(colinf mentioned the Manger loudspeaker drivers recently...)

There's always more than one way to ,skin a cat', but usually we get stuck with the most commercially attractive or just copy-the-others type of products.

In the loudspeaker world, most employ 'cone' drivers.
Manger loudspeakers use a Manger Sound Transducer, designed by Josef Manger in Germany, with patents dating back to 1968.

As I understand it, Manger tried to eliminate the time-response distortion of conventional cone drivers, where energy storage in the cone results in lower frequencies lagging behind higher frequencies.

Manger drivers are characterised by very good 'step-response' - ie. exemplary transient response







Manger loudspeakers have won awards in Europe for hall venue sound reinforcement & in pro-audio:

DarkLantern blog - darklanternforowen.wordpress.com

STEREOPHILE's Herb Reichert reviews the Manger p1 floor-standing loudspeaker:

" ...the p1s appear to be an audio-engineering breakthrough that eliminates a multitude of cone-generated noise and time-domain irregularities still present in many of today's highly regarded loudspeakers..."

" A loudspeaker that comes preternaturally close to disappearing—while reproducing recordings in a manner that felt uniquely unmolested. "


But (i) they need power, to drive a <4 ohm impedance (ii) they require some toeing in, to avoid off-axis HF roll-off, to achieve good HF balance.

DarkLantern blog - darklanternforowen.wordpress.com

DarkLantern blog - darklanternforowen.wordpress.com

P2 looks nice, would love to hear them at the next show.
I’ve been chatting to Daniela off and on for about, wow, since 2000! My Mangers were in a box with sealed 300mm woofers and sounded great. I loved their silky smooth sound while still giving you all the detail. They make your ears and mind relax as they aren’t working to subtract the distortions you get from normal speakers.
Unfortunately they were severely damaged shipping them to NZ and I thought they were so beyond repair I left them in their box for 11 years. Until I discussed it with Daniela last year now that we are in Europe. (At least Britain is for now! Election next week.) Send them over and we’ll see! she said. So I did, and they could be rebuilt! Now they are fixed but still in their boxes waiting for a new enclosure to put them in.

AMR-iFi R&D

I became quite interested myself.... then I saw that they were Euro750/pc

DarkLantern blog - darklanternforowen.wordpress.com

Sure, I thought about that back when I bought them as well. But there aren’t many speakers with that kind of sound, and some of the Lowther-style drivers can be fearsomely expensive as well.

AMR-iFi R&D

Yes true, I gave up on Lowthers after getting to PM4s - expensive (>NZ$1k/pc) & problematic rotting foam + poor QC.

DarkLantern blog - darklanternforowen.wordpress.com