Realism. That is the only standard by which to judge audio equipment reproducing source material.
What caught my attention was the way these speakers reproduced horns and piano. To my ears, almost all systems fall down when it comes to reproducing horns. Their frequency response curves may be flat, but there is something usually missing. With these Martin Logans, I was hearing it. Blatt, fullness, saliva in the mouthpiece, I dunno, whatever it was, it was not missing. I liked it.
So, then one of the sales people, whose situational awareness correctly identified me as interested, turned the volume up ... way up, painfully up. But, although a bit bright on top, they held up. I was kind of shocked. I turned the volume way down, and interestinly, they still held up at low volume. Sweet sounding.
So, how good were they? They had the sweet fullness and sense of live music that I associate with the best tube equipment and speakers. However, to say I did not do any critical listening is an understatement.
I blew one of my amps in my big system (Yamaha M80) so I have not listened to my Thiel CS3.6s for some time. I can't say for sure, but I think the Martin Logans may be better than the Thiels.
