Act I, Scene One
"Finished version, I promise."
Gayle Sanders was reassuring the press about the $35k Statement at last summer's CES.
MartinLogan seems to run through revisions rather rapidly. For instance, no sooner had I settled in with the Sequel (which itself had undergone some major changes since first being introduced) than M/L announced the Sequel II. Drat! All those listening notes for naught.
Not quite. The original Sequels and the new Sequel IIs have much in common—sound as well…
It was in early August, on a Sunday afternoon, that I got my first listen to the MartinLogan Sequels. Remarkable transparency, lightening-quick transients, and lots of low-level detail, were some of my immediate observations. You should know that the venue was JA's listening room, and the occasion was the Stereophile writers confab, where we compiled the "Recommended Components" listing that appears in this issue. There was a significant slice of the magazine's writers on hand, including guru J. Gordon Holt (…
We were supposed to feel that we had just been given a friendly word of advice by exactly the sort of young woman we spent our days and nights trying to impress. "Martinis," of course, was an allusion to the James Bond novels and…
Depending on how you date it, the "authentic instrument" movement is at least 30 years old. Throughout its history, there has been a certain amount of understandable backlash; from performers who insist on the evolved superiority of modern…
"That's a nice soundstage," said JA…
Damned music just wouldn't let me work.
I turned "At the Café Central" up pretty loud. The STSes could really dish it out, from Murray's big, brassy tenor sax to…
Description: Three-way floorstanding loudspeaker with 300W powered subwoofer. Drive-units: 1" ceramic-coated aluminum tweeter, two 345" mineral-filled monopolymer midrange cones, 5" by 10" carbon-fiber woofer cone, two 5" by 10" bass radiators. Frequency range: 16Hz–30kHz. Sensitivity: 93dB/283V/m. Nominal impedance: 4–8 ohms. Recommended amplifier power: 20–350W.
Dimensions: 47.5" (1220mm) H by 5.5" (140mm) W by 8.5" (220mm) D. Base: 10.5" (270mm) W by 14" (360mm) D. Weight: 61 lbs (27.7kg).
Finishes: Satin-finished silver, gloss-black aluminum.
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Digital Sources: Ayre C-5xe universal player, McIntosh MS750 media server, Bel Canto e.One CD2 CD transport & e.One DAC3 D/A processor.
Preamplifiers: Ayre K-1xe, VTL Signature TL-6.5.
Power Amplifiers: Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 300 & Musical Fidelity XA-200 monoblocks.
Integrated Amplifiers: Ayre AX-7e, Portal Panache.
Loudspeakers: Usher Be-718.
Cables: Digital: Stereovox XV2. Interconnect: Audience Conductor. Speaker: Audience Conductor.
Accessories: Furutech eTP-609 distribution box, Ayre L-5xe line filter, APC APCS15 AC line…
The Definitive Technology Mythos STS SuperTower is specified as having a high voltage sensitivity: 93dB/2.83V/m. My estimate of its sensitivity, taken on its tweeter axis, was not quite as high, at 91.5dB(B)/2.83V/m, but this is still much higher than average. The Mythos STS will work very well with low-powered amplifiers, such as the Cayin integrated with which I auditioned the speakers at Sandy Gross's apartment. The speaker's impedance (fig.1) hardly drops below 4 ohms, but the use of a passive high-pass filter for the midrange units does lead to an awkward…
As I reported in my live coverage of RMAF 2007, spurred on by the performance of Esoteric's SA-60 universal player, a…