Electomotion ESL owners opinions please..

[ML Goat]

That's just insane that just the floor spikes can do that.. I'm gonna take the rubber end off when I get home.. But you can move these things and inch and notice it.. Would throwing them up on sub dudes be a good idea?

 

[Gordon Gray]

Yes. Absolutely Goat.

As you fine tune, the increment where you can move the speaker and hear it will get smaller and smaller. And do include azimuth adjustment as part of the equation.

FWIW, and yes I know this sounds crazy, but I took close to a full year before I settled on the "final" location of my Summits. Same with my current MBL's.

Have fun and enjoy the ride.

GG

 

[ML Goat]

I took the bumpers off the spikes. I really think if the speakers were sitting on something they would get more bass. How far back should I have the rake? I can post a pic to give you guys a better idea..

 

[ML Goat]

And yes,I know I need cable management,haven't had time.. I got stuff for it on fri.

 

[Gordon Gray]

I'd suggest splitting the difference between what you currently have and a perpendicular azimuth and see what you hear.

I think I know what the outcome will be. :devil:

GG

 

[ML Goat]

So lean them forward more.. I'm guess better high's..?

 

[beek]

Took your advice they are .2 of a degree from straight
and the sound is exactly as you described & I love it

 

[ML Goat]

Make sure they pierce the carpet and are seated into the subfloor.

I forgot to do that,I need to push down on them.. They aren't very sharp so I'm not sure it will even penetrate the carpet..

 

[jaramill]

I started another thread because the other one as was pointed out was too general. I'd love to know why other people picked theirs and what speakers did you listen to and pass on for these? :rocker:

Hi ML Goat. Here's a link to my thread New-Martin-Logan-Owner in the New Member Introduction section. I have a similar intro to ML. I love how they look visually and that they are able to reproduce such a a clear, crisp sound from that grill. And at the time $2k for a set of speakers was insane but now that I could afford them, compared to other speakers, this is the best bang for the buck. And for a living room in an apt, that's all I need, yet they fit in well with the living room furniture.
I've heard people say ML speakers are great for music but not so much for home theater movies. Hogwash. Sound is sound. Watching and LISTENING to Top Gun in my 5.1 surround sound ML system (minus the subwoofer which is not ML), makes me feel like I'm actually ON that aircraft carrier as U.S. Navy F-14 Tomcat fighter jets launch off.

As for what other brands I'd consider, well I really didn't do research as there are no other main brands that I knew of that were electro-static. Regular box speakers I would've looked at were perhaps Polk, JBL, or an online internet one. But ML pretty much made it an easy decision.

Also I've mated them to my AVR (Marantz SR7005).

 

[ML Goat]

Hey Jaramill.. Polk,Jbl would be a serious drop off from the Logan's.. You should watch Underworld Awakening. The sound in that movie is sick! I have to clean up my cable situation and then take some good pics and post them.. What are you gonna do about surrounds? I'm gonna go with the FX 2's..

 

[Gordon Gray]

Took your advice they are .2 of a degree from straight
and the sound is exactly as you described & I love it

Bill,

Glad you like it. Pretty cheap mod eh.

Gordon

 

[djc]

Glad I came across this thread. I did the same thing and was wondering if it was just me that heard the difference... or my couch was just sagging.

My EM's seemed to 'come alive' when I tilted them almost vertical. I have a hard floor, so I'm using the rubber feet. Front's are almost tight in and the rear's are near full extension. I figured my couch was too low or too far back for the design.

 

[ML Goat]

I did the same exact thing last night. I noticed a big difference also. I also moved the speakers closer together. Sounds much better. The sound stage is a lot deeper. I think getting one of the speaker away from the wall farther made a difference.. Sounds just sick!

 

[camflan]

To answer the OP, I had Bower & Wilkins 685s for a week before I couldn't stand it anymore and got the ESLs.

And yes, mine are more upright than stock

 

[Rich]

The rearward tilt of ML speakers is a design compromise to make up for shorter, smaller speakers. By tilting them backwards they allow the music to sound good when you are standing or walking around. Unfortunately, the compromise is that they don't sound as good when you are sitting (which is what most of us do when listening to them). This was, in my opinion, a poor design compromise by the company. If you make a line source speaker, you need to make it tall enough that the sound is decent sitting or standing. It is interesting to note that the company didn't even come up with the fix of tilting the speaker forward with adjustable spikes to alleviate this issue. It was a member of this forum (JTWrace) that came up with that solution, and then ML decided to incorporate it into their speaker designs after the fact.

 

[Gordon Gray]

Rich,

Spot on as usual.

I've never quite understood why ML didn't address this in the past since this is so cheap and a real game changer regarding performance.

Gordon

 

[beek]

The rearward tilt of ML speakers is a design compromise to make up for shorter, smaller speakers. By tilting them backwards they allow the music to sound good when you are standing or walking around. Unfortunately, the compromise is that they don't sound as good when you are sitting (which is what most of us do when listening to them). This was, in my opinion, a poor design compromise by the company. If you make a line source speaker, you need to make it tall enough that the sound is decent sitting or standing. It is interesting to note that the company didn't even come up with the fix of tilting the speaker forward with adjustable spikes to alleviate this issue. It was a member of this forum (JTWrace) that came up with that solution, and then ML decided to incorporate it into their speaker designs after the fact.

If one had high ceilings I wondered what a flop stacked pair of Eml's would do like the stacked Quads do.

 

[Rich]

I've never quite understood why ML didn't address this in the past since this is so cheap and a real game changer regarding performance.

Thanks, Gordon. The change to a tilted design came when they introduced the smaller, shorter, new style models (from the old Prodigy/Odyssey/Ascent, which were mostly vertical and had the panel centered in the sweet spot and were therefore much taller, to the newer-style Summit/Vantage/Vista, which had a shorter base and shorter panel, requiring the vertical tilt). I think the smaller stature and smaller-width panels of the new style were a concession to form over function and overall resulted in less impressive sound. The beginning of a slow march downhill in terms of high fidelity of Martin Logan speakers, in my opinion. Yes, the newer speakers have better coherence between panel and woofers than the old models did, but that could have been accomplished without sacrificing panel size, which I think is key to the overall sound of an electrostatic speaker. It is surprising that they didn't include a way to tilt the speakers forward from the time they introduced this design. It makes you think they either didn't realize or didn't care about the performance issues created by the newer designs.

 

[User211]

Yup - ML need to re-discover the meaning of the word 'awesome'. Fairly awesome doesn't quite cut it.

Statement E3 where are you????

 

[cocobob]

I have to say some of you guys ***** about everything.I stop by now and then since I own a new pair of Vistas 'which really sound good for the price I paid and all I read is bitching about ML.
I guess Rush is right about Libs are never happy and hate everything.