What's Going On With Martin Logan?

Mobiusman

Well-Known Member
May 24, 2010
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Jersey Shore- waterside
As a former very enthusiastic owner of 4 different pairs of Martin Logan speakers, I have been very puzzled during the past several years as the company has reduced its dealership network, brought out a seemingly endless string of low and lower price speakers and seemingly laying the groundwork to abandon the high end. Even at CES this year they were pushing their lower price products.

I am aware that several years back Paradigm bought the company and has been making changes that suggest that they are looking to make Paradigm the more prestigious line. BUT, I must say that I was totally unprepared to see that the ML CLX 25th Anniversary advertised in Audio Advisor for $14,999.98 per pair, a discount of $10,000.02 from a company that is famous for cutting off dealers for discounting more than 3-5%.

Anybody have an insights as to what is going on with this once venerable company?
 

Phelonious Ponk

New Member
Jun 30, 2010
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As a former very enthusiastic owner of 4 different pairs of Martin Logan speakers, I have been very puzzled during the past several years as the company has reduced its dealership network, brought out a seemingly endless string of low and lower price speakers and seemingly laying the groundwork to abandon the high end. Even at CES this year they were pushing their lower price products.

I am aware that several years back Paradigm bought the company and has been making changes that suggest that they are looking to make Paradigm the more prestigious line. BUT, I must say that I was totally unprepared to see that the ML CLX 25th Anniversary advertised in Audio Advisor for $14,999.98 per pair, a discount of $10,000.02 from a company that is famous for cutting off dealers for discounting more than 3-5%.

Anybody have an insights as to what is going on with this once venerable company?

They're trying to grow the company, and doing it rather well, in my opinion. Martin Logan's introduction of the more affordable Motion series is no different than B&W's inclusion of the M series and 6 series in their line, except for two very important things: 1) Differentiation between the lines is much clearer, divided between electrostatics and cones/ribbons. 2) ML's "budget" products are better than B&Ws.

MHO, of course, but stepping down from B&Ws 8-series speakers is clearly just that -- stepping down. But it's not hard to imagine some serious listeners actually preferring Martin-Logan's Motion series to their electrostats. They are unquestionably more "euphonic" (ie: warmer) while maintaining excellent extension and clarity, and their dispersion is much better for most listening situations. In fact, compared to the smaller ML hybrid electrostatics, I'd say the Motion 12 out-performs them on all fronts unless you are sitting in a very narrow sweet spot. Don't stand up or they become a very different, and lesser, speaker.

The bigger panels, of course, have a bigger sweet spot.

Back to the question at hand, ML is now owned by a pretty large company with distribution through a national retailer. It's not a boutique operation anymore and has developed a product for a broader market. And they did a great job. Hard to find anything wrong with any of that unless they abandon the big electrostatics that are their TOL.

Tim
 

ack

VIP/Donor & WBF Founding Member
May 6, 2010
6,774
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AudioAdvisor is selling their demo unit at apparently dealer cost. Martin Logan have had financial issues in recent years, and the official, most concise description is here by Peter Soderberg, and there are various other threads with insight by their marketing director on MLO like this one that explain some things - you'd have to read many of user "-justin-"'s posts to form a good picture. We have hammered them about their choice of CEO - the so-called "chimney guy" because of his previous background - but in the end it looks like Mr. Vojto has a firm hand on R&D, and this matters a lot.

Basically, the high end model didn't work for them and need to compete at lower price points as well, while at the same time not abandoning the high end. Things seem to have stabilized since that move.
 

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