Sold Martin Logan CLS II

[Leporello]

Ha! They were nice!

Just like my Quads (ESL-2805) a tiny bit better...

Caveat is I have to be gentle with them....or else I am in a heap of trouble...

Going from memory more than a decade ago, the CLS is leaps and bounds better than the Quad. And 101 watts will not blow it up. It was love at first hear at a Sound by Singer demo at a New York audio show in the 1990's. But not until much later did I manage to own a pair.

The original Quad only took about 30 watts to sound their best--ideal for tube amps, actually--and more to blow them up. The small electrode spacing made them flea power amp friendly, but easy to drive into arcing.

 

[john65b]

Leporello,

I think you are confusing the original Quad ESL-57 with the newer, much more robust ESL-63/988/2805 series (four panels). But the ESL-57 is still the Benchmark for Mids replication, but they had so many other issues that made Peter Walker design the ESL-63...

But my Quads do sound nice with my Quicksilver 8417 tube mono amps. The Quickies did not have quite the luck with my CLS tho...they needed much more power, as, among other things, the panel D/S ratio were a bit different...both were ESLs, but the design basis were totally different....

 

[Leporello]

No I'm not, I've heard the newer ones too, though not recently. I've most recently heard what appeared to be original ones at a show in NYC, driven by flea powered tubes. They sounded wonderful, though the exhibit was well attended and I couldn't score a seat in the sweet spot. They did surprise me anew with the volume and low end. But they were restored, and "modified", who knows how. It was at an exhibit with the son of Robert Fine and Wilma Cozart Fine, showing off some newly restored "Mercury Living Presence" recordings. Dvorak cello concerto reproducing, to my ear, the full weight of the orchestra, with no sub.

But I still like my CLS II's better than either old or new Quads.

I do think the concept of a "virtual point source" is really cool, though I couldn't attribute anything I was hearing to it in practice. Physically curved is cooler still, evidently.