Ascent vs Odyssey

[patlad]

Hello everybody,

I have the opportunity to upgrade from Ascent to Odyssey. I didn't listen to them yet and I would like to know what I may expect from the Odyssey compared to the Ascent.
I hope to listen to the speakers sometime around February.

Thanks for sharing your experience,

 

[Transparent]

Hi Patlad,

I have the Odysseys and my friend has the Ascent i's, the noticeble difference is Bass. The Odysseys have much more bass and go down lower than the Ascent i's. They share the same panels (in size), except that the Odysseys have bigger trims. Hope this helps.

Regards, Transpa.

 

[Robin]

Ascent vs. Odyssey...

Hello everybody,

I have the opportunity to upgrade from Ascent to Odyssey. I didn't listen to them yet and I would like to know what I may expect from the Odyssey compared to the Ascent.
I hope to listen to the speakers sometime around February.

Thanks for sharing your experience,

patlad,

I own the Ascent i's, and love them, as I'm sure you do. I have heard the Odyssey's, and they are wonderful ML speakers to be sure. I seriously considered them for my front speakers too for a time. I realized what I really wanted from my system was to have an awesome HT. I needed a dynamic subwoofer. Even in two channel, I wanted to use all bass below 70 Hz to an awesome subwoofer. In this kind of situation I did not require the Odyssey. The ansewer to my situation for my ears, was the ML Descent to provide me with better dynamic bass, than the Odyssey ever could. The electrostatic pannels in the Ascent and Odyssey are the same. Plus with the Descent has three 10" woofers, which are powered by a 600 amp. and the speakers are servo controlled. IMHO, I think you should keep your Ascents and purchase a Descent. But, of course ultimately you must, trust your ears and purchase the speakers that sound best to you...

HTH

Cheers

-Robin

 

[Craig]

I agree with Robin. Until last year I owned both the Odysseys and Ascents (non i version). The difference was the Odysseys were better in the bass dept but not as different as you would expect. However, the Odysseys panel was slightly more transparent than the Ascent but then these are the older Ascents not the i model. If I were to do it it over again I would have gone with the Ascents and the Descent or Depth sub rather than a pair of Odysseys. The Odysseys were nice to have but they were just too large for my living room so I traded them in on a pair of Sonus Faber Cremonas and I don't regret it. But now I'm considering upgrading the Cremonas to Summts. (See new post).

 

[patlad]

Thanks for you input,

All you said was my feeling. Considering the panels are the same I would expect more bass from the Odyssey. Actually I'm quite happy with the Ascents because the classe audio drives them very well and the bass is very good.
As Craid said, the Odyssey may be a bit too large for my living room as well.
I will give them a try anyway as soon as I can.

 

[miljac]

Recently I decided to give a try to passive bi-amping. Just for fun I bought a cheap near-mint Yamaha M-40 and hooked it to the bass drivers of my Ascents to try biamping before investing in something more expensive.
*gosh* this really made a difference! The Ascents sometimes had a slight tendency to sounding nasal - compared to bigger MLs - before adding a second amp; suddenly completely opened up, with tremendous bass - on one occasion I stood up to turn my sub off only to find out it was off already. Maybe adding another power amp with good bass to the cones? Makes the panels sing too.

 

[David]

Hi Everybody,

I am very interested in the discussion, as I had the same problem a while ago. My dealer offered me a 10 month old pair of Odysseys for the sensational price of Eur 3500 (unfortunately ML speakers are very much more expensive in europe) and at the same time I found a brand new pair of Acsent-i on Ebay and hoped I could catch a good deal.
But not so. The Ascent were sold for Eur 4200 - too expensive for me.
Now I have to decide wether I buy new panels for my SL3 (round about Eur 1100) or I grade myself up to to the Odyssey for Eur 2500 (I could sell my SL3 for 1000)..??

What should I do ??

Greetings from Berlin, Germany

David

P.S. Sorry for my clumsy english..!! I`m still working on it..

 

[DTB300]

Now I have to decide wether I buy new panels for my SL3 (round about Eur 1100) or I grade myself up to to the Odyssey for Eur 2500 (I could sell my SL3 for 1000)..??

P.S. Sorry for my clumsy english..!! I`m still working on it..

If it was me, I would upgrade from the SL3's to the Odyssey, especially if you can sell your SL3 for 1000 which would make the Odyssey purchase around 1500.

Your english is fine.....much better than my German

Dan

 

[patlad]

Hi David,

At this price I would not hesitate but you need to be sure the Odyssey is not too big for your room.
However I think the price is VERY low for a 10 months old Odyssey. The price of the Ascent you indicate is quite normal (New Ascent was sold around 6500 euros in France) and a pair of used Odyssey would be around 7000 euros.

 

[pozlep]

Hi Everybody,

I am very interested in the discussion, as I has the same problem a while ago. My dealer offered me a 10 month old pair of Odysseys for the sensational price of Eur 3500 (unfortunately ML speakers are very much more expensive in europe) and at the same time I found a brand new pair of Acsent-i on Ebay and hoped I could catch a good deal.
But not so. The Ascent were sold for Eur 4200 - too expensive for me.
Now I have to decide wether I buy new panels for my SL3 (round about Eur 1100) or I grade myself up to to the Odyssey for Eur 2500 (I could sell my SL3 for 1000)..??

What should I do ??

Greetings from Berlin, Germany

David

P.S. Sorry for my clumsy english..!! I`m still working on it..

Hi David!

I had the oportunity too listen to Odyssey and SL3 at the same time. The room was quite big and the diference between the speakers too. The SL3 couldnt fill up the room as well as Odysseys. The diference was realy big. But on the other hand I listened to SL3 s in a small room for a very long time (my brother owned them) and in my opinion they sounded even beter then the odysseys in the big room. So it realy depends, how big is your listening room.

GP

 

[David]

Thank you all for your quick response and helpful opinions. I´m still not shure what to do, because the "room-problem" isn`t solved yet. My room has around 250 Square feet and my dealer (who has long time experience with Martin Logan Speakers and knows the different models very well) told me that I shoudn`t have a problem with a room of this size but on the other hand he mentioned that they possibly do not play on the highest level in my room - but still a lot better than my SL3`s.



@ Dan

Obviously I created a missunderstanding regarding the price of the odysseys. They would amount to 3.500 which means I would be left with 2.500 after having sold my SL3`s

 

[tonyc]

David, I would take a chance on the Odysseys.

 

[Transparent]

David,
Go for the Odysseys. My room is about 8 X 5 (in meters) and my Odysseys are just fine. At low volume you still can hear all the details. Just make sure that your power amp can drive them as they are rated at 250 watts each.

Happy purchasing

Transpa.