hi i'm scott newnam ceo of audio advice today i'm going to be covering
the martinlogan renaissance esl 15a which is an incredible speaker
i find it fitting that martinlogan chose to name their current high performance lineup
the masterpiece series as it conjures up ideas of incredible artwork or musical compositions the 15a
certainly fits this description without further ado let's get started
if you're not familiar with the term electrostatic speakers they use a very thin and lightweight
diaphragm sitting between charged panels electrostatic speakers have some inherent design
advantages the diaphragm is far lighter than any other type of speaker material and there's
far more surface area however this type of panel historically had two major disadvantages
that martinlogan had to address the first is that electrostatic panels don't naturally produce deep
bass like cone speakers the second is that they tend to roll off high frequencies pretty quickly
as you move out of the sweet spot between the speakers martinlogan's goal has always been
to push electrostatic technology to the limit to improve dispersion and power handling to enhance
the bottom end capabilities of their electrostatic speakers by carefully blending them with more
conventional woofer designs to give you a sense of how well martinlogan has accomplished their goal
i'll tell you a little story from when i was first touring audio advice nearly 15 years
ago i was evaluating joining the audio advice team and the founder leon shaw was touring
me through the rally showroom i spent hours in multiple theaters and audio listening rooms
when i was done leon asked me which audio setup sounded the best to me at the time there were no
price tags on any of the equipment i answered quickly that the room with the high end martinlogans
was the best sounding room to me as a sax player myself i found those speakers so accurate
fast and lifelike that it was shocking what he then told me was that the martinlogan speakers i
had selected were nearly ten thousand dollars less than the speakers i had just heard in another room
scroll forward to today and i have my own pair of martinlogan 13a's in my own home so you can
get a sense of how much i love these speakers most people are wowed by the sleek design and
the see-through of the speakers like all the martinlogan electrostatic speakers the 15a
uses their patented curvilinear panel which gives it a very cool look the 15a panel crosses over to
a large enclosure with dual 12 inch woofers which provide super deep bass they will definitely make
a statement in your room as they are almost six feet tall 16 inches wide and about 29 inches deep
the great part is you can customize the look to fit your space the curvalinear panel comes in a
powder coated graphite gray finish but the woofer cabinet can be had in a variety of finish options
at their regular price you can get gloss black walnut or cherry upgraded automotive paint options
are available for an up charge and you can do pretty much any color you want you'll know the
second you start pulling these 140 pound speakers out of the box they are just made unbelievably
well the 15a is loaded with all kinds of great technology to deliver a sound that is amazingly
lifelike of course when you have a speaker that is almost six feet tall it certainly helps deliver
that big sound that makes it feel like the musicians are standing right in front of you
when ron sutherland and gail sanders were doing their first experiments on electrostatic panels
they found a way to produce deeper bass and create more audio output than before however
their larger groundbreaking design was still limited on dispersion with the same type of
narrow sweet spot all other panels at the time had the story goes it was during a late night
brainstorming session the two of them had the brilliant idea of making the panel curved in the
horizontal plane which solves a bunch of issues including opening up the sweet spot they first
displayed this at the consumer electronics show in 1982 and called it their cls panel this panel won
a ces design and engineering award and the order started coming in to this day martinlogan uses
what they call the curvilinear technology in all of their electrostatic panels when people first
started buying martinlogan speakers they paired up a variety of subwoofers with them to add that
last bottom octave the design team soon realized the performance would be better if they designed
a system with integrated woofers made to be a perfect match to the panel the 15a is one heck
of a great example of this type of matching as the tech used for the dual 12-inch drivers mates
up perfectly to the electrostatic panel let's look at the other great tech inside the renaissance 15a
martinlogan's microperf stator design allows the new cls x-stat panels to have almost twice
the exposed electrostatic surface that produces sound as compared to other electrostatic panels
of the same size with electrostatics you have to hold the panel between a charged grid
martinlogan developed what they call clear spar spacers that keep the optimum level of tension
on the diaphragm the result is even faster cleaner sound than electrostatic panels of the past
martinlogan's curvilinear line source cls electrostatic panel is gently curved
but designed to send very little sound to the sides thus reducing the detrimental effect of
the side wall reflections almost all of the sound comes directly at you from the main wave
and the rear reflected wave with almost no sidewall reflections controlled dispersion like you find in
the 15a's is one of the tricks to making it seem like the music is floating right in front of you
and float it certainly does in the 15a's it uses a panel that is 46 inches tall and 15 inches wide to
give you 690 square inches of radiating surface area big sound is an understatement the early
martinlogan electrostatic speakers had pretty large frames to hold the panel in place since the
sound of an electrostatic speaker is so pure you have to make sure the method you use to mount the
panel does not color the sound the martinlogan engineering team has been constantly improving
the mounting method and has developed what they refer to as airframe blade frames it took a lot of
experimentation to develop but what they came up with is an aerospace grade aluminum alloy that is
narrow in the front and tapers to a point in the rear this design yielded the least amount of
resonance and distortion plus it has a very cool look to the speaker on the bass side powered force
forward bass technology is the result of two martinlogan innovations first their powered force
design helps them get some pretty massive amounts of bass energy from a relatively small enclosure
the other tech forward force reduces the interactions of the room to give you smoother bass
the bass cabinet has two separate woofer enclosures under the electrostatic panel
the panel is mounted to the front of the enclosure which is pretty small from side to side but fairly
deep by using advanced crossover techniques with the dual 12 inch aluminum cone phase time aligned
woofers you get incredibly fast and detailed bass from the 15a's to have full control over
this great woofer system the 15a comes with two woofer powered amps that can produce up to 1,000
watts peak power for each of the two drivers these guys are incredibly powerful and get all the way
down to 22 hertz at 3 db down if you want superb and powerful bass but don't want to add additional
subs to your system these are a great option as they can fill virtually any room with endless bass
okay so let's look at the back of the speaker and just see what's on the back panel here this
is an rj45 connection when you run arc genesis room calibration on the speakers you'll actually
connect the two speakers using this connection here so that it will calibrate both speakers
the next thing you see is arc setup input so this is just where you connect in your arc cable
this turns arc on and off so you can listen to the speakers with it on or you can turn them
off for most people once you calibrate you're going to leave them on these are incredible wbt
connectors so they did not skimp on anything in terms of connectors and then right here you
have the ability to actually adjust your mid bass again for most people you're going to leave that
at zero and i'll talk a little bit about that in the tips and tricks you can actually adjust
also your bass level again for most people once you run arc these things have incredible ability
to play as deep as you want most people will leave this at zero and then finally you have
a light capability i actually leave this light on on and when the speakers power up and are playing
led light strip lights up below speakers and it just looks incredible particularly if you turn
off the lights while you're enjoying your music the large panel with these fast woofers also
gives you a far more sensitive speaker than most electrostatics with a sensitivity rating of 92 db
that means dynamic passages will just explode in front of you but you'll also hear those micro
detail level changes to volume that draw you deeper into the performance
the final but very important component in the speaker is the one you do not even see
the 15a uses martin logan's vojtko crossover design a speaker crossover is the component that splits
up the incoming signal and directs the bass to the woofer and the rest of the panel this may seem
quite simple but it is actually quite difficult to design a crossover that does not alter the
sound the martinlogan engineers actually went so far as to listen to different brands of the
same value of components to select the ones that not only measured great but also sounded the best
the vojtko design honestly brings great tech to the speakers but the real thing it does is it seemly
transitions between your highs and your lows between the woofer and these electrostatic panels
one of the challenges with any audio system is the impact the room has on the sound so one of
the big advantages of these speakers is that they have built-in room calibration capability at audio
advice we are big fans of anthem audio components one reason is their room correction system
you may not be aware but the same family who owns anthem also owns martinlogan and they
all share this great room correction calibration software called arc anthem room correction there
are numerous room correction systems on the market and we feel arc is one of the best if not the best
on the market even if you have a good sounding room naturally don't underestimate the incredible
improvement you can get from using arc to even out the natural nodes and modes in your room once
you've calibrated your speakers arc just makes the bass sound so much faster and open which means it
blends even better with the electrostatic panel in the 15a one thing to note is that the speakers
don't come with the arc microphone kit which is a little comical given the price of these speakers
so be sure to get the kit if you're gonna set these up yourself we have them available at audio
advice if you need one the 15a is an electrostatic that can give you the full dynamic impact of a
symphony orchestra yet reveal the slight draw of breath as a singer pauses with realism that makes
you think the concert is in your room are they expensive yes do they deliver unbelievable sound
yes we recently got this pair of black gloss 15a's for our raleigh showroom our team set them up in
the high performance room with an audio research stack the room is just over 20 feet wide and 14
feet deep through the setup process we ended up with the speakers about 18 inches off the back
wall 9 feet apart and a little over 10 feet each from the main listening chair this room
has hosted many incredible speakers including wilson's vandersteins b&ws and many other top
speakers so we have a good sense of how it should sound we tested multiple sources including vinyl
cd and high resolution music streamed via roon the first thing that really jumps out at you with
these speakers is how easily they fill the room because electrostatics are superb at reproducing
string and other acoustical instruments i started with a listening session from mahler's symphony
number two as you might imagine the sense of space and the precise reproduction of every instrument
is stellar on these speakers if you close your eyes you will believe the strings and symphony are
sitting right in front of you through the quieter passages you'll hear the bows cutting across the
strings and when the entire symphony and timpani drums come in the power of these speakers and the
dual 12 inch woofers is simply astounding i then tested a totally different track called the real
from a canadian group called busty and the bass if you want to really hear your system rock
try this song this song opens with horns upfront vocals and deep bass that only builds with more
and more instruments the 15a's image the vocals perfectly in the middle while placing each of the
horn instruments across the stage in the slower and softer keyboard parts of the song you will
hear every micro detail then you'll feel the room fill as it builds into the chorus i then changed
genres completely to this is me from the greatest showman this song opens very softly with nothing
but kayla settles voice and soft keyboards you'll find that the 15a's are just fabulous with vocals
the one thing i really look for in this cut as it builds is the ability for the 15as to seamlessly
transition from the electrostatic speakers to the 12 inch woofers historically this has been where
electrostatics have struggled i have to say that the martinlogans really nailed it with these they
have truly achieved an incredible feat maintaining the speed and resolution of the electrostatics
while bringing in terrific mid-range and bass every instrument in the harmonics across the
frequency spectrum truly sang on these speakers it's probably obvious at this point that we really
loved these speakers and plan for them to live in our high performance room for a long time
so what's not to love about these speakers well the first is the price at $25,000 these are very
expensive speakers if you're on a budget it just does not matter how great these sound
you may not be able to afford them the second item is that the speakers are powered which brings a
lot of great advantages but also means that you have to provide electrical power to each speaker
there are some rooms where this is just not easy finally if you have a very small listening room
these speakers may be overkill and you should look at the 13a's which are very similar
but slightly smaller and with 10 inch subs versus 12 inch subs if you're loving the concept
of getting martinlogan masterpiece speakers but i'm not sure if you've got the funds for the 15as
check out our review of the entire masterpiece series lineup where i compare and contrast the esl
9's 11a's 13a's and 15a's if you're the type of person who loves music and it brings you incredible joy
and happiness then it's worth putting the price of these speakers into perspective related to the
cost of vacations luxury homes and luxury vehicles because these speakers are also visually stunning
the other buyer we find in these speakers is a luxury buyer who's worked really hard to make
money but wants the best sound and matching look these bring like we do for many high performance
products we also produced here at audio advice a super detailed setup and tips and tricks guide
for the entire line of masterpiece series speakers that we send out with all purchases it covers how
to perfectly place and set them up room acoustics and calibrating the speakers using arc genesis
we even have a super in-depth video specifically on getting the most from arc genesis itself
if you're considering these speakers or trying to figure out which ones are best for you
give us a call or chat with us at audioadvice.com or swing by one of our north carolina showrooms
many of our team members have lived with many of the major speaker brands and now have martinlogans
in their own homes so you'll find we have a lot of personal experience we can share with you
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on audio video and home theaters thanks for watching and we'll see you next time