Justin,
Thanks again for your responses. Just to follow up:
No. Merging two companies with completely different products & distribution would be foolish.
Agreed! Glad you see it that way, too. I sincerely hope you are able to foster cooperation and utilize synergies between the two brands to the benefit of both. That is certainly easier to conceptualize than to implement.
Rob Zimmerman, who has been with MartinLogan for over 19 years building ESL panels, has already started the process.
Thank you for that. That statement goes a long way toward soothing my concerns about the transition in production. Just out of curiosity, do you know whether the esl panels themselves will still be put together by hand, or will this process become more automated at the new factory? Not saying one is necessarily better than the other. Just curious if the method of constructing them is likely to change at the new facility.
Now here's where you need to change your thinking a bit. Creating "friendly" home theater was LONG overdue from MartinLogan, and the Motion series was the direct answer to that absence. I don't know if you've ever heard the phrase "a rising tide lifts all boats," but that's certainly the case here.
I understand your point, but don't completely agree with it. I have seen too many companies lose their focus on higher end products when chasing too many smaller fish. The home theater market is a very crowded, competitive marketplace. You didn't really answer my question about the size and growth of your R&D department. If you aren't growing it, and they are spending more and more of their time researching and designing new products for the home theater lines, that would naturally leave them a lot less time to drive technology forward at the high end. Hence the question.
Just as side note based on my own personal experiences in the industry, the Motion Series is anything BUT "low-fi."
I am sure you are proud of them and I don't mean to disparage them. I am simply trying to distinguish between speakers costing hundreds of dollars and geared toward the average joe sixpack with a flatscreen, vs. speakers the caliber of the CLX, Summit, Prodigy, Statement, CLS, etc. In my mind, the latter takes a much greater commitment of R&D resources to get right than the former. If those resources aren't available, then the development of those higher end speakers will certainly suffer. I guess I am just seeking some reassurance that that won't happen.
Hmmm...a flagship above the CLX? Well, I'm afraid I can't provide any answers to that one, I guess you'll have to wait and see.
Nice teaser.
Even if I wanted to, I can't say one way or another on the rest of these questions. But a question for you, what type of product, and what features, would you want to see in a product between the Spire/Summit X/CLX?
Fair enough. I have already stated a few things earlier. I would like to see another leap forward in ESL panel technology.
I would like to see more development of the full range ESL line (i.e., non-hybrid speakers). I am talking speakers with larger (wider) panels, no crossovers, and deeper bass from the panel. I am also talking about full range stats that are smaller than an airplane wing.
I think everyone agrees that a crossoverless, full range stat has the most seamless, lifelike sound available, but few companies have put the time and effort to produce them. Ultimately, the hybrid model is a workaround to the engineering difficulties of the full range stat panel, and it comes with its own sonic limitations. Further engineering to take the lessons learned from the CLX to produce a greater range of models of non-hybrid ELS speakers would be a true testament to the legacy of Martin Logan.
Likewise, it would be nice to have a full range stat panel that could honestly hit 30 hz. or one that didn't necessarily have to be huge to achieve that goal. I know these are very difficult goals from an engineering perspective, but that is what R&D is for, right? To push the bounds of what is possible.
I also think you need to explore the possibility of making some hybrid speakers with larger (wider and taller) panels. I honestly think ML lost something in the sound when they went to the smaller x-stat panel. There is a depth of timbre and tone that a speaker like the Prodigy had that no ML speaker since has possessed, in my opinion (and in the opinions of numerous Prodigy owners -- you rarely hear about a Prodigy owner "upgrading" to a Summit).
Larger-panel speakers like the Prodigy, the Monolith, the Maggie 20.1's, Soundlabs, etc., also produce a "wall of sound" experience that is unparalleled. It would be nice to have some higher end speakers from ML that competed once again on those grounds.
Also, on your higher end hybrid stats like the Summit X, I think a lot of people would like more flexibility with the woofer amp. Perhaps you could make the internal amp an option and give people the option to buy the speaker without it at a slightly reduced cost. Most audiophiles want to have control over what amp drives their speakers. Another option would be a separate high-end external amp/electronic crossover system like what Roger Sanders offers on his speakers instead of the internal amp.
Well, I guess that's enough to get you started.
No. Everything else remains in Kansas.
Glad to hear it.
I hope that answered your questions, that's as best I can do!
You answered them nicely and allayed some, if not all, of my fears. I do sense a shift in commitment to your high end customers, particularly with your announcement that replacement panels may be discontinued for some legacy models. Gayle always had a very strong policy of supporting his customers through the life of the product and that went a long way toward building the reputation of the brand. That reputation can be quickly shattered with a few poor decisions by current management.
I understand that times change and new management has to make their own decisions based on their own view of the business, but I think this could be a very bad decision. It is well known that stat panels have a limited lifespan, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter depending on conditions. But if someone is shelling out ten to twenty grand or more for a pair of speakers, they are going to want to know that you are going to commit to provide replacement panels for those speakers ten or twenty years down the road. I think it is imperative that you come up with a very clear policy in this regard moving forward.
More importantly, I think you need to consider ways to better communicate such decisions to your customer base in a timely manner. This decision should have been announced when it was made, rather than us having to drag it out of you in this manner. Likewise, I think if the move of production had been announced along with some of the information you have provided here, instead of us finding out about it from a Lawrence newspaper article posted by a former employee, a lot of the negativity and speculation in this rather long thread could have been avoided or at least somewhat negated. Just food for thought.
One final question for you:
What question do you begin each day with?
