Carnival is Mordaunt-Short’s entry-level home cinema and stereo loudspeaker range offering excellent performance across the frequency spectrum. Carnival models are ideal for stereo or home theater set-ups and are incredibly easy to mix and match.
Like all Mordaunt-Short products, Carnival is developed in the UK by the company’s London-based dedicated research and development team and benefits from Mordaunt-Short’s trademark engineering talents. The sleek cabinets house high performance woven composite cone mid-bass drivers plus an elegant elliptical tweeter design. Polypropylene capacitors give a clearer signal and improved resolution, while low saturation inductors mean reduced distortion and better dynamics. Carnival also features an array of custom-designed components and like all Mordaunt-Short products, all models are structurally braced for excellent rigidity.
The Mordaunt-Short Carnival 2 is a punchy and substantial speaker which is ideal for bookshelf mounting but comes into its own on a dedicated stand. Unlike many similarly sized speakers, it offers an incredibly rich performance coupled with a deep sound. The Carnival 2 is capable of controlling 100 watts and offers impressive bass management.
Research and DevelopmentUnderlining every Mordaunt-Short product is the company’s commitment to engineering excellence. Every component in every speaker, has been designed by a Mordaunt-Short engineer. In addition our products are designed and manufactured to ISO9000 standards. Such an uncompromising approach ensures that every Mordaunt-Short product delivers class leading performance. The passion behind the brand Mordaunt-Short’s London-based research and development team has a wealth of experience. This is backed up by nearly forty years at the forefront of loudspeaker manufacture. A dedicated acoustic and mechanical engineering team use a combination of measurement and analysis techniques, to make Mordaunt-Short dreams reality. Our people care passionately about delivering really special products and driving the innovation for which we’re renowned.
Engineering InvestmentTo maintain our position at the forefront of current loudspeaker design requires significant investment. Every product is developed in a dedicated research and development facility and fully tested in a state-of-the-art listening room. Before sign-off, each and every loudspeaker is personally voiced by the head of Acoustic Engineering to ensure it’s fit to bear the Mordaunt-Short name.
Patented TechnologiesMordaunt-Short is committed to engineering and materials innovation. This can be traced back to groundbreaking use of injection moulding in the 1980s, the development of CPC (Continuous Profile Cone) drivers and the new Aspirated Tweeter Technology™ (ATT) from the company’s flagship Performance range. Mordaunt-Short holds a plethora of patents, underlining its position at the forefront of loudspeaker design.
Stereotype ReviewAs you by now probably gathered our favourites is the Carnival 6 floorstanders, Carnival 2 bookshelf speakers and the Carnival 9 sub. They are all exceptional value for money. However all of the new Mordaunt Short Carnival range speakers have a place and it all depends on your room and you preferred music and/ or movie taste. One thing is for sure… we have never seen a value for money speaker range like this in NZ to date.
Stereophile ReviewNorman Mordaunt and Rodney Short founded their doubly eponymous loudspeaker company in London in 1967. I do love those names. Mordaunt. Short. Twenty years later, they sold the company, which in 1999 was sold again, to The Audio Partnership plc, which also owns Cambridge Audio.
Norman Mordaunt left us in 1999. So far as I know, Rodney Short is still with us, and may he continue to enjoy a long life. I remember Mordaunt-Short when it was just Messrs. Mordaunt and Short; their speakers were known for good sound and exceptional value-nothing fancy, mind you, only what you needed to do the job.
John Bevier, of Audio Plus Services, was delivering some more serious equipment when he mentioned the Mordaunt-Short Carnival 2 loudspeaker. They were crazy good for crazy cheap, he said: $250/pair. I've known John for 25 years, so I took him at his word.
Available in black or calvados cabinets, the Carnival 2 is worth buying just to irritate snobbish audiophiles or visiting manufacturers. You do need a pair of stands 24" or 28" high.
Each Carnival 2 measures 12.6" (320mm) H by 6.3" (160.5mm) W by 8.6" (219mm) D and weighs 10.45 lbs (4.75kg). That's the weight of Maksik on a dining binge. There are two drive-units. The bass/midrange driver uses a 5.5" cone of a woven composite that looks like Kevlar but isn't. The 1" tweeter is a soft fabric dome. The crossover frequency isn't specified, but the word from London is that it's around 3.5kHz. The sensitivity is given as 90dB/W/m, and the nominal impedance as 8 ohms with a minimal impedance of 4 ohms. The Carnival 2 is biwirable.
I wanted to have
fun with these speakers-after all, they're Carnivals. I placed them close to the corners of my listening room to load the bass-about 2' from the front wall and 2.5' from the sidewalls-and toed 'em in. Then I used the LFD Integrated Zero LE III integrated amp to run 'em in, just as I would a serious speaker. I rubbed my hands in glee as I awaited my first victim: a visting hi-fi distributor.
"I've got a great pair of $250 speakers!"
"Did you mean $250
sneakers?"
He knew damned well what I meant, and hw did want to join my circus. Or carnival. He marched the Carnivals farther into the room corners and turned them so that their drivers faced the wall. Amazing how manufacturers just come in and take over. As soon as he'd left, I put them back in place.
The Carnival 2s imaged like crazy. Their soundstage was deep and wide, the images solid and stable. What's wrong with these $250 sneakers-er, speakers? Nothing. Buy a pair just for fun.
All right, I did hear a certain roughness in the the upper midrange-maybe at or just below the 3.5kHz crossover point. At any rate, the midrange was not so refined. (A listen to my Harbeth Compact 7ES2 speakers in our living room, with their reference-quality midrange, served as a reality check.) The treble
was refined-and surprisingly sweet. Or not surprisingly: the soft-dome tweeter
is made of fabric.
I didn't catch a case of metal-dome tweeteritis, the way I do with so many cheap and less cheerful speakers. As expected, the Carnival 2 lacked deep bass and didn't want to play very loud. Mourdaunt-Short recommends maximum amplification of 100W. You might get by with 3W nearfield in a very small room.
Next, I tried the Carnival 2s in the nearfield, less than 6' from my listening throne, about 8' apart and angled so that the tweeter axes "crossed" just behind the throne. Once again, they worked their magic. The imaging was so good, the treble so sweet, the speakers such fun that I could care less how they measure.
Maybe a lot of fancy technology-complex crossovers, exotic metal domes, etc.-just serves to mess up a good speaker design. Retailers are pleased with high tech because the have a story to sell, and reviewers are happy because they have measurements to show-waterfalls and the like. Meanwhile, the listener sets up the speakers at home and says, "Blah." Maybe the Mordaunt-Short Carnival 2 is so good because it
doesn't have expensive drivers, a complex crossover, the latest technology. I'm reminded of Mordaunt-Short speakers of yore; simple, direct, unpretentious-and good-sounding.
This aritcle won't appear in print for several weeks, so I have the time to perform my next trick-or
treek, as my wife, Marina calls it. I will move the Carnivals back into the corners and darken the room so that no one notices their presence. I will make it look as if far more expensive speakers are connected to the LFD. Then I will conduct a demonstration.
You can always use an extra pair of speakers for an office, den, library, or rec room-or prison cell, if you're a Wall Street crook headed for the slammer. Marina is amused that people in the US are going to prison for economic crimes-it's just like the Soviet Union!
You know that most other hi-fi writers won't recommend a speaker that shares its name with a tacky cruise-ship line. At $250/pair, the Carnival
can't be serious, and neither can you-or I. Let's not tell anyone.
About.com Review of the Carnival 2The Mordaunt-Short Carnival 2 speakers reproduce music with an uncommon, delicate finesse and transparency typically found in speakers costing much more, which makes them an exceptional value. In fact, the Carnival 2s may be one of the best-kept secrets in recent memory.
Mordaunt-Short Carnival Brochure 
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