/mastering factor to consider. It becomes very hard to determine how "accurate" is the sound relative to the actual "sound", without being physically there during the recording.

However, having said all that, it is actually not really that bad. At the end of the day, the most, most, most important thing is how believeable is the sound? Is the tonality believeable or does something feel obviously missing/changed (as I said different pianos have very different tonality and richness)? Does the speaker reproduce the often very wide dynamic range of the piano or does it feel compressed? And related to that, can I hear through the mix to get what the pianist is doing/trying to do in terms of tonal shading, phrasing, inner voicing? Does the attack and decay feel right or does it feel too brittle or cut off? On that note I think the Lenehans do very well. Yes, compared to my SFCA, the sound is warmer, the attack/bite is fractionally softer. However, both present in an equally believeable manner and although I have my suspicion which want is relatively more "accurate" to the recording, it is probably very difficult if not impossible to know for sure without actually being physically there during the performance.

AB

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I can't see any reference to the ML-1 Plus on the Lenehan site. What are the differences? And how much extra are they?

From my understanding of the latest newsletter I received the ML-1 + has upgraded crossover components. I am currently awaiting a reply from Mike myself as to price.Will post here as soon as I know unless someone else does beforehand.

Chris

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As they are not yet officially in production, I would address all questions regarding pricing to Mike or the Lenehan contact details on the website. I believe the plus model is proving to be quite popular so someone else may want to do a comparative review. Note again that I have not compared them back to back in the same system, so would not want to venture any opinion other than what I've written above.

One of the other points that I have not mentioned (on purpose actually) in the review is that I had the opportunity to try out some cyroed speaker cables. These, I believe, are reserved for the top of the range signature versions internally. However they did seem to provide a bit more clarity and articulation throughout the range compared to my cables. On the SFCA's they seem to provide an even smoother top end. Differences to me are slight but certainly worth investigating further, particularly if you are looking to get the top of the line ML-1's. (Flagging again no commercial interest in these either and only point being that I am of the belief that having the same speaker cable construction/treatment as the internal wiring would probably be ideal).

I believe that other members may have tried those and may want to provide some feedback? Hopefully I'm not opening Pandora's box here given how hot the debate can be on cables... Try and keep things civilised - I will delete all references to cable and request the mods to move the discussions elsewhere if things get out of hand...:cool:

AB

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Seems a bit weird to me to be embarking on a 'Plus' model without advertising that option on the website.

What if you bought a pair of the 'Standard' ML-1s and then found out about the 'Pluses'? (And would/might have bought them if you'd known about them?)

I mention this as someone who is considering the ML-1s for a system in a small room. I always like to know what options are available.

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