New Member - long time ML owner

[Brewnoser]

Just bought my second pair of MLs after over 30 years with Aerius i’s. ESL 9 Classic. Listened to the 11’s and loved them but budget and a desire to keep bi amping with my babies - restored McIntosh 240 and 275 - plus a killer deal on a low use demo pair got me here.

I do have a question I can’t find an answer to elsewhere. I’ve been bi amping the Aerius with the higher power to the panels and lower to the wooofer. Plus a Klipsch powered sub really throttled down to very low frequency.

It seems to sound better this way. The tech who last cleaned up the amps says the 275 is the better of them. So I’m going with that in the part of the sound that seems to demand quality.

Thoughts?

 

[Kermie]

Welcome!! Someone will be along with an answer for you shortly.

 

[Jazzman53]

Welcome to the forum, Brewnoser,

Just curious: What are you using for a crossover?

 

[Brewnoser]

Welcome to the forum, Brewnoser,

Just curious: What are you using for a crossover?

The speakers are designed to allow two kinds of bi amping. The crossover accommodates both.

 

[Jazzman53]

The speakers are designed to allow two kinds of bi amping. The crossover accommodates both.

OK I see; you are using the speaker's internal passive crossover.

My ESLs are DIY but I wasn't smart enough to design a passive crossover that works well with the ESL's radical impedance, so I took the easy but more expensive route and used a digital (DSP) crossover upstream of the power amps, which provides almost infinite tuning capability, in real time, and sounds wonderful.

I asked about your crossover because some ML owners are bypassing their speakers' internal passive crossovers in favor of bi-amping with an upstream DSP, and loving the results.

It's an option.

 

[Brewnoser]

OK I see; you are using the speaker's internal passive crossover.

My ESLs are DIY but I wasn't smart enough to design a passive crossover that works well with the ESL's radical impedance, so I took the easy but more expensive route and used a digital (DSP) crossover upstream of the power amps, which provides almost infinite tuning capability, in real time, and sounds wonderful.

I asked about your crossover because some ML owners are bypassing their speakers' internal passive crossovers in favor of bi-amping with an upstream DSP, and loving the results.

It's an option.

I can’t see myself doing this. The upstream to these is vintage McIntosh tube gear. Not one computer. Inserting something like that seems wrong. I’ve gotten to the point where stereo systems don’t get arguably better. Just different. Martin Logan owner for over 20 years and staying out of the boxes forever.

I’m more into room treatments now as my space is compromised until major renovations can happen.

 

[Brandon Hartwick]

You can do an electronic Xover on just the woofers, there's a lot of information on the forum about doing this and the dramatic improvement it makes. It might seem counterintuitive at first, but the results speak for themselves.

Any newer Martin Logan speaker uses an active crossover on the bass to prevent the overlap between the panels and woofers. The stock passive Xover on the Aerius is pretty lame and really muddies up the whole sound.

 

[Brewnoser]

You can do an electronic Xover on just the woofers, there's a lot of information on the forum about doing this and the dramatic improvement it makes. It might seem counterintuitive at first, but the results speak for themselves.

Any newer Martin Logan speaker uses an active crossover on the bass to prevent the overlap between the panels and woofers. The stock passive Xover on the Aerius is pretty lame and really muddies up the whole sound.

I bi-amped the aerius-i’s for a long time. A McIntosh 275 on the panels and a 240 on the bass with a separate powered sub set only to play below the ML range. Packed the woofer cabinets with dense fibre insulation.

The 240 had volume control so I could tune/balance.

You had to hear it. People who have great ears and sensibilities would come and love it. Some were people who would have liked to sell me other things but after hearing, didn’t try.

Now I have new EL-9’s and I’m in the play with them
To see what works mode.

 

[Brandon Hartwick]

I bi-amped the aerius-i’s for a long time. A McIntosh 275 on the panels and a 240 on the bass with a separate powered sub set only to play below the ML range. Packed the woofer cabinets with dense fibre insulation.

The 240 had volume control so I could tune/balance.

You had to hear it. People who have great ears and sensibilities would come and love it. Some were people who would have liked to sell me other things but after hearing, didn’t try.

Now I have new EL-9’s and I’m in the play with them
To see what works mode.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying there's room for improvement yet.

All the cool kids are doing it

 

[Brewnoser]

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying there's room for improvement yet.

All the cool kids are doing it

So the cool kids are basically saying to the designers that their putting two sets of speaker terminals in on the crossover they use is wrong?

I don’t get it. The user manual goes to great depths to show different ways to connect one or two or even fours amps.
Yet the crossover isn’t well suited for that?

 

[Jazzman53]

You can do an electronic Xover on just the woofers, there's a lot of information on the forum about doing this and the dramatic improvement it makes. It might seem counterintuitive at first, but the results speak for themselves.

Any newer Martin Logan speaker uses an active crossover on the bass to prevent the overlap between the panels and woofers. The stock passive Xover on the Aerius is pretty lame and really muddies up the whole sound.

To my ears, the most noticeable effect of active bi-amping (i.e. splitting out the bass and mid/treble frequencies from the line-level signal upstream of the power amps) is significantly tighter, more accurate bass, which I attribute to removing the passive inductor coil from between the amp and woofer. Thus directly coupled; the amp exerts tighter control over the woofer.

Without getting into an analog versus digital debate; I would just point out that upstream active bi-amping can be done using either an analog op-amp type crossover or a digital (DSP) crossover.

I've done it both ways and both sound great. I ultimately went with the DSP for its auto-EQ functionality and practically infinite tuning flexibility-- all in real-time from my listening position. I'm completely spoiled now

 

[Brandon Hartwick]

So the cool kids are basically saying to the designers that their putting two sets of speaker terminals in on the crossover they use is wrong?

I don’t get it. The user manual goes to great depths to show different ways to connect one or two or even fours amps.
Yet the crossover isn’t well suited for that?

This was the technology available at the time, high end active crossover networks weren't really a thing when this era of ML speakers were made. If you go look at any new ML speaker they're doing exactly what @Jazzman53 is talking about, because that's the technology we have today.

Nobody trying to say your doing anything wrong. Biamping is great, I do it, we're saying the woofer crossover is lacking in older ML speakers. If you're happy there's no need to mess with anything though.

 

[Brewnoser]

This was the technology available at the time, high end active crossover networks weren't really a thing when this era of ML speakers were made. If you go look at any new ML speaker they're doing exactly what @Jazzman53 is talking about, because that's the technology we have today.

Nobody trying to say your doing anything wrong. Biamping is great, I do it, we're saying the woofer crossover is lacking in older ML speakers. If you're happy there's no need to mess with anything though.

Oh I understand with the Aerius. But I have a new pair of ESL 9’s. Apparently the crossover on these is set quite differently from the older ones.

With the Aerius I did have the ability to tweak the sound by having one amp that was volume adjustable. So I could sit and have someone move it until things fell into place.

I still do. Though right now I’m not doing that as things sound pretty good with both running as power amps only. Tubes change will affect that though.

 

[Brandon Hartwick]

Oh I understand with the Aerius. But I have a new pair of ESL 9’s. Apparently the crossover on these is set quite differently from the older ones.

With the Aerius I did have the ability to tweak the sound by having one amp that was volume adjustable. So I could sit and have someone move it until things fell into place.

I still do. Though right now I’m not doing that as things sound pretty good with both running as power amps only. Tubes change will affect that though.

Yeah so I actually had to look this up on Martin Logan's website, but apparently they don't give you the fancy DSP enabled class D amps with electronic Xover on the woofers until you move up to the ESL 11 or larger. So the ESL 9 still uses a passive crossover network on the bass, what exactly is different about it I'm not sure.