soundberry Martin Logan elettrostatiche.HiFi Best Buy sound audio video cinema

One of the minor dilemmas associated with audio reviewing is the need to keep a number of systems on the go. You need to use high-end partnering components for costly gear, mid-price for mid-price and so on. With A/V you have to multiply things by five... especially speakers. I thought I had it down pat, price-wise, with the reference system I've been using 52;three Apogee LCRs across the front and two Apogee Ribbon Monitors (LCRs minus one woofer) at the back52;because the price was smack in the middle. But now they're no longer available, and readers don't want reviews written involving obsolete ancillaries.

This created a problem, because the Apogees were ideally suited to represent the median level between the 'all-in for £699'-type swill and the extreme represented by wealthy enthusiasts who say: 'Build me a home cinema but keep it under £500,000'. I price the minimum decent home theatre, minus the cost of a monitor or projector, and suitable for audiophiles as well as normal people, at around £5000- £7500: £500 for a DVD player, £1500-£2000 for one of the better A/V receivers and £3000-£5000 for five matched speakers.

With a bottom-level price of only £600 per speaker/channel, we are not talking about Wilson or Revel or ATC but the kind of speakers which ordinary people can afford. So when I was told that I had to assess a complete MartinLogan set-up, all I could hear was the moans of the penny-pinchers. But when I found out that the total package came to £4684, I could only rub my hands with glee. Under £5k for five electrostatics!

Admittedly, I was shocked when the system arrived and the fronts and rears were not the same, having asked specifically that all four be identical and that they be the least expensive models in the M-L lineup. I needn't have worried, though, because the price difference between a pair of Scenarios and a pair of Scripts was only £91. Furthermore, the Script and the Scenario share identical electrostatic panels, so they sound exactly the same above the bass region) the Scenario enjoying slightly larger woofers.

At the centre is the Cinema (£1395), a hybrid which departs from MartinLogan practice in that the electrostatic element doesn't cover the uppermost frequencies, only the midband. Its elegant, curved enclosure contains a shielded 5.25in woofer at either end, each in its own sealed cabinet. In-between and curving inward is a slice of a CLS electrostatic element, this horizontal, concave strip covering the midband. The crossover point between it and the woofers is 300Hz (12dB/octave)) while at 3500Hz the electrostatic element crosses over with the same slope to a vacuum-formed, 1 inch soft-dome tweeter. The dome was chosen for its dispersion characteristics, a centre channel speaker requiring a broad sweep with carefully defined horizontal and vertical dispersion voiced primarily for what are dialogue duties.

M-L thought very carefully about this design in industrial as well as sonic terms, a speaker which is52;remarkably52;only slightly larger than the 'norm' among conventional centre-channel systems at 860x260x200mm (wdh). To facilitate both its size and its non-cubist form, the company also offers a bracket, allowing it to be wall or floor-mounted and tilted over a wide arc to direct the sound at the listener. I have my monitor and system on a large, open-shelf unit, so I positioned the Cinema on the top shelf, aimed downward at a 20° angle, without having to resort to the swivel bracket; the rear of the speaker rested in the shelving unit's uprights. By the way, the unit sports the see-through sections which are this make's stylistic trademark.

For front left-and-right duties, the company supplied a pair of Scenarios (£1690 per pair), compact floor-standers measuring only 1190x254x381mm (hwd). The footprint accommodates a conventional woofer housing which extends only 660mm upward, so you still get that wonderful see-through effect52;like the Cinema52;for the speaker's upper half, the primary visual element which makes MartinLogans so beloved of wives, decorators and the cast of Friends.

The electrostatic panel covers 500Hz-22kHz, the 8 inch high-excursion cone woofer dealing with 45-500Hz. MartinLogan states that the dispersion of the system is 30° horizontal and with the vertical being a 23 inch line source. Whatever the maths, this speaker ensured that there were no gaps between it and the Cinema: most impressive on left/right sweeps. Both the Scenario and the Cinema offer 89dB/1W sensitivity and nominal impedance of 6 ohms (1.5 ohm minimum @ 20kHz for the Scenario, 3.7 ohms for the Cinema), so52;slight impedance variation aside52;it presented a near-ideal situation for the three-channel Acurus 200X3 power amplifier I used across the front.

At the back, driven by another Acurus, were the Scripts (£1599 per pair), which look like what they are: baby Scenarios. The Script stands 1075x254x200mm (hwd), the unit supplied with a plinth on which it can swivel, while an optional wall-mounting bracket also allows the speaker to swivel up to 175°. Quite why you'd need to make it so that it can swivel on its floor stand, when the thing is so tiny and weighs a mere 27lb, I don't know.

In the Script, the electrostatic element works above 700Hz; below it is a 6.5 inch cone woofer operating down to 70Hz. Slightly less sensitive than the Scenario, the Script specs out at 88dB/1W, with a 4 ohm impedance (worst case: 2 ohms @ 20kHz). All of the 'Logans feature oversized screw terminals52;CE-approved by virtue of their plastic grips52;and they were supplied in all-black finish. For an extra £200, you can order the Scripts in white.

As these are electrostatics, you'll need five spare AC outlets; I hooked 'em up for a couple of days before doing any serious listening, and I leave them on at all times. Run-in seemed to last about a week, but they kept on improving for the first month before settling down to a level of performance I can only describe as jeans-tightening. This little 'Logan package is something to behold...

Using the aforementioned amps, the Lexicon MC-1 processor, and the Pioneer DV-414 (Region 1) and DVL-909E (Region 2) DVD players, I ploughed through more films in a given period than I have ever been tempted to do before52;and not just because I'm addicted to amazon.com and had so many new films to devour. Quite blatantly, the sound was so ideally-voiced to A/V usage that I found the entire experience to be something new. Hell, I even watched familiar films again, stuff like Armageddon, of which I'd had my fill at hi-fi shows. I even sat through another run of the gawdawful Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery, because my son's glee was irresistible. Any fears that I had become jaded were instantly dispelled: the 'Logan quintet made movies even more fun.

Whatever it is that electrostatics possess, and I am the first to declare a love for the original Quad ESL because of its silkiness, I never expected any electrostatics to be so apt, so well-suited for A/V use. OK, so I had toyed many times with the thought of finding another three Quads to make up my own dream 5-channel system, but space kept me from making the move. The 'Logans provided five channels of electrostatic (admittedly with cones down below) bliss in slightly less space than I'd previously allocated to the similarly slim and compact Apogees. And while my wife didn't exactly register a favourable response to the replacement of five black boxes with five elegant quasi-panels, she did seem somehow happier with the new look

It's all about atmospherics. Given that the main speakers, when fed audio-only signals via CD, proved to be classically 'Martin-Logan'. Delicate, transparent, refined, eminently free of fatigue-inducing artefacts, they passed the first test with ease: You can live with these for two-channel-only purist pursuits without fear of compromise. Low coloration, sweet upper frequencies, no cabinet resonances52;better still, the woofer sections, despite the single-cone-per-enclosure complement, provided enough weight and power to serve the needs even of Classic's 96/24 discs, MoFi's latest Guns'n'Roses CD and a flood of recent Cuban exploitation discs. But this is the A/V section, and I was not expecting the 'Logans to survive Stallonification.

It might have been The Fifth Element's final 15 minutes, or the DTS version of The Shadow. Both possessed two, er, elements which, while meaningless with music, separate the Cohibas from the Silk Cuts when you're watching films. They are rapid explosions and/or gunfire, allied to sweeps across the room, either diagonal or straight front-to-back. Seamless dimensional transitions accomplished to perfection while retaining both the transient impact and the bass extension? A tough call by any measure, if a doddle for behemoths armed with, say, a brace of 12 inch cone woofers per enclosure and a kilowatt or two in total juice complement. I used nothing like that to drive the 'Logans, I eschewed a subwoofer, and yet I never52;never52;felt any loss of low-frequency information nor direction coherence. Just play the section of The Shadow, at the beginning where his voice flies around the room while tormenting the hoodlums on the bridge. Creepy? You'll be looking over your shoulder.

Equally as impressive was all this mass being partnered to upper frequencies so delicate, so clean that even shouted dialogue in front of a layer of noisy sound-effects came through with coherence and clarity. Much though I expected the dome tweeter fitted to the centre of the Cinema to destroy the electrostatic illusion, it was not the case. M-L's designers clearly voiced the dome to retain the necessary lucidity required to convey dialogue, while ensuring that it matched the tonal signature of the CLS-based elements. And why does the purist in me not balk? Did someone say Kelly Ribbon Tweeter on top of a Quad ESL?

Forget accusations about hybrids not working. Even with music-only programme material, it was hard to say conclusively that you could hear the crossover point, less so in the Scenario than the Script. Forget, too, that the Cinema commandeered a dome tweeter to deal with centre channel directional concerns. Instead, just revel in the knowledge that not only can you enjoy your five channels with electrostatics, but also for under a grand per channel. This is, for the foreseeable future, my 'real world' A/V reference system.

The Scenario is the latest offering from Martin-Logan, the electrostatic technology speaker company, as the company refers to itself. The design goal for the Scenario was to position it just below the Aerius, which is now available only in bi-wire guise, in price and sonics. With feedback from dealers, interior designers and the like, some felt the Aerius was just a little too tall for certain applications, so with a mating of the electrostatic panel from the wall-mount Script model and the woofer from the bi-wire Aerius model, the $1,995 per pair Scenario was born. Measuring in at 48 inches high with a very small 10 by 14-inch footprint, the Scenario is about ten inches shorter than the Aerius and gives up a little to bass response as the cabinet, which houses an 8 inch woofer, is smaller, as well. Martin-Logan has big plans for the Scenario as use with an all Martin-Logan 5 channel speaker system.

My use of the Scenarios was limited to 2-channel listening in my main music system. However, the system that can be built around the Scenarios would include the Cinema center channel and the diminutive Scripts for the rears, surely an impressive system having experience with all of these loudspeakers. The Scenarios are available only in a black finish, which is a combination of gloss for the front woofer grill and stat panel and matte for the side rails and rear cabinet. It57;s a very attractive package with the stat panel seemingly "floating" in front of the woofer cabinet. All Scenario owners will benefit from Martin-Logans ingenious new binding post design as well as one of the best carpet spike designs I have ever used (the spikes are also available as an option, for $50 per pair, for other loudspeakers from your Martin-Logan retailer). Congratulations to the Martin-Logan design team for incorporating such little details to finish off what proved to be an extraordinary product.

Magic happens! The first thing I jotted down during my initial listening notes for this review was "magic happens". Only I left out the "immediately" part. As with all Martin-Logan loudspeakers, placement from the rear wall is critical. In my case I moved the Scenarios out 30 inches from the rear wall. This distance gave me the best combination of center imaging, sound stage size and bass response. The spikes easily served to level match the speakers to ensure the front edge of the panels were equidistant from the rear wall and from my ear. A tape measure and laser thing proved invaluable in my set-up task.

My listening palette is very familiar with the magic of electrostatic speakers. Having owned electrostatic loudspeaker systems from Quad, Acoustat, Beveridge, Stax and the Martin-Logan CLS, I have a unique perspective on the mysterious world of electrostatic loudspeakers. Starting with the Monolith of the 198057;s, Gayle Martin Sanders and his design team brought to, and successfully marketed the first truly viable hybrid electrostatic loudspeaker system. Incorporating the attributes of the electrostatic diaphragm with a conventional piston driver, the Monolith was an immediate success and helped launch the Martin-Logan company as we know it today. Why am I talking about Martin-Logans57; first product? Because it57;s important to never forget where you came from and without lessons hard learned with the design of the Monolith, the Scenario would surely not have the sonic signature it has. That sonic signature represents the qualities of the electrostatic and piston driver working together in concert to form a realistic, lifelike and alluring musical presentation.

There I sit listening to the cut "Song of the Stars" from Dead Can Dance57;s Spiritchaser (Warner Bros.) gazing into the darkness of my unlit fireplace and wondering just how the percussion and bird songs and chants happened to get in there. Really, the imaging characteristics are quite scary and make for a sort of rediscovery with your music collection with recordings as good as this one. Soundstage presentation was correct, not too tall as can be the case with some other larger electrostatic panels and bass was correct and free from fatigue. A really marvelous piece of music for not only evaluating equipment but to just get lost with your emotions and forget about the equipment and focus on the music. With the Scenario, I was able to do just that.

On "Budapest By Blimp" by Thomas Dolby57;s Aliens Ate My Buick (EMI, Import ), I turned the volume way down and listened to what the speaker can do at whisper levels. As low level detail is something I think all good speaker designs excel at, this is somewhat of a difficult task for lesser designs. I was able to hear all the layering in the synthesizers, the overdubbing of the opera singer standing behind the bass player and Thomas57; lead vocal coming out of, you guessed it, my fireplace. Put a smile on my face, and made listening in low light conditions fun again.

Up goes the volume while listening to Prodigy and Tom Morello doing the smash hit "One Man Army" from the Spawn Soundtrack (Sony Music). A serious techno/hard core industrial tune with pounding bass, layered synthesized rhythms and all kinds of vocal panning. Not a track for the faint of heart. It was hard not to get up and turn on my strobe light and dance in cage like I was at some South Beach techno club, but I restrained myself and just sat there and let it rip and the Scenarios never hiccuped once. Electrostatics never used to be this good.

Turn out the lights, turn up the volume put your feet up and listen to Ayub Ogada doing "Obiero" from the CD En Mana Kuoyo (Real World). The uncanny imaging and soundstage characteristics of the Scenario will shine through as clearly as a spotlight shone through its translucent electrostatic element. Magic defined. Everything as it should be. Totally at ease. Life is good.

The Scenarios do so many things well with a few faults. The most major of them is the lack of really deep bass response. In fairness to the speaker design, one can57;t expect an 8 inch woofer in such a slim cabinet to perform miracles. The bass is tight, defined, correct in amplitude with regards to real music and the electrostatic panel it is mated to, though.

Martin-Logan expects if one is going to use the Scenario57;s in a 5.1 theater system, one would be using a woofer in the system anyway to augment the bass response. I used the Scenario57;s with the excellent and reasonably priced SW2Pi from NHT with satisfactory results. The other drawback for some listeners is the speaker really needs to be away from the back wall to image properly and give you the magic that I57;ve spoken of. With this in mind it becomes a difficult speaker to build in a cabinet or place close to the back wall. However, those with enough space behind the speakers (I would recommend about 24 inches, minimum for optimum soundstage) will be rewarded with all the speaker has to give.

Martin-Logan has come up with yet another winner with the Scenario. With so many speaker companies churning out different sized speakers with varying degrees of designs, the folks at Martin-Logan continue to focus on what they do best. The company has made it57;s reputation by allowing us to share their vision with regards to an intense love for music and film, second to none client support, reliability and gorgeous industrial design. In this case any of us can share these attributes for just $1,995 per pair and be bathed in real music by driving the Scenarios with a good quality receiver or, in my case, a 200 watt per channel Classe57; amplifier. And as an added bonus the Scenario can serve to be the foundation of an all Martin-Logan 5.1 theater speaker system, now or in the future. From a company who didn57;t forget where they came from they offer you the Scenario. A leading edge product that will enrich your life, put a smile on your face and give you a little magic at the same time. Life really is good.

Conventional dynamic speakers translate electrical signals into sound by first turning it into kinetic energy that moves some combination of cones and domes. Electrostatic speakers, in contrast, move air with large, flat, microscopically thin, and electrically charged diaphragms suspended between pairs of charged metal "stators." An electrostatic speaker needs to be plugged into an AC outlet, and the signal from the audio amplifier is fed to the diaphragm. Variations in the signal voltage from the amp pull the diaphragm closer to one stator or the other, which moves air and produces sound. Since the diaphragm is driven uniformly over its entire area, an electrostatic speaker has the dual advantages of low distortion and lightning-fast response to transients. It's also a natural dipole, radiating equally and in opposite phase front and back.

The drawback to the electrostatic approach is that you'd need a massive diaphragm to reproduce bass frequencies—a problem MartinLogan sidesteps here by combining the panel drivers with conventional woofers. This hybrid approach permits the speakers to have attractively slim profiles.

The pair of Scenarios that handled the front left/right channels in the system I reviewed are the most striking speakers I've laid my eyes on in some time. Each speaker stands approximately 4 feet tall, with a sealed cabinet containing an 8-inch woofer occupying about half that height. The steel electrostatic-panel assembly is joined to the front of the woofer cabinet and curves slightly in an effort to widen the speaker's horizontal dispersion.

"I could hear delicate details, like the scraping of the bow against the violin strings, and when the layered interplay between violin and cello kicked in during the piece'ssecond half, the imaging was so sharp I felt I could pinpoint the respective instruments."

The Scenario's front-firing 8-inch woofer, which crosses over to the panel at 500 Hz, is rated down to a modest 45 Hz, so unless you're stuck on a strict diet of dialogue-heavy Merchant-Ivory period movies, you'll want to add a separate subwoofer to augment the bottom end of music and movie soundtracks.

MartinLogan recommends its Script speakers for surround use. These are designed for wall mounting and come with brackets that permit 180° rotation so you can adjust them for either direct or diffused sound. Standing 43 inches tall, the Script combines a relatively small electrostatic panel with a bass module containing a 6.5-inch woofer that plays down to about 70 Hz. Since small panel-type speakers like the Script have limited vertical dispersion, for the best results you need to mount them so your ear is about level with the panel's midsection.

If, like me, you feel that most center speakers look like small coffins sitting on top of your TV, you'll appreciate Martin-Logan's Cinema. With its swooping, concave face, it has an aerodynamic appearance quite unlike any other center speaker. The Cinema and its big brother, the Logos, are also the only models in the MartinLogan line that use a conventional dome tweeter to handle highs. Below 3.5 kHz the Cinema's 27-inch electrostatic panel kicks in, and it crosses over at 300 Hz to a pair of 5.25-inch woofers mounted in separate sealed subenclosures at the speaker's left and right ends.

I set up the MartinLogan system in Sound & Vision's home theater testing facility, a 36 x 18-foot room with a 12-foot ceiling. Since that's on the large side, I was worried at first that the relatively diminutive MartinLogan speakers wouldn't be up to the task of filling the space with sound. Happily, that wasn't the case. Still, as I already mentioned, the system really needs a subwoofer, particularly in a medium to large room. For my evaluation I paired it with yyy's ASW 3000 ($1,500), a 300-watt powered sub with a 15-inch driver that can pump out some serious bass.

Before I plugged in the B&W, however, I spent some time listening to the Scenarios alone, without a sub. On The Hidden Treasure, a piece for string quartet from a CD of works by the contemporary British composer John Tavener (Byzantia, Virgin Classics 45352), I had the opportunity to experience firsthand the thrilling sense of "presence" that electrostatic speakers are renowned for. I could hear delicate details, like the scraping of the bow against the violin strings, and when the layered interplay between violin and cello kicked in during the piece's second half, the imaging was so sharp I felt I could pinpoint the respective instruments.

On the more complex Angel from Massive Attack's Mezzanine CD, the Scenarios projected the song's incredible sense of spaciousness. The nice balance between the visceral bass layer, the low, breathy vocals, and the higher-pitched percussion showcased the Scenario's seamless integration of woofer and electrostatic panel. But I soon missed the ultra-low bass I know this song contains. After I introduced the B&W subwoofer into the mix, dynamics improved quite a bit, but it took considerable experimentation to find a volume setting and room placement that let it blend smoothly with the Scenarios.

"...when I turned to DVD movie soundtracks, my attention wasn't drawn to the Cinema speaker's location at all. In every movie that I watched, the dialogue seemed to float effortlessly from the middle of the screen itself."

The finely detailed, almost tactile presentation that I experienced with the Scenarios was repeated with both the Script surrounds and the Cinema center speaker, which makes this MartinLogan system excellent for multichannel music. Listening to (and watching) Sheryl Crow's live performance of Am I Getting Through from the DTS Demonstration DVD #4 (available from www.dtsonline.com), a fine 5.1-channel music mix save for the disconcerting placement of percussion instruments hard in the surround channels, I had a sense of being dipped into the center of the concert crowd. Crow's raspy voice sounded pleasantly full and crisp from the Cinema center speaker.

One problem I've noticed with center speakers is that they sometimes "box in" the dialogue: you can actually hear the voice being projected from the speaker location, whether above or below the TV screen. But when I turned to DVD movie soundtracks, my attention wasn't drawn to the Cinema speaker's location at all. In every movie that I watched, the dialogue seemed to float effortlessly from the middle of the screen itself.

The Cinema's clear and coherent presentation was an asset in scenes with a complex sound mix spread across the three front channels. In Three Kings, for example, Conrad (Spike Jonze) opens a car door while being fired at from above by Iraqi soldiers. On the soundtrack you hear whizzing bullets, shattering glass, a car alarm, and, underneath it all, Chicago's radio staple "If You Leave Me Now." Somehow the MartinLogan trio managed to create order from this cacophony, preserving the music track's integrity while rendering the spatial cues of the sound-effects layers.

As the bullets and mortar really started to fly toward the DVD's end, however, I noticed a slight amount of dynamic compression during loud peaks, like explosions and gunshots. Granted, this occurred only at volumes most people would consider absurdly loud. My overall impression was that these speakers should be able to play as loud as needed in any system with a good subwoofer sharing the load.

Six-speaker systems costing $1,000 or less have become the mark most manufacturers are trying to hit lately. In that dog-eat-dog environment, systems that cost substantially more need to offer something special in terms of either performance or aesthetics to justify their price. Even without a subwoofer, MartinLogan's Scenario home theater system delivers on both counts. Its unique looks are sure to satisfy listeners who care about styling, while its hybrid dynamic/electrostatic design yields a refined sound that's a clear cut above what you'll hear from your average home theater speakers. If you're in the market for a serious home theater setup and have a yen for something different—something special—this MartinLogan system is sure to satisfy you.

At the heart of every MartinLogan speaker—the patented CLS (curvilinear electrostatic transducer)—lies an ultra-thin transparent diaphragm. Driven by charged electrons and weighing less than the air it moves, the diaphragm is so responsive it reproduces sound at levels only associated with the finest audio electronics.

MartinLogan hybrid speaker systems combine precision electronics, hand-picked components, proprietary drivers, and our incomparable electrostatic transducers into a seamless fusion capable of stunning resolution and presence—you are transported to that place where original performance and recorded counterpart are interchangeable.