Martin Logan speakers?

Martin Logan are the front runner in the development and manufacturing of Electrostatic/Semi electrostatic designs. Martin Logan Summit is one of the finest sounding speaker ever produced. But as the above has been expressed they are very taxing on the amplifier. They not only need high-quality but also high-power and highly-stable amps to extract the best out of them.

Martin Logan Vantage was the first "affordable" ML ever. It is not an ESL but a semi ESL design. At some point of time I myself had considered a Vantage but didn't think my exisiting amp could have done justice with them, so bought a regular speaker which cost me more but could be driven by my existing amp with authority.

Martin Logan Vantage costs about 70-80k a pair and is a very good VFM at that price.

To answer one of the original questions, a Marantz for an ML, or vice versa wouldn't be a wise decision.

Hi the Vantage is $5000.

My mistake. I have all this while been talking about "Montage" and not "Vantage".

But the price in India is 3.7 lacs (almost double the US price)

I find the Indian prices for most foreign eqipment ridiculous. Cables are much cheaper ordering online. If you are serious about your equipment it is cheaper to fly to Singapore and buy from there.

Thank you all for the inputs.

Prem, perhaps you are right when it comes to the power requirements. I have the Marantz 15S1 combo. The amp is PM15S1 with a very modest 90 Watts/Ch into 8 Ohms / 140 Watts/Ch Into 4 Ohms output. So if I go with your experience compared to the Parasound or McIntosh amps, mine will be terribly underpowered.

Dinyaar, I’ll definitely check with AVI (or is it A2V these days?!) regarding the MLs. You are right in your assumptions also; I do plan to keep my current Marantz gear for a long time- so the question of a new amp upgrade is out for the time being!

Ranjeet, thank you for the info. From what I could collect from the inputs here, even I am getting to believe that the Marantz-Martin Logan wouldn’t be a good combo- mainly due to the fact that my amp could be the limiting factor.

The reason I thought about ML is due to the very fact that I don’t know much about the ES speakers and some of my colleagues and friends swear by their superiority over the normal designs around. I thought may be an audition will be the best way to go and where else can I go but here for some homework! My current shortlist of speakers include the JM Labs Focal Electra 1027 BE and ProAc D28. Any experience around these speakers?

Best Regards.

Both are great speakers, with ProAc being a little more popular.

What budget are you looking at for your speakers?

If you dig the electrostatic sound, the Devore Fidelity are great speakers. Great transparency and they do the disappearing act like the electrostats. You could write to them. The Marantz will be fine with them. Another one worth considering is the Tetra 5.

My initial budget was around 5k USD-but not restricted for the right product. I'm not very particular about buying it new. Ex-Demo or even 2nd hand is also fine with me. I have the option of picking it up from the US/UK or even Singapore. Unfortunately, my own country always let me down when it comes to price.

Prem, I'll definitely check out the Devore Fidelity you referred. I see that they have 2 series; the Gibbon and Silverback. Any particular model that you are familiar with?