My Constant State of Change System...

[cube-tube]

Gorgeous!

Thank you Barry!

I have to say, the previous owner took extremely good care of these SL3's over the years, and of course I have over the past 5 or so years that I've owned them. There's literally not a mark on them anywhere, and they still sound superb. No lack of output or recessed treble or hiss coming from the panels that others have with older models. The overall output of the panels are still equal to the woofers, and the treble is still crisp and airy, and that lovely, full bodied midrange that gives instruments and vocals that "real" weight and body. Some say and believe to this day that the SL3 was one of the best designs that Martin Logan came out with, and I believe it.

I've had the chance to hear a couple of the new models such as the entry level ElectroMotion ESL and the much larger and costly Expression ESL 13A. Both models had the same traits of being too bright and a thin midrange, having no warmth or life of any kind. I can't comment on the bass as both systems were running subs. In the end, I was not impressed with either, and actually down right disappointed, especially with the 13A. If I had $15k to throw at a pair of speakers, I would pass up the 13A's and just have new panels made up for my SL3's, have the power supplies updated if needed, and the crossovers updated/upgraded and use the rest of the money on some bigger, bit more powerful amplifiers.

And speaking of amplifiers, the little Schiit Aegir amplifiers sound amazing with these speakers. I'd say they're a perfect match. The only issue is that these speakers are a nominal 4 ohm load with peaks of up to 16 ohms and dips down to 1.5 ohms. The Aegir amps are rated at 80 watts @ 8 ohms mono but are said to be able to run at 160 watts @ 4 ohms, though this is not stated in the manual or on Schiit's website anywhere, ONLY the 8 ohm mono rating. With these speakers and their crazy impedance swings, they have the habit of shutting the amplifiers down if pushed a little too hard. No extra heat, no distortion or clipping, they just shut down. I chalk this up to them simply not being able to handle those impedance swings, especially that dip down to 1.5 ohms. And the thing is, they get comfortably loud in my small room and can usually play all day like that. It's just sometimes there will be a small dynamic peak that's not even loud, but is strong enough to trip the amps into protection mode. This has only happened three times in the past 2+ weeks of me playing them.

Anyway, I didn't mean to go into a rant here. Sorry. LOL

[Firebottle]

Yes very peaky impedance plot, with 3 ohm dips at 70Hz and around 1.9kHz and 1.5 ohm at 20kHz.

Might sound a bit counter intuitive but I would try adding a 1 ohm high wattage resistor in series to see if the protection mode can be prevented.
You could try a lower wattage resistor at low volume levels as a trial to see if the sound is altered too much.

[cube-tube]

Yes very peaky impedance plot, with 3 ohm dips at 70Hz and around 1.9kHz and 1.5 ohm at 20kHz.

Might sound a bit counter intuitive but I would try adding a 1 ohm high wattage resistor in series to see if the protection mode can be prevented.
You could try a lower wattage resistor at low volume levels as a trial to see if the sound is altered too much.

Kind of like a make-shift Zobel network to help flatten the impedance?

Interesting but don't think I'm going to worry about it too much. The amps only tripped on two different movies that had a lot of action going on at the time, the third on a light drum solo on a jazz album. All it took was a certain snare drum hit that knocked out the right channel amp.

[Macca]

You need a Krell for them.

[cube-tube]

You need a Krell for them.

You pay for it.

[Macca]

[cube-tube]

Well the Aegir amps are up for sale, and in the meantime, I have a minty Roksan Caspian Mk I amp in place. Also removed the DAT recorder. That will be moved to the cassette deck stack in the rear of the room.

[drSM]

constant state of change indeed . its hard to keep up!
Are you using the dbx Venu 360 in the system at all.
If so how ?

[cube-tube]

For one reason or another, the system is always changing. Sometimes for longer periods than others.

The dbx DriveRack Venu 360 is actually in the closet, decommissioned for the time being.

[cube-tube]

Here's the latest, with the 22 year old Roksan Caspian powering the 22 year old Martin Logan SL3's. Surprisingly, a fantastic combo! Also swapped in the old NOS 1930's RCA 6F8G tubes into the preamp stage of the Freya+, keeping the stock JJ 6SN7's in the voltage stage.