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February 21, 2017 - 8:06pm
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Dali Mentor Menuet vs Martin Logan LX16 (Motion 15)
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Similar specs tells you almost nothing about how they sound.
You should buy them with a 30-day full refund possible, and listen to them in your system for 10 days or so.
That is the only way to find out.
Listening in a store is a waste of time; different equipment, different acoustics, etc.
You have a valid point there!
Unfortunately, there is no such option (full refund within certain period) here in Canada. Dali is somehow an exotic brand here and that is one of the reasons I did not have a chance to hear it. Ordering from the States and dealing with customs would make it very complicated.
Thank you for your suggestion - I would if I could.
I suspect that there are dealers that would give you 30 days trial; especially online dealers.
I can't speak for Canada, though, so maybe you need to research dealers more.
If you like the LX16, what makes you hot for something better?
To better them significantly, you may need to move way up in price.
The Dynaudio Excite X14 is a very good one. The PSB Imagine T2 and Imagine B are also excellent speakers, and of course PSB is a Canadian company with an extensive dealer network in Canada. Look at their website for dealer locations. The Focal Chorus 706 is another good one.
Excite X14 is the only one that would fit size vise. No floor standers or anything over 12" tall (I am married).
There is PSB dealer locally so I may pay them a visit.
Based of my positive experience with Focal 705V I auditioned the newer version of the same and did not really like it.
The sales brochure stated that the new tweeter was much better but I liked the old one much better.
Thank you for your suggestions.
I just created an account to comment on your question.
TLDR: get the Dalis.
I spent the last two years buying speaker after speaker (and amps and digital sources) in search of better sound for my living room and office. I own a pair of ML LX16s and a pair of Dali Zensor 3 (much cheaper than the menuet) and I use both in my office. I have them hooked to an amplifier with a speaker switch, so I had the opportunity to properly compare the two. The MLs are a bit more "in your face" but are of substantially lower refinement. If I had to describe the dalis, I'd say they do very little wrong. The ML LX16s are boomy in the lows and a bit messy in the highs, very very different to the Dalis (think camaro vs Cayman). I also have a pair of the larger ML floorstanders and they suffer from exactly the same shortcomings (better, for sure, but cut from the same cloth).
I've rotated these speakers in all of my systems (amps ranging from $300 to $7k plus Sony, Panasonic and BlueNode digital sources) and the core characteristics remain the same. My cheapest amp sounds way better with the Dalis than my fat McIntosh does with the Martin Logans, despite the ability to apply corrections with the equalizer.
WhatSpeaker2 thank you for your effort (creating an account) and your findings.
LX16 replaced Focal 705V in my system which I enjoyed immensely for a few years. After switching to LX16, I immediately fell in love with it. I never had a speaker that fast and refined at the same tame. In my system LX16 is quite relaxed and smooth. I do not have any issue with a boominess of the lower end. I believe that the fact that my listening room is relatively small and that I usually listen to the music at low levels is a big part of the story. Probably even more so is the fact that NAD D3020 has a low pass filter set around 80Hz, greatly reducing the load placed on LX16 and especially on the woofers. Overall room acoustics could be another contributing factor.
Thank you again for your findings.