Long time owner of Martin Logan SL3s new to the community.

[wh10tby]

I am a retired Engineer living in Austin TX (I moved to the US 32 years ago), who worked in software, electronics and loudspeaker (Leak and Wharfedale) design. I have been a so called "Hi Fi" enthusiast for many, many years.

I upgraded from my beloved Spendor BC 1s around 1996 and have listened to my SL 3s ever since. I currently own several systems including a pair of Martin Logan SL3s with two separate (left and right) Martin Logan subs (the built in bass units are a little under whelming at times and I supplement them with the ML subs). Driven by a Krell KAV 300i amp (which has served me well over the years and has had all the capacitors replaced). Sources are currently a Cambridge Audio CD AZUR 351c player and CXN Network Player. An old but reliable Thorens Turntable serves for my vinyl collection. This system is for my more serious listening .

I have a separate multimedia system with a Rotel RMB 1075 power amp, Marantz AV 8806 preprocessor and Monitor Audio speakers with an MK sub. My equipment is pretty old but still sounds good to me and I have simply added new front ends to cope with the new digital sources I have (I have a central music server which contains most of my 10,000 plus CD collection). I have yet to invest in Spatial Audio as this requires some investment in power amps and speakers. My current system still sounds very good to me, but occasionally I would like to experiment with some of the new spatial formats. This all supports a 77" LG OLED TV.

For casual listening I have 8 Apple Home pods and a pair of Sonos ERA 300s and ERA 100s around the house. I use Airplay for casual listening. As you can tell I take my audio quite seriously (my wife once laughed when I traded a BMW we had for a newer one because the sound system in the old one sounded terrible).

I discovered this forum by accident after many years of ML ownership and look forward to sharing and reading about other owner systems and experiences.

 

[Brad225]

Great story and equipment, wh10tby. Welcome to our gang.

 

[Jazzman53]

Hey, it's good to welcome a fellow retired engineer and speaker designer.

You will find good folks and a lot of good info here.

I'm looking forward to seeing your system so post some pics in the Member's Systems section when you can.

Enjoy the MLO Forum!

 

[Russr]

Welcome aboard!

With your background, and assuming you like tinkering (!), have a look at some of the threads on here about going active XO... When the SL3's and older MLs came out, active digital crossovers were for pro use (if at all), but are now available in PA-type amps. Several folks here have gone with active XO/Bi amping (which is essentially what ML has done with the current range of MasterPiece speakers). I would not normally recommend for new members, but with your background...

BTW, as a young-un' the first speakers I lusted after were Wharfdales (the original Diamonds, back in the 80's!)...

 

[wh10tby]

Worth investigating, thank you.

 

[Kernel]

I am a retired Engineer living in Austin TX (I moved to the US 32 years ago), who worked in software, electronics and loudspeaker (Leak and Wharfedale) design. I have been a so called "Hi Fi" enthusiast for many, many years.

I upgraded from my beloved Spendor BC 1s around 1996 and have listened to my SL 3s ever since. I currently own several systems including a pair of Martin Logan SL3s with two separate (left and right) Martin Logan subs (the built in bass units are a little under whelming at times and I supplement them with the ML subs). Driven by a Krell KAV 300i amp (which has served me well over the years and has had all the capacitors replaced). Sources are currently a Cambridge Audio CD AZUR 351c player and CXN Network Player. An old but reliable Thorens Turntable serves for my vinyl collection. This system is for my more serious listening .

I have a separate multimedia system with a Rotel RMB 1075 power amp, Marantz AV 8806 preprocessor and Monitor Audio speakers with an MK sub. My equipment is pretty old but still sounds good to me and I have simply added new front ends to cope with the new digital sources I have (I have a central music server which contains most of my 10,000 plus CD collection). I have yet to invest in Spatial Audio as this requires some investment in power amps and speakers. My current system still sounds very good to me, but occasionally I would like to experiment with some of the new spatial formats. This all supports a 77" LG OLED TV.

For casual listening I have 8 Apple Home pods and a pair of Sonos ERA 300s and ERA 100s around the house. I use Airplay for casual listening. As you can tell I take my audio quite seriously (my wife once laughed when I traded a BMW we had for a newer one because the sound system in the old one sounded terrible).

I discovered this forum by accident after many years of ML ownership and look forward to sharing and reading about other owner systems and experiences.

I love the mention of Leak. My first Amplifier (Leak stereo 30 - one the very first transistor amplifiers here in the UK) and Leak Sandwich speakers. I pined for Quad but could'nt afford them until years later. Rolling on through the years Instead of Quad electrostatics my wife preferred the look of Martin Logan SL3 (also the Quads were reputed to be a little temperamental ). I loved, and still do, those SL3's which I had repanelled to serve as rear speakers to accompany my ML 15A's when using the rest of my 5.1 system

 

[wh10tby]

It was interesting times. I worked on Leak and Wharfedale speakers (we were owned by Rank Radio International at the time). I worked with a colleague on the Airedale SP, Dovedale SP for which we had responsibility and a range of Denton and Glendale derivatives. Also worked on the Leak 2020 and 2030 which used a unique bass driver based on the sandwich construction which was a foam cone with aluminum foil on both sides. Supposed to make them more rigid and not break up, but they end up ringing like a bell which we had to tame with the cross over.

The Wharfedale units bass units we designed from scratch were much better behaved and had cones made from Bextrene with Plastiflex costings (which we called 'nastiflex' as a joke). My colleague and I's greatest achievement was the Airedale SP which was a large 100 litre enclosure with a tweeter, upper mid range, lower mid range and a single 10" bass unit. I had done some work and presented a paper (published by the AES) on the so called alignment of the Helmholtz resonator speakers (I and a colleague derived an equation that related low frequency response, cabinet volume, efficiency, resonant frequency, voice coil and magnet parameters for which I wrote a program, in Fortran, to optimize using standard frames, winding machines, compliance etc.) and the Dovedale SP and Airedale SP had extraordinary bass response (-3db point for the Airedale SP was 27Hz) using much smaller drive units than people thought you needed in the day. My program could predict the lower frequency response with uncanny accuracy until we had two bass drivers when the efficiency had an odd 3db boost. I had to make some changes to the bass drivers. BTW the rings that people see in the bass units of the Dovedale and Airedale were needed to increase the moving mass so that the tuning was correct and we got the -3db point we needed for the efficiency we needed (technically insertion loss). We had a lot of fun.

The amplifiers we used for testing were the Leak Stereo Delta 70s (if I remember correctly) and our reference units for comparison at the lower mid to high end due to their very low coloration were Spendor BC 1s. They came from a BBC monitor design and were extraordinarily flat and colorless since they were designed to monitor studio output using a unique bass design that crossed over much higher (3 KHz) than was standard due to a unique cone design which resulted in a rather small voice coil diameter and thus reduced power handling. The bass was a little flabby since it was a poorly tuned Helmholtz or vented cabinet design. Midrange and upper high frequency were handled by a Celestion MF 1300 which rolled off at 13KHz and handled everything from 3Khz to 13 kHz. In my day it was an STC tweeter that handled everything above 13 KHz, but I believe some had a Coles unit.

Sorry I have reminisced for rather a long post but hope some of you find this interesting.