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In Reply to: 3-way floorstander for smaller rooms? posted by olpot on July 23, 2002 at 07:27:37:
...a friend of mine put Paradigm Monitor 11s in a small room (12x12). While it kills what he previously had, the towers simply need more room to breathe. 3-way, 5-drivers (in a 3 foot top-to-bottom span) need a bit more room to "gel" than sitting 7 feet away from the front baffle, especially when ALL room boundaries are so tight. Hhmmm... how would small Martin-Logans (Aerius) work in your room?
Follow Ups:
Logan Aerius works perfectly in a small room.A friend of mine owns the Aerius and his room is even smaller than mine (his I guess is something around 11x12 or so).
He listens nearfield all the time.
The only obvious complaint he has is a loss of soundstaging - you just won't get good imaging from a combination of nearfield with large dispersion area of a planar speaker.
Plus, planar speakers are not known as imaging champs anyway.On the other hand, integration of the bass driver and its linearity and well-behavior are nearly perfect I ever heard.
But! I don't quite like how the electrostatic speaker sounds.
To my ears it falls short in two areas - dynamics and slam (rock is nearly unlistenable) and somewhat 'plasticky' highs.
Midrange is its forte though, as well as weighty and well-controlled bass.
I am suprised you said they are not the greatest imagers. Well, O.K., maybe not the best but the center fill (vocals) on the Aerius was so palpable and see-thru it seemed like a physical object in space. My dealer was using ARC stuff - that probably helped a little. And the bass would be the one complaint I have with ML! It just seemed... I dunno... a little too "fuzzy". I guess another example of different strokes for different folks!
Perfect imaging is hard to achieve in a planar speaker because the radiation area is large and it increases the proportion of reflected vs direct sound which is the anthithesis of perfect imaging.
This is all by nature (physics) of things.Imaging on the other hand is all about directivity which is relatively easier to achieve in a cone speaker which behaves much more like a point-source at the frequences that are relevant for good imaging (upper mids and lower HF).
The fact that Aerius can project an image in the middle does not mean that it possesses a perfect imaging and 3D soundstage.
Imaging is not only about left and right but also about front and rear and top and bottom. It is three dimensional.
Even though Aerius has a very good imaging for what it is (a planar speaker), it is not able to give the kind of 'holographic' 3D picture that a good cone speaker is capable of.My friend has his Aerius partnered with very good (and expensive) Aronov amplifiers and Meridian CDP (better than my electronics, for sure!), but he was astonished when once he visited my house when I had a pair of ProAc Response 1.5 on audition and he heard them.
He immediately noted their superior imaging to his beloved M-Logans.
By no means M-Logan is a slouch in terms of imaging and beats many comparable (price-wise) cone speakers, but it can't beat the best of them.
As for the Aerius's bass - it is very good. I think if you heard the Aerius producing 'fuzzy' bass it may indicate some problems with room/positioning or poor bass control on the amplifier's behalf (you can rule this one out if you think ARC is good at this:)
Now that you mention it, a half-year ago I listened the big Logans (not sure which...Odessey?) We switched from the 100 WPC ARC to a 200 WPC Classe - the Classe did have better bass control and just plain deeper. Other than said bass issues, I was suprised how similiar the 2 amps were. And true, the room could be a culprit...
I have Logan Aerius is a fairly large room. They lack bass which I make up for with a couple of subs, but I have found they image very well. I often times turn off my center channel because the Logans offer excellent center fill, plus their on a much better amp than my center.
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