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Post by rcheliguy on Feb 19, 2015 16:50:52 GMT -5
I've had an interesting experience I thought I might share.
I've wanted a set of Martin Logan speakers since I was in college which was around the time that company was founded.
I'm an electrical engineer and had a LOT of trouble digesting the audiophile reviews because of the amount of astrology and magic that discredited much of what was being said. I also had people in the Martin Logan community suggesting $500 speaker cable which really hit a nerve with me.
Apparently to many a balanced system is 50% speakers, 40% pre-amp & components & 10% interconnects.
I went 75% speakers, 11% amp, 14% combination BD,SACD, DAC, preamp, interconnects negligible.
Martin Logans are somewhat demanding speakers with the impedance of my Ethos going as low as 0.8 ohm at 20kHz, but generally better than that. The Ethos each also have built 200W self driven woofers.
I finally ended up with the following:
OPPO 105D - Digital clearing house ( SACD, Pandora, or reading 24bitx192kHz music off my server drive )
Emotiva 1 meter balanced connectors
Emotiva XPA-2 Gen2
6 gauge OFC symetrically wound 9' long speaker cable with electric grease to stop corrosion stuffed directly into the XPA-2 and my speakers.
Martin Logan Ethos
It seems to be a very synergistic combination.
My CD's and SACD's sound amazing and I listened to my entire SACD of Dark Side of the Moon today like I was listening to it for the first time.
I was surprised how good 128Mbps streamed music from Pandora sounds. It's clean and not offensive in any way.
The XPA-2 is supposed to be a very neutral amplifier and the Martin Logans are also supposed to be neutral and I was concerned that I might find some music sounded harsh, but I haven't heard anything that doesn't sound good yet.
The signal path is minimal
digital source -> OPPO -> AMP -> Speakers
I have no line conditioners, no special power cables. My Ethos and XPA-2 are plugged straight into the walls.
At any rate the final result is great!
I feel like my bang for the buck on this system is through the ceiling.
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Post by geebo on Feb 19, 2015 17:09:42 GMT -5
I've had an interesting experience I thought I might share. I've wanted a set of Martin Logan speakers since I was in college which was around the time that company was founded. I'm an electrical engineer and had a LOT of trouble digesting the audiophile reviews because of the amount of astrology and magic that discredited much of what was being said. I also had people in the Martin Logan community suggesting $500 speaker cable which really hit a nerve with me. Apparently to many a balanced system is 50% speakers, 40% pre-amp & components & 10% interconnects. I went 75% speakers, 11% amp, 14% combination BD,SACD, DAC, preamp, interconnects negligible. Martin Logans are somewhat demanding speakers with the impedance of my Ethos going as low as 0.8 ohm at 20kHz, but generally better than that. The Ethos each also have built 200W self driven woofers. I finally ended up with the following: OPPO 105D - Digital clearing house ( SACD, Pandora, or reading 24bitx192kHz music off my server drive ) Emotiva 1 meter balanced connectors Emotiva XPA-2 Gen2 6 gauge OFC symetrically wound 9' long speaker cable with electric grease to stop corrosion stuffed directly into the XPA-2 and my speakers. Martin Logan Ethos It seems to be a very synergistic combination. My CD's and SACD's sound amazing and I listened to my entire SACD of Dark Side of the Moon today like I was listening to it for the first time. I was surprised how good 128Mbps streamed music from Pandora sounds. It's clean and not offensive in any way. The XPA-2 is supposed to be a very neutral amplifier and the Martin Logans are also supposed to be neutral and I was concerned that I might find some music sounded harsh, but I haven't heard anything that doesn't sound good yet. The signal path is minimal digital source -> OPPO -> AMP -> Speakers I have no line conditioners, no special power cables. My Ethos and XPA-2 are plugged straight into the walls. At any rate the final result is great! I feel like my bang for the buck on this system is through the ceiling. Welcome to the lounge. You got the right amp for those Logans. It's an outstanding piece of gear. |
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bootman
Emo VIPs 
Typing useless posts on internet forums....
Posts: 9,358
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Post by bootman on Feb 19, 2015 17:25:39 GMT -5
Welcome.
Very nice system and I agree you got the mix correct.
If folks only spent 1/2 as much on room treatments as they did on ICs.........
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Post by rcheliguy on Feb 19, 2015 17:51:39 GMT -5
The irony is that the 6 gauge speaker cable I mentioned is all that I purchased as I graduated from college and "assumed" that I was going to buy that dream stereo shortly after graduation. Well my priorities changed, but I pulled those exotic speaker cables out of storage and am finally using them now. Exotic is a relative term. I spent $75 on it 25 years ago. Ultra Cable Signature edition. Woo Hoo! LOL. At least they look pretty and do the job! A guy looking for a turntable in an off topic section of an RC Helicopter forum recommended that I look at Emotiva. I'm glad I did  |
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Post by rcheliguy on Feb 21, 2015 16:32:24 GMT -5
Welcome. Very nice system and I agree you got the mix correct. If folks only spent 1/2 as much on room treatments as they did on ICs......... That's my next step. I've got the speakers spiked and that helped, but I expect that I can get things a bit better. Time will tell. |
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Post by audiobill on Feb 21, 2015 16:55:41 GMT -5
Spend time using your engineering skills studying speaker placement, lots of articles online.
Your speakers and room are one component.
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Post by novisnick on Feb 21, 2015 17:02:56 GMT -5
Spend time using your engineering skills studying speaker placement, lots of articles online. Your speakers and room are one component. You always have great words of wisdom! thanks so much audiobill!!!! You add so very much to our forum! |
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Post by audiobill on Feb 21, 2015 18:14:41 GMT -5
blush |
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Post by aud on Feb 21, 2015 18:17:29 GMT -5
No question. Audiobill is right. Start playing with your speaker placements a little at a time. Hopefully you have the room. At some point you will be even more amazed at what you're hearing!
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Post by rcheliguy on Feb 21, 2015 19:20:30 GMT -5
Spend time using your engineering skills studying speaker placement, lots of articles online. Your speakers and room are one component. I have a friend and audiophile coming over shortly with some material he is very familiar with and we are going to probably spend half a day or better tweaking speaker placement for sound quality and spacial imaging.. My listening room is 15.5'x25' with a 10' ceiling. I currently have the speakers about 6' apart on the 15.5' wall approximately centered and the "main" listening area is about 8.5' back from the speakers. They are currently about 30" from the front wall and canted in so that the flashlight test to the panel is the edge of the inner 1/3rd of the panel arc on each speaker. I've watched the Martin Logan video on speaker placement and read the speaker manual. Time will tell, but I'm enjoying everything I'm hearing already so it's all good |
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bootman
Emo VIPs
Typing useless posts on internet forums....
Posts: 9,358
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Post by bootman on Feb 21, 2015 20:37:59 GMT -5
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Post by rcheliguy on Feb 24, 2015 13:30:43 GMT -5
The speaker setup was actually a bit surprising. I had them initially toed in as per the setup video, but the sound stage was crowded over to the right pretty hard.
My speakers are not centered in terms of the front wall and right speaker has an opening to it's right rather than a wall.
For my room I ended up having to remove the tow in and finally toe them out a bit to get my sound stage to balance. It is a compromise for the room's flow pattern. I also had to move them back to about 2 feet out from the front wall.
I guess every room is different and this broke the rules a bit, but with the feet spiked I didn't hear any boominess and the sound stage is pretty solid. I still have more tweaking to do, but at least I have some control over the sound stage now. One step at a time...
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Post by jmilton on Feb 24, 2015 13:39:01 GMT -5
The speaker setup was actually a bit surprising. I had them initially toed in as per the setup video, but the sound stage was crowded over to the right pretty hard. My speakers are not centered in terms of the front wall and right speaker has an opening to it's right rather than a wall. For my room I ended up having to remove the tow in and finally toe them out a bit to get my sound stage to balance. It is a compromise for the room's flow pattern. I also had to move them back to about 2 feet out from the front wall. I guess every room is different and this broke the rules a bit, but with the feet spiked I didn't hear any boominess and the sound stage is pretty solid. I still have more tweaking to do, but at least I have some control over the sound stage now. One step at a time... This article came out this AM (so it's really fresh): www.audioholics.com/home-theater-connection/optimizing-front-lcr-speaker-placement |
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Post by chaosrv on Feb 24, 2015 14:11:13 GMT -5
Congrats on the set up. It is always great to see another ML lover/owner on the forum!
The single best thing I did for my Vistas was to hook them up to an XPA-2 (G1) instead of the internal amps of my old Denon receiver. Granted, I have a pair of XPA-1L amps driving them now and while better, the improvement was not as noticeable as the initial upgrade to the XPA-2.
Before the Vistas, I had a pair of Def Tech BP-7002 towers. I loved them and thought they were the bee's knees.
Placement (especially for electrostatics) is key. Setting mine as recommended tended to put the sound stage a bit to the right of center. Oddly enough, however my right speaker was closer to a wall whereas the left was near the large opening to the adjacent area/room. It really does go to show how large of an impact a room will have on the sound.
Enjoy those Ethos speakers. I'll never part with my Vistas. They may be regulated to a secondary function some day (rears or another room) but only after upgrading to a larger ML speaker. That said, after nearly three years with the Vistas, I don't see them going anywhere any time soon.
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Post by rcheliguy on Feb 24, 2015 18:16:31 GMT -5
I'm afraid that this room will be one of compromises, but they still sound amazing even if they are not setup according to the official blueprint.
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Post by rcheliguy on Feb 25, 2015 7:53:10 GMT -5
The problem with having an asymmetrical room is that I will never be able to optimize the sound quality and sound stage at the same time. What I see as happening is that I do the best I can for now in this room since I really like having music on the main level. However I have a 12x16' room on the bottom level, carpeted on concrete with heavy drapes over the windows that I could add whatever room treatments to that I wanted. My "guess" is that eventually I'll move my Ethos into that room and set them up properly 5' from the back wall, it's also directly below my office so the router signal would still be strong. However I think my marriage will be stronger if I don't bring this idea up just yet |
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