Anyone listened to ML Vantage?

I got a (brief) opportunity to listen in as a customer at a local dealer A-B'd the Vantage vs the Summit. The music wasn't my cup of tea - synth heavy rock- so I can't tell you much about the speakers in the absolute. I can say that, off the one listen - I'd choose the Vantage and pocket the difference. Whatever difference there is in deep bass between the 2 models wasn't really evident, despite music that was chosen (I assume) to allow the listener to discern just that. Ancillary equipment, room acoutics, etc probably didn't help.

FWIW-I had much the same reaction to an A-B of the Vandy 5A and Quattro. I suspect that the differences in ultimate capability of the pricier speakers would be more easily heard in a more carefully constructed demo. However, if your regular listening doesn't include appropriate source material, suitable ancillaries, room acoustics, etc-you may not hear much difference at home either. That's probably true in my case and the less expensive options would suit me just fine. YMMV.

Marty

Had the Vantage... now have the Summits.

Both are awesome speakers, the Vantage is obviously a cheaper entry-ticket to the sound of the two. I like the Vantage quite a bit and if it wasnt for a local deal on a pair of Summits, I would've probably stuck with the Vantages.

Joey

I know it's hard for somebody to belive but I've just sold my Wilson Sophia (owned pair of wilson watt puppy 6's) for a pair of Vantage. I know people are comparing older model martin logans to new ones but I've heard the panels are now lot tighter than before. Panel sizes do not play big factors like before. Having owned several logan lines, Quest z's, Odysseys and CLSiiz's, I'm here to let music lovers know, vantages are heck of a deal. Don't get me wrong, there are certain things Wilsons did better than Logans.....dynamics, certain highs were better, bigger sweet spots, play louder....but the speed and coherency of the logans are hard to beat. With high power tube amps, these speakers are very competitive in highend speaker markets. Guitar instruments, female vocals are absolutely stunning. As far as comparison to the summits, summits were bigger and deeper sounding due to bigger woofer size....and the panel cross over is different. Again, I don't think it's the panel size. Happy listening......

I personally think panel size does matter. The reason I used to love my magenpans and ascent's had alot to do with the wall of a sound they threw. If tradition speakers could match this wall of sound and keep the benifits of dynamics, etc, nobody would even consider panels. I think its that wall of sound that really takes them to another level. I do agree the logans have other advantages, but that wall of sound makes the speakers disapear. And while the term wall of sound may or may not be a audiophile term or something that may or may not be good, It makes music listening very real and definately makes you feel like the musicians are in front of you, which is more important to me, then how transparent, or how much detail is pulled from the recording. Panel speakers just make good music, you got to love them for that.

Ive owned ascent, ascent i's, aeon i's. My experience was the bigger the better, same with magnepan. If ml has managed to create as big of a sound out of a aeon size speaker as the ascent i's, I got to hear them! aeon i's had the famous microperf by the way, which is the way they claim to be able to downsize and keep same usable surface area, x stat is the only difference(crossovers).)

The new ML Spire, which uses the SAME panel as the Summit, but only ONE 10" front-firing woofer, seems to hit the sweet spot for performance and value.