When we had a zoom meet with the brothers O, they asked us why we carried many lines of electronics and (at the time) only one speaker line. In other words I guess, why we approached them in the first place. I said that it is our philosophy as a primarily turn key company to start with neutral loudspeakers and allow our customers to choose electronics that interact with the speakers in the way that they prefer, the way they prefer to listen.
Marten fits that bill as does VSA. Funny enough both have published +/- 2dB standards, perform well at single digit wattage and below remaining coherent at very low levels without becoming shouty when the fun starts that belie their sensitivity figures.( It's very easy to come to this conclusion with realtime meters on your amplifiers and a reason senstitivity figures IMO are highly over rated vs performance.) They follow the same low distortion philosophy, both have premium models offering improved internal wiring and have chief designers both named Leif. The similarities end there however. Marten's radiation pattern is one most box speaker people are used to. VSA has got their own XO thing going and the rear firing ambient array. That makes unassisted set up easier for the Martens. Being used to VSA, I had to take a step back and redo my set up procedure using more toe in than usual and using speaker to speaker distance more to solidify the summing area.
Basically we had been hearing them at the HK and Tokyo shows for years and had always heard them to be very promising which at a show is generally all you can hope for. When we heard the Septets we were convinced that they had made a jump and that we could very well match these with Lamm, Constellation, KR and CH or any other make we might add in the future while being different enough in presentation, models and pricing to VSA for them to coexist in a product matrix.
I'm just really starting the deep dive and I will need more time and access with more models but as of now, what I have found unique is that no other loudspeaker manufacturer I have heard has made passive radiators work so damn well. The continuity of timing and timbre makes me scratch my head. They sound more like aperiodic or sealed rather than ported but is actually its own thing and I believe part of their signature sound. This is as true of the Parker Trio as the MIngus Quintets and Septets that we have heard. When I can see that a manufacturer has spent a lot of effort on their lower lines, it gives me a lot of confidence with what they will do when cost constraints are lessened.
The only warning I would give to potential owners is to really allow the drivers and dielectrics settle in before passing judgement. We can't possibly fully burn in every speaker we import and that makes our show speakers very sought after. The change from out of the box to settled in is far more drastic than speakers that use soft diaphragm materials and little teflon in their parts. Not to mention going from casters to the iso feet.
Their ultimate performance depends on what is feeding them making them quite friendly for distributor and customer alike.
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