Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Martin Logan

Today, I dropped by Futureshop and saw that they had in their showroom the Martin Logan Vista XStat. I've always been intrigued by ML and their electrostatic panel technology but never had a chance to hear them. They were not the speakers that were playing when I entered the room. So first, I just started to look at them, they look very good, very modern, seem very well made, and the fact that they have no other drivers than 1 woofer, just a see thru panel get my curiosity up, how in the hell is this thing suppose to work??? Of course, within 1 1/2 min, a sales rep comes to ask if I need any help, so I ask him if I can demo the ML. A BIG smile comes to his face (5K a pair = lots of commission). So he makes the necessary connections and puts in the BD player Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds. Unfortunately for him, this is right now my favorite BD concert and I know perfectly how it sounds on my M80s. I ask him to put on track nb 3 and start to listen. I have to say that I went with the intention to really like them, at 5K, I wanted to be blown away. Within 30s of the track, all my hopes were gone, very disappointing. I asked if there was some kind of EQ applied or DSP effect and he said no. I still listened to the whole track and a few sec of a couple of other tracks but nothing helped. They just sounded dull to me, the bass was not really good, Dave's voice didn't sound natural and the guitars... men, the guitars that sound so good, so detailed and crisp on my M80s... no details there... I felt like the speakers were shaming the concert.
So I told the salesman that I was expecting much better from these, specially at this price range and that they were definitely not worth the money. Of course, he looked at me like I was an idiot and said that if he would have the money, he would buy them and then quickly shut down the system, so I left.

I know that FS is far from being the best place to demo speakers, but could it be possible that these speakers that cost 4 times the price of the M80s could sound that bad? Could something had been wrong with the setup? Has anybody heard them and can confirm my experience?

Anyways, when I came home, I looked at the M80s and thought to myself: "men, I really like my speakers..."

So thank you Axiom for making such wonderful speakers at this price point.

Great story, Bruno!

Always fun to hear about situations like that. I had a similar one regarding Monitor Audio silver series RX-8.

I've listened to a few pair of MLs. I like them quite a bit, who knows how they had them set up. The ones you mention at 5K should have had some pretty hefty bass to them. When I listen to them I thought they were ever bit as good as the M80s and honestly somewhat better. Not that they were 5 times better mind you but they were good.

Even so, the M80s are a hell of a bargain.

Rick, you're reinforcing what I thought: maybe something wrong with the setup. At 5K I expected them to sound as good or better than the M80s. If FS wants to be able to sell these speakers to people that can appreciate good sound, they would better reconsider the way they give customers audition because in this particular case, they didn't sound good at all.