I did hear these speakers before and they were awful. They are big so you get the best value per $ as far as speaker footprints. If you like to go with Martin Logan I suggest you look for their electrostatic planar/hybrid speakers. That's what Martin Logan is good at, they specialize in designing and building electrostats, not conventional cabinetry speakers.
There are far better performing and sounding speakers than the Motion 60XT that are in similar price range as the Motion 60XT or even cheaper than the Motion 60XT. I suggest you look into KEF R series, Monitor Audio Gold series, B&W new 700 series S2 (702 S2), Wharfedale Jade series, Elac, Focal Aria.series, entry level Sonus Faber (can't remember their new entry level series, they are the ones replaced the discontinued Veneer series, which was their entry level series).
These speakers will outperform the Motion 60XT.
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Ok wow. So everything else seems better. |
I think so. Are you going to use them for listening to stereo music or home theater (surround sound movies)?
However, those Martin Logan electrostatic planar/hybrid speakers are pretty awesome but not my cup of tea but lot of people really love them but they cost more than the Motion 60XT. Well, actually the entry level and smallest Martin Logan ESL Electromotion electrostatic planar/hybrid retail for $2500/pair brand new in black ash color or $3k/pair in piano gloss color.
These speakers will be better than the Motion 60XT.
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Base on my experience. Martin Logan kills Klipsch on the same price range. No one can tell you which is better. Only your DNA can tell you which one is your match.
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3.5k canadian for the pair , I have difficulty believing they sound so bad. Drivers look very decent, how could they mess it up that much. I guess I will have to go listen to them to know for sure. |
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Not you, Caphill said they are awful.
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The cabinet bracing of the Motion 60XT is awful, the material that the cabinet is made of is awful. They also dictate how the speakers will sound and perform. |
That indeed couls explain why they sound bad as you said. |
Yup. The internal cabinet bracing isn’t well designed and built. Those big boxy cabinets of the Motion 60XT also allows internal standing wave inside the speaker cabinet that creates cabinet resonances or coloration. That was pretty much what I was hearing when listening to these Motion 60XT at the hifi store. It would have been fine if it was well braced internally but unfortunately these speakers aren’t.
If you want to go with Martin Logan you should look into their electrostatic planar / hybrid speakers. They are pretty awesome. They throw big soundstage and sounding very vivid especially with vocals due to a non-cabinet design.
They aren’t for everyone though. Either you really love them or you don’t. They aren’t my cup of tea however. It’s all about personal preferences. But these ML electrostats planar speakers require good quality high power or high current amplification from your amplifier in order to do these speakers justice. These electrostats planars need high current amplifier in order to properly disperse the sound throughout their planars. The bigger the planars are the more power hungry they get.
I wouldn’t recommend running these off an AV receiver or incompetent amplifier.
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Caphill,
I have been a Martin Logan fan for a while now, and currently have some Motion (not 60XT) and ESL speakers, along with B&W and others over the years. And I agree with you about the Motion 60XT, which I recently had the opportunity to demo against Golden Ear Triton3 (maybe not a fair fight) and Definitive Technology BP9020/9040/9060 (again maybe not a fair fight). The Motion 60XT didn't sound as good to me that any of the others - even though I am a fan of the folded tweeters (which Golden Ear also has).
The ESL's are power hungry (100 watts minimum required), and too directional except for sweet-spot listening. But wow do they have a great sound in the sweet spot - amazing. Unfortunately, this doesn't work well for home theater where an audience of more than two can't all sit in the sweet spot. They broadcast sound like a spotlight, and anywhere other than directly in front of the electrostats all you hear are reflections.
To be honest, I liked the Golden Ear Triton series best, but DefTech is less expensive and I liked those nearly equally (plus the nice incorporation of Atmos toppers with that BP series). I noticed you didn't mention either of those in your recommendation for 60XT competitors. One aspect of both Golden Ear and DefTech I don't like is the apparently non-removable grills - is that correct? |
I couldn't disagree more. I own the Martin Logan 60XTs and love them. I had the Definitive Technology BP9060s with center and Atmos and they weren't even close. The Def Techs were just bass with some highs. There was no mid and even the bass and highs weren't as clean.The center lacked lots of detail and had no bass at all. I couldn't hear voices most of the time. The 60XTs power by Emotiva are clean and provide plenty of bass for music. When used for my home theater, yes I have the ML center and Atmos as well, with my two HSU 15" subs they sound amazing. I even compared them to the B&W 702s before I bought them. The B&W mids are amazing but the bass is horribly lacking. The 702S didn't impress me in regards to bass, especially for the price that they charge for those things. I don't care for the electrostatic speakers either. They are too centralized for my taste. As most people will tell you, sound and quality is subjective. Not everyone is gonna agree. I always tell people to go listen to them in person if you can. More than likely what you hear is not gonna be the same as the person standing next to you.
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I'm guessing some of the posters haven't calibrated to the point to smoothen out the curves which shows how good these speakers really are. I ran ARC Anthem room correction with these towers which I proudly confirm are my current drivers in my HT. I agree out of the box they need some reigning in, very bright highs. But beilieve me, after room correction these towers place you front row center and knock you down. I just listened to RUSH's YYZ and what an amazing experience. Drums just snap, synthesisors cross, vocals, the soundstage is wide. I also listened to Whitney Houston because she's vocally incredible as well as with her recordings, and the ribbon tweeters after calibration are so articulate that you actually hear the sound of he lips opening before she hits her desired octaves. These speakers are marred by some eqal or higher priced brand names. But honestly, if you come over and show me a better sound...it will cost you $10,000 more to prove what I'm experiencing. I'm running an Anthem MRX1120 with an ML 1600x Dynamo subwoofer. What a combination. Room is 2600 cubic foot. Clear concise natural sounding music thats sonic performance is measured slighy higher than a jet flying over your head at 300m. The 60XT's are sub par for the price, uhhh...yeah right.
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I have listened some to those ML 60XTs. I thought they were on par with similar offerings from Klipsch, etc. Mediocre, but not terrible, and this is coming from an admitted ML fan. I agree with others, if you are considering ML, you should look at the ESL hybrids. I have the Montis, and yes the super sweet spot is somewhat narrow, but I find that the sound imaging does not roll off much as you move off axis. Probably due to the dipole nature. IIRC, I sold my Ethos for a little less than $3K, so in the same ballpark.
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The MartinLogan XT60 has gotten very favorable reviews in the audio press, including Editor's Choice Award in the Absolute Sound. I have been considering replacing my ML Vistas with the XT60. The Vistas, to my ears, are lacking in the lower mid range. Full orchestra sounds to thin and bright. I have read that the XT60 sounds more full in the lower mid range. I will have to give them a listen before I decide.
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The XT60's at around $1800 would seem to be a bargain going by what my Motion 40's sound like. Not everyone's cup of tea, but I think the good folk at ML have scored a winner with the range of speakers.IMHO. |
There are quite a few that say that these are awful. A lot of them do so after hearing them at a HiFi store next to another brand like Monitor Audio. Powered by receivers.
These have 4-ohm nominal impedance but go down below 3 ohms. Use a suitable amp and see the improvement in sound.
I had them at home side-by-side with Monitor Audio Gold GX300 ($5,600) for two weeks. Both powered by a Parasound A21 amp. Used room correction on both sets of speakers. The ML60XT blew away the MA GX300. If I knew how to post a photo here, I’d post one of them side by side in my house. |
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YES YES YES... I can't believe how well my Motion 60xl performs. Every upgrade I have tried from amps, dacs and cables revealed the changes. They are a true bargain! When I demo speaker priced at $5K-15K USD , there have been only minor improvements and to me not worth the jump. If you can buy the 60xt for the $2K pair clearance price do so. Otherwise, the new 60xti provides some improvements to the mid and bass but not by much. |
I have ML 2s12s 20s 40 and
60xts
as well as a bunch of other brands.
the 60xs require a beefy amp that can handle 2 ohm loads. the fancy smanshy yamaha top of the line reciever cant power them to satisfaction and lesser ones are not even worth listening to.
last night I went to a friends with 7 pairs of speakers set everything up and proved high end recievers are worthless unless it is a sunfire or similiar.
at an ultra high level I could yell and not be heard and the 60xt/sunfire was so clean you couldnt tell it was so loud until I started yelling and suddenly turned the sound down. we only tested recievers no seperate amp combos. the lesser MLs were not able to repeat the yell test. they were clean to a point but my friend could still hear me and did not have the depth or dynamic range the 60xts had.
a skeptic became a believer and after we used his reciever(s) a few times it was shut off and sat in the corner for the rest of the night. I left him with the 20s and a smaller sub until he can buy a pair for himself. he just bought a 9k snowbike and has to wait a bit.
M
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