Recently, I heard the Marten Coltrane Supreme II at CES 2014 in Las Vegas and more importantly, I heard them at the new owners house here in Southern California. The amps used were Marten's own amplifiers, preamp was the EAR 912, digital sources were an Acute III cd player and the MSB digital stack (The $6k Acute III sounded much more analog and natural compared to the $85k MSB Stack which was a DAC IV Select, UMT Plus Transport. DAC IV Select has the FemtoSecond Galaxy Clock in it), top of the line HRS rack for the electronics and HRS amp stands for the Marten amps.
I was helping the EAR distributor and owner dial in the speaker and finally spike the speakers (which made a massive difference in imaging, a standing bass wave and overall coherency). Joe Kubala of Kubala Sosna cables joined us later in the day and we finally celebrated with a toast when all was dialed in to our taste.
I took some iphone pics during the tweaking....It was a GREAT day and an experience I am thankful for.
Now this was a pretty big listening room. One side of the room had the Marten Supreme II setup. The
other side of the room had the large Acapella horn speakers, the Kuzma Stabi XL with 2 Airline arms (Koetsu stone body and a Transfiguration Orpheus), Ypsilon phono, EAR 912 (yes a second one), Triode monoblocks, all Nordost Odin wiring through the whole system, HRS racks. Sorry Joe Kubala...didn't mean to cut you off in the picture!
The owner also owns 2 pairs of Marten Design Momentos, Marten Coltrane II and Wilson Alexandria X2 Series 2. He is QUITE the enthusiast!
SO HOW DID THE MARTEN SUPREME II's SOUND?
They sounded excellent when we started listening. After tweaking them, everyone agreed that the system sounded significantly better from where we started. We played with some room tuning, component vibration control, speaker positioning etc. Made all the difference in the world. The spiking of the speakers removed a bass standing wave that was present before. This was easily the best system I heard in my life at this point...this massive system just disappeared.
Pitch perfect, realistic scale, perfect instrument body, tonality and size portrayal. Zero distortion at ANY listening level. No timing issues...no phase issues, warmth when needed, musically blissful, most realistic rendering of an orchestra I've ever heard. Never, ever have I found a system that does almost perfect levels of "rightness". There is always something to critique that a system can do better...not with this one somehow. It CAN use a little bit more depth (which I was getting in the CES 2014 setup). That depth can be gotten by pulling out the speakers more into the room, but instead of 100%, we were getting probably 90%?
This really is just a dream speaker and I'm happy there are people who can make something like this happen. I am more grateful that I got a chance to participate in setting something like this up and listening to it.
