Why Do Martin Logan Speakers Lack Dynamic Energy?


Martin Logan speakers have a huge open soundstage, vivid midrange and excellent detail, better than some of the best speakers in the world.

The only thing that most Martin Logan speakers lack in their respective price range is dynamic energy. What I mean by dynamic energy is sonic weight, mid-bass slam and movement of air that only cone drivers seem to produce (unless you're talking about the Martin Logan Statements). Speakers like Wilson, Revel or Aerial Acoustics have great dynamic energy, so why can't Martin Logan build a speaker cheaper than $80,000 that has it too?
mab
You already post this at the Martinloganowners.com forum page just recently isn't it?

(http://martinloganowners.com/forum/messages/2413.html)

I am glad you finally found your answer. That thread is loonnnnggg!
I have used the original Quad, Acoustat 2+2, and Martin Logan CLS as midrange reference transducers over the past 27 years. I like their lack of cabinet resonance and single-driver coherence; however, they all exhibit tremendous dynamic compression from a mechanical standpoint. At Cal Tech, we used a laser interferometry setup to measure the dynamic range as referenced to excursion potential vs. voltage. As the electrostatic diaphragms are stretched very tightly and have no elastic edge surround, they have a finite limitation on excursion potential, no matter how much more voltage you input. Initially, the diaphragm will move on a 1:1 scale, but rapidly, the excursion does not follow the input voltage, resulting in a very high degree of compression of the signal. This is the source of "lack" of dynamic range that most listeners pick up on. Most cone systems do not compress until very high volume levels are reached.
Albert Von Schweikert
Albertvonn, thanks for the very informative post. At what volume levels did the compression start to set occur?
Get serious and buy yourself an active crossover and perhaps another pair of amps. Believe me, you haven't heard your Martin Logans if you haven't tried this set-up. You wil definitely get more air/volume/sound. Please be open-minded, try it out,you got nothing to loose except maybe a few hundreds there or another electronic paper weight. And besides, you can tweak the esl panel and bass woofer at the same time. And just perhaps reach your sonic nirvana!
I've also owned M-L, ribbons etc. But you cannot break the laws of physics. To get deep uncompressed bass you must move air. Stats just cannot give the excursion required to do this unless they are huge.