Technology in the Service of Music

I have to respect a speaker that does not impose its personality on the music. A colored speaker might be fun for a while, or even complimentary to a few recordings, but over the long haul I prefer a speaker such as the MG-20 that is faithful to the original recording. The payoff is incredible timbral accuracy. Listening to the Lesley double-LP, David Manley’s 1992 recording on the Vital Sound label, was most telling. This recording of my wife Lesley, is of course, an album that I am intimately familiar with and enjoy often. I was present at the live-to-two-track recording session at Manley’s studio in Chino, California (which was, I’m sad to report, dismantled a few years ago), and was privileged to hear the musicians, not only live, but also via the mike feed to the studio monitors. And, finally, auditioning the mastertape and vinyl lacquers, I have stored away in my memory banks a vivid impression of what the live sessions and transfers were all about. To be honest, very few speakers get this right. The MG-20 is one of the few that does. It reproduced the essence of Lesley’s timbre cleanly across its entire dynamic range.

The range from 300Hz to 20kHz (the upper limit of my measurement system) was very smooth with no observable response glitches through the crossover region. There was plenty of midbass energy and the upper bass was sufficiently solid to properly flesh out the power range of the orchestra. The surprisingly strong bass foundation was a pleasant surprise and made it possible to fully enjoy orchestral music. Deep bass extension was limited to about 45Hz in my room, which serves most music well enough. The pistonic precision of the magnesium cone woofers was very much in evidence. It translated into exceptionally tight bass lines. Jazz bass boogied with what I can only describe as paranormal (for a speaker) pitch definition.

Generating an adequate impression of space is a challenge for a two-channel audio system. Planars, given sufficient breathing space, do a credible job of generating a concert hall perspective, while mini-monitors excel in maintaining tight image focus. When properly set up, the MG-20 imaged much like a mini-monitor. However, I have to give credit here to the Bybee Speaker Bullets, which caused image outlines to fully snap into tight and palpable focus. The soundstage unfolded as an organic whole, with excellent depth and width. Massed voices were distinct, allowing me to focus on a particular vocal line—and that’s not easy, as many speakers blur closely spaced spatial outlines into a blob.

 

Conclusion

It takes more than cosmetics to compete in the high-end arena, and the MG-20 has what it takes. To paraphrase the opening voiceover of the Star Trek TV series: “Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Esoteric MG-20…to boldly go where no speaker has gone before.” Here is a superbly engineered product, which gives the magnesium-alloy diaphragm technology full scope of expression. Kudos to the Tannoy-Esoteric partnership for translating a promising technical concept into a winning loudspeaker. Let me make this perfectly clear: I’m intensely in-love with its sound. There are speakers out there that play louder or go lower, but to my ears, the MG-20 is the most musically compelling box speaker I’ve heard to date—a perfect illustration of technology in the service of music.