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Cheap thrills.

I've heard Martin Logan's many countless times. Some very good, others so-so. All times, not in my room.

While I'd love to have the $25K Renaissance ESL 15A, my beer budget just isn't going to cut it.

Just for some new audio kicks, I got a pair of purportedly former showroom Theos(not too old, based on ML the born on date was August 2015) priced right.

Out of the box, these originally $5K speakers are BIG and spacious sounding. Theos doesn't have the active woofers, but still  hear decent bass. An old REL B3 fills in with no concerns. Haven't done any critical positioning-they are just out in the room where my previous speakers were(6 feet out). I'm thinking positioning for the last word in bass will give up this great overall  presence I'm hearing.

My question for owners is-did you find a location that gives ultimate low end performance WITHOUT losing  the magic that pushing speakers out into the room create? I'm aware EVERY room is different, especially if you don't have a dedicated space.

While these are lovely sounding speakers and nice to look at-just not a gloss black fan. They are immaculate, with that "wet look". I'm more of a furniture grade wood finish guy. Gonna give these a few weeks to find out if they grow on me.
Anyone curious about the Martin Logan sound, give me a PM for a future reach out-just in case.

I'm now putting my sights further up the ML food chain. Meantime, new Martin Logan fan.
tablejockey
russ69's avatar
russ69
3,360 posts
 
Martin-Logans are pretty easy to set up and are somewhat tolerant of position in the room. 
tablejockey OP
3,793 posts
 
"In the back of my car.
How fine they are."
fuzztone, you’re talking ML car audio? Very cool. I would imagine so.
I’d like a trunk load of Milbert tube amps powering some ML’s in a GM 2 door GM/Ford sedan from the 50/60’s.

"Martin-Logans are pretty easy to set up and are somewhat tolerant of position in the room."
russ69-
Agreed. I’ve heard ML’s in both dedicated and living space setups.

For a little more, an older model with active woofer now makes sense having the heard what they can do in my setup. A pair of Montis with an active, proper sized woofer(10") is possibly what I will set my sights on.
They can now be found under $5k in reasonable condition.

I may even compromise with  another set of gloss black since I’m sold on the ML sound.

How many time have we thought, "for a little more...?"
cdc2
122 posts
 
I have had a pair of Ethos with the powered woofer for almost 10 years, and they sound best 3 or so fee out in the room. And the continue to improve with each new upgrade I make upstream.

Of course I always wonder, if I just had the next model up how much better they'd sound.
musicaddict
370 posts
 
I bought ML SL3s in 1995 ($3200 retail then) and they were my only two channel speakers until 2011 (Dynaudio Sapphire demos). I did use a Velodyne F-1800 MkII servo-sub but still had the SL3 front panels out 5-6 feet from the rear wall for the best enveloping sound.
It's great to fork out a few shekels and try stuff for fun in my book. Enjoy!

mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,224 posts
 
You can put them closer to the wall. You want to deaden the wall behind the speaker. Acoustic foam tiles will work fine. Closer to corners will improve the bass. 
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