Anyone listened to ML Vantage?

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.

The spire looks nice. I just think the price/performance ratio of the martin logans has gotten worse with every model. Think about it the requests were the same or less the the ascents, the ascents less then the vantage. Its hard to truely say ml is developing smaller products that are better, or just speakers that dont cost as much to produce for larger somes of money with catchy names like micro perf and x-stat. Im not bad mouthing Logans, I love them. I do personally think the downsizing of the panels has serious negative effect. If this was true what would be the need to make the summitts panels bigger then the vantage to sound better? Because panel size makes a huge difference. I say give us ascent i size speakers with the newer technologies for $1k more then the $4300 ascent i MSRP, and a prodigy size panel with the new technologies with 1.5k-2k rize in price, then I could see ML is definately moving forward with performance with a fair mark up. Just my opinion. And I do need to got here the new logans for more time then Ive heard to have a valid opinion, but this sure seams fishy and a way from the popular martin logan company to make some profit. I will say since there new line of speakers you dont hear as much "buzz" as you used to. And little to no reviews, seams interesting.

Sorry for the bad spelling, typed in a hurry.

Well, since initially I was the '1st responder' to this thread, I feel obligated to add my .02...

I once owned the Summits (a GREAT speaker) but needed some cash for other home projects - so went down a step to the Vantages. I have owned these now for about 6 mos. and can honestly say I don't feel like I am giving up ANYTHING to the Summits. The Vantages are fabulous speakers. From the mids on up, I really don't think there is much of a discernable difference between the two - with one possible caveat. If you are in a huge room (say bigger than 20'x 30') the Summits WILL play a bit louder, with more ease. But considering that the Summits are TWICE the price, the law of diminishing returns really rears it's head pretty quickly here. There obviously isn't any where near a 50% improvement in sound.

Regarding panel size - yes, I think prior to the new 'X-Stat' models, the larger you went, the better they tended to sound, but the newer panels are MUCH more efficient, play louder, and as advertised, actually have a larger radiating area per sq. inch than the older, larger panels. I speak from some experience as I have owned Sequel II's, Aerius I's, ReQuests, Odysseys, Prodigys, Summits and now the Vantages. In fact, I actually feel that the narrower panel images better, with less 'venetian blind' effect and freq. changes with-slight-head-movements that used to occur with the larger panels.

Getting back to the Summits vs. Vantage - as an added bonus, the Vantages actually 'gel' better in the bass (in MY room) than the Summits did. Despite more controls on the bass units on the Summits, I could never completely eliminate a bass hump in the 80 hz-ish range, no matter what I tried. The Vantages might not go ultimately as deep, but they are faster and cleaner, again, in my room - go figure.