Topic: my Martin Logan experience this weekend...

[Nick's Picks]

I have a buddy that is interested in hi-f (several sessions in front of my stereo spoiled him good) so I had offered to take him out and show him what exists for retail opportunities in our area.
He wants an HT system ultimately, but agrees to start w/two good channels and build from there.

I decided to go w/a top down approach, so we went straight to Tweeter, whos high end consists of Martin Logan and JM Labs Focal...which they dont have any real good models on display.

we listened to the ML Vantage, a new model w/a powered sub instead of the passive ones of ol'.  I believe this was a replacment for the Ascent i which is discontinued.
wow.  ML finally got the bass right.  fucking awesome.
We were driving these w/a Cambridge audio integrated amp, their top of the line..which retailed for $1500.  We had not even gotten into the Krell gear, the sales guy was a fan of the CA stuff, so that is what we played.
It was quite impressive.  sound stage was 10' outside the speakers...I shit you not!  It was uncanny.  I've never heard anything like that before, including many hours in front of various ML speakers both at home, other peoples houses and in showrooms.
this room was treated, but nothing exceptional.  Just some echo busters and things like that.  Plus, the room was jammed w/gear so it was far from ideal.

The sales guy put on a disc for us.  It was called "4 miles", and it was a live recording of a bunch of session musicians playing Davis' material at some club in NYC.  It was a cheskey  recording (probably spelt that wrong..choskey?..can't recall).  It was an SACD disc, but we only listened to the redbook layer.
Unreal.  best recording iv'e ever heard.  there was a track w/a solo sax that was like an invisible man in the room.  I could hear is incoming breath flow through the sax the wrong way (backwards, up through the instrument) between blows.  It was completely surrreal.  I've got to get that!!!!

Any way..
I was blown away.  Best speakers i've ever heard, hands down.  And that was being driven by mid-fi gear.  amazing.
Now, I need to drum up $5k to get a pair.
http://www.us.martinlogan.com/display_speaker/vantage.html

cables..., anyone?

[scb]

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?spkrplan&1170692001

go nuts

[Nick's Picks]

yea, I just sent that link off to the buddy who was w/me.  saying "see...go ahead and get these, save $1500!)

and believe me..i'm taking mental inventory of all of my gear to see how to swing this.
lets see...my 140s will get me 1/2 there...almost.  then my new speakers...that'll bring me up to $2k. 
marantz, another 800 there.

shit.  i got nothin

[BC]

I though I remember you saying you had a pair of SL3's a while ago? Wondering what your thoughts were on those.

I had a pair of Aerius i's that I gave to my mom for christmas. Great open natural sound and imaging. But I have to say that one thing that I have realized and that bugs me a bit about them is their sound on violins. No detail or bite at all on the string/bow contact, listening to violins sounded like there was a sweet glaze over everything. I heard some quad 2805's this past week that did not have this problem at all. Of course the quads run 9K. I have been considering some magnepans (3.6R), I am wondering if going with a panel speaker that has a ribbon tweeter could give some better resolution on stringed instruments. Also, to my ear the Aerius turned a bit harsh when I wanted to rock out (rare, but happens once in a while). The ML's sound fantastic on piano though. (FWIW: I was running Morrison ELAD pre>Adcom GFA 555 mkii>Aerius i)

Also the low-end never seems quite right, it was there but there was just something funny about it. I think this has been a common compaint about the ML hybrids and I guess this is something they have been working on and is probably improved in their newer models, as you mentioned. Just picking nits here though, overall I really dug listening to the ML's, my living room now looks empty. I have gone back to my Paradigm Active 20's which are ok but they just cannot compare to the big sound of a panel speaker.

Just thinking out loud...    

[Nick's Picks]

yes, I owned SL3s ...a quest that started after my first taste of ML speakers (ascent). 

could never get that "magic" in my room though.  too much echo, no bass.  sucked.


the bass problem is gone w/the powered units (not all the new ones are powered, only the top two models).
Honestly, I can't imagine anything rendering poorly through those speakers I listened to.

I figured it out.
If I sell ALL of my taping gear, I can afford these speakers.
wouldn't be the first time.  In fact, that is what happened to my ST250 in order to afford the SL3s and appropriate amp to drive them with.

[BC]

the bass problem is gone w/the powered units (not all the new ones are powered, only the top two models).

cool, I didn't know ML went to powered woofer sections.

[Invisible]

Just to comment on the disc you guys listened to. You had it right, it is a Chesky recording and I find that Chesky releases are some of the best SACD's out there. The title is actually "4 Generations of Miles". It is a fantastic recording and is absolutely the next best thing as opposed to being there yourself. The recording puts you in the back of a small club with all the nuances that go with it. This is one of my five most prized reference discs for system demo's.

If you are into super audio discs, I *highly* recommend another Chesky recording titled "The Conga Kings". This is quite possibly the best recorded percussion and horns I have ever heard. The trumpet and alto sax in particular are scary real. Talk about speakers disappearing...

[Nick's Picks]

awesome.
thanks for the suggestions. 
+T

[carlbeck]

yes, I owned SL3s ...a quest that started after my first taste of ML speakers (ascent). 

could never get that "magic" in my room though.  too much echo, no bass.  sucked.


the bass problem is gone w/the powered units (not all the new ones are powered, only the top two models).
Honestly, I can't imagine anything rendering poorly through those speakers I listened to.

I figured it out.
If I sell ALL of my taping gear, I can afford these speakers.
wouldn't be the first time.  In fact, that is what happened to my ST250 in order to afford the SL3s and appropriate amp to drive them with.

Not a bad idea when you really think about it. We all know you make a better reviewer than taper 

[Nick's Picks]

.

[guysonic]

Just a bit of trivia concerning the ML curved electrostatic speaker and how the design was made successful.

I was witness to the very first appearance of the curved design in Santa Cruz, California when  the actual inventor-designer brought in a pair in 1982 for demonstration at a shop owned by Jim Gittings (can't recall the name of the shop).  This was the first successful design of a single piece electrostatic curved speaker that didn't self-destruct and sounded wonderful over a wide listening area due to the curved design.   

I was producing 1000 watt ceramic enclosed sub woofers with 100 microsecond pulse response at the time, and we married these to the electrostats (and Acustat models) to complete a seamless full range sound.

Well the Marin Logan guys got word of this curved stat and came in for a listen a few times with the inventor present at least one of the times. 

Turns out ML 'hires' this inventor-designer guy to help build a ML branded design with agreement of royalties and such.  This guy has little income and has already invested all spare cash into building the prototypes, and agrees to work at Martin Logan to build production models.  After about 8 months the production models are completed, and he then gets fired leaving the design completely to ML to do with whatever they want free of royalties or compensation as far as I know.

So every time I see this speaker and the ML name I envision a couple of pirates auditioning a pair of the sweetest sounding electrosats every made, misleading the designer, and walking away with THE sole practical working design of this kind of speaker.  Those ML guys sure know their stuff!

[BC]

Just a bit of trivia concerning the ML curved electrostatic speaker and how the design was made successful.

I was witness to the very first appearance of the curved design in Santa Cruz, California when  the actual inventor-designer brought in a pair in 1982 for demonstration at a shop owned by Jim Gittings (can't recall the name of the shop).  This was the first successful design of a single piece electrostatic curved speaker that didn't self-destruct and sounded wonderful over a wide listening area due to the curved design.   

I was producing 1000 watt ceramic enclosed sub woofers with 100 microsecond pulse response at the time, and we married these to the electrostats (and Acustat models) to complete a seamless full range sound.

Well the Marin Logan guys got word of this curved stat and came in for a listen a few times with the inventor present at least one of the times. 

Turns out ML 'hires' this inventor-designer guy to help build a ML branded design with agreement of royalties and such.  This guy has little income and has already invested all spare cash into building the prototypes, and agrees to work at Martin Logan to build production models.  After about 8 months the production models are completed, and he then gets fired leaving the design completely to ML to do with whatever they want free of royalties or compensation as far as I know.

So every time I see this speaker and the ML name I envision a couple of pirates auditioning a pair of the sweetest sounding electrosats every made, misleading the designer, and walking away with THE sole practical working design of this kind of speaker.  Those ML guys sure know their stuff!

wow, that is a bummer for that guy. Sounds like he did not have much business savvy.   
You would think ML would have hired him as one of the chief engineers given that he was instrumental to implementing one of the most fundamental concepts of their speaker.

[Nick's Picks]

pisser.
sad story, but that is capitalism.  mean and cruel.

[guysonic]

Yes, it seems the original designer was an underemployed software designer with a knack for finding what it took to make a very large single curved diaphragm work for electrostatic speaker, but naive to the ways of unscrupulous business practices.  Took him years to find out what was important in making such a speaker, but less than a few months to learn personal meaning of unscrupulous.

It seems good to realize that at that time many had tried and failed to make such a speaker, leaving only practical curved electrostat made up of many flat panels mechanically fixed into a curved baffle shape.  This worked, but not really that well for many reasons.

From my limited perspective it seems that once Martin Logan gleaned the know-how from this fellow, making the production made speaker work reliably was relatively easy.  Everything is easy when you finally know how!  And know-how they did finally have. 

For some reason ML found difficulty in keeping the developer employed and respected (or properly compensated).  After all this fellow deserved more than a few months employment as compensation for discovering practical manufacturing methods.  However, it seems this was found NOT necessary from a 'business' perspective.   

On the other hand, being so many years ago, I sometimes wonder if the designer did get some 'business' savvy down the line to challenge the issue of fair compensations for technology now being used by Martin Logan?     

Sometimes things like this take years and decades to work out equitably, or not.

[Nick's Picks]

ah well.  what can ya do?
boycott ML.  I'm sure there are a lot of awesome products we all use that were some poor schmucks idea...taken advantage by someone else.

still, those Vantages kicked the shit out of my stereo reproduction expectations at home.

[BC]

I'm sure there are a lot of awesome products we all use that were some poor schmucks idea...taken advantage by someone else.

No doubt. The first thing that comes to mind is television. Farnsworth vs RCA. Not hard to guess who was going to win that battle.

Life is not easy for the little guy/inventor who comes up with a great idea. In addition to doing the R&D he has to defend his idea from corporations who have deep pockets and lots of lawyers.