Best skiinny floorstanders

"HOLD" her up there cdc2 !

The root of the problem with your present system lays with the amp you’ve chosen to drive a 4 Ohm electrostatic speaker that’s 92dB efficient.

MartinLogan suggest using up to 500 watts of power to drive these speakers, you’re using a 70 watt Tube amp & you’re wondering why your system lacks dynamics in a room that’s 30ft long?


Before ditching the Marty’s get a hold of a 200 watt into 8 Ohm/ 400 watt into 4 Ohm SS amp, (borrow it for a week or 2) . A Threshold, a Krell, Sim Moon, Mark Levinson, what ever, just a good quality amp with lots of headroom. That will rectify your dynamics problem and more.


As for the sound stage? I heard the Ethos driven by Sim Audio separates in London, my only reaction was - wow ..... I also heard the bigger predecessor of Ethos driven with lower powered Naim separates and with a Krell KAV-400xi integrated amp. Driven by the KAV-400xi the Marty’s were in another league altogether than when played with the Nain stuff.

You’ve also got your equipment selection path back to front.
If you’re dead set on switching back to speakers with conventional drivers, that’s where your Prima monos will shine, but even then I’d look for a speaker that’s "more" efficient than the 91db Gibbon Super 9’s in a 30ft long room with that amp. (That’s no knock to the Gibbon’s).


A caveat in closing, by their nature skinny speakers are hard to drive, so that reduces the elasticity of your Prologue Sevens. Now if you were looking at a pair of Klipsch Horns the Prima’s would be the bee’s knees.

Here’s the two solutions I suggest, stick with a Tube pre-amp (if that’s what you have), and ditch the PrimaLuna. It’s a really nice amp, but it just isn’t conducive with the application you seak, either your MartinLogan’s, or a skinny dynamic speaker, or a 18’X30’ foot room.

#1: Get a good SS amp as I suggested above to go with a Tube pre-amp and keep your MartinLogan’s.

#2: Get a skinny, inefficient conventional speaker, such as a used PMC Fact 12, Focal Electra 1028 Be, Vienna Acoustics, the Gibbon Super 9’s, stick with a Tube pre-amp, and drive your speakers with a 200watt ANTIQUE SOUND LAB HURRICANE amp.


Hope this helps & enjoy the music.

Electrostatic speakers really brings out acoustic, and chamber music type recordings.  If this is what you are used to, then to ease your imaging, space and soundstage addiction, I'd recommend a style of speaker which has di-pole (sp?) arrangement where at a minimum, there is a tweeter that fires at the rear of the upper speaker's cabinet.  This will add to space and soundstage.  When I look for speakers, I look at the mid and tweeter manufacturer they use.  I am particularly fond of Focal/JM Lab drivers and speakers for that matter.  In my main system, I have Von Schweikert VR6 speakers that use Focal's wonderful tweeter firing forward and from the rear in a di-pole manner.  This speaker while not skinny, is an imaging, space, soundstage, air all around champ.  When I play Charlotte Chuch's Ave Maria, it almost brings tears to my eyes - hah!  In my second system, I have JM Lab Mezzo Utopia speakers; these speakers are fabulous also, they literally disappear and then the ethereal experience begins, but with less air, space and ambiance that my VR6s bring.  Focal drivers, especially the mid and tweeter drivers are something real special.  Back to "skinny" speakers, I saw on Ebay a seller I think located in South Orange County California who is selling a set of nice looking JM Lab Divas.  These are skinny; the pair of 8 inch woofers fire from the side rather than straight ahead like conventional cabinets; bass is non directional so this should not matter much.  They are substantially less than the budget you listed; I seem to remember they were close to the $5K mark.  I hope my rambling reply helps.  Cheers!  

Goldenear Triton Ones, One Rs or Reference. The Refs are taller and glossy, the One Rs shorter and glossy, the Ones are the same height as One Rs but have the original covered ’sock’ design. All sound wonderful, but I’d go with the taller Refs if you can.

Another +1 for GoldenEar