System #164 (Vantage, Stage, Vignette, Grotto)

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Thai

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Location
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System #164 (Vantage, Stage, Vignette, Depth i)

1. Member Name: Thai

2. Location: Texas

3. ML Model(s): Vantage, Stage, Vignette, Depth i

4. Year Purchased: 12/06 - 7/17

5. Mods/Changes: None

6. Associated Electronics: See below

7. Orginal comments and/or stories about your Martin Logan experience: Amazing!! Our room is relatively small (17 x 11 x 10)...so, it does not require much volume before we get blown away.

My system is for home theater (90%) and music (10%).

Home Theater 5.1: (Updated 7/2017)
AV Receiver/Pre-amp/Processor = Denon AVR-4306
Amplifier = Sunfire TGA-7401
DVD/CD Player = LG UP970
Power Conditioner = Panamax M5100-EX
TV/Music Source = Apple TV

Flatpanel LCD = Sony BRAVIA KDL52XBR3

Front Towers = MartinLogan Vantage
Center Channel = MartinLogan Stage
Surrounds = MartinLogan Vignette
Subwoofer = MartinLogan Depth i

Entertainment rack = Z-Line Designs 40" TV Stand
 

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Looks nice Thai, what part of Texas are you in? Welcome aboard!

John
 
Hi Thai, welcome , nice Ht set-up you have there ! I noticed that it looks as if you have your speaker cable (signal) and power cord to the speakers wire-tied together ?? If so thats a big no - no, never run AC lines in parrell with audio signal carring lines, at least keep them seperated by a few inches.
 
Hi Thai, welcome , nice Ht set-up you have there ! I noticed that it looks as if you have your speaker cable (signal) and power cord to the speakers wire-tied together ?? If so thats a big no - no, never run AC lines in parrell with audio signal carring lines, at least keep them seperated by a few inches.

Oh...whoops. Ok, thanks...damn Tweeter installer!! Will fix it later today.
 
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Update: with Tweeter's 1 year upgrade policy, I upgraded my subwoofer to Depth i in place of Grotto.
 

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Update: with Tweeter's 1 year upgrade policy, I upgraded my subwoofer to Depth i in place of Grotto.

Nice upgrade! That is WWWAAAAYYYYYY more sub than you had before! How do you like it? Should produce not only beautiful music but enough energy to shake your house TOTALLY!
 
Nice upgrade! That is WWWAAAAYYYYYY more sub than you had before! How do you like it? Should produce not only beautiful music but enough energy to shake your house TOTALLY!

I must say that it is MUCH better so far...and i am still in the break-in period. The sound is deeper and more pronounced everywhere in the room. Previously, with the Grotto, the bass was higher in frequency and seems to come from the corner (where sub is)...at least, you can feel the bass from the corner. With the Depth i, the bass is more enveloping and more low subtle grunt and harder to feel where it's coming from...it is hard to put into words what i hear/feel...basically, Depth i is much more accurate and goes deeper. In addition, the trilinear subs design really works! The cabinet is dead silent!! I cannot tell if the sub is working by putting my hand on the cabinet. The Grotto used to vibrate (a little) with bass...not so with the Depth i.

I must say that it was a very nice upgrade to my system.
 
Thai,

Great to see your new sub. That's funny I just got my Depth i two weeks ago. I got the floor demo model at home but my dark cherry one should be in any day now. I agree it does exactly what it's supposed to do - integrate well with the music of the Vantages and provide the HT experience and feel of deep bass. I do not get any telling of where the bass is coming from.

Interesting, you placed yours in the rear. Do you like it better there instead of the front two corners? Mine is in the front corner kinda behind the left speaker. For me that is my only choice versus behind. So what do you think?

We have some similar setups. Did you pick or get another slave amp yet? I like my Rotel a lot, but I would like to audition some other high ends amps some day. But for me only two channel, since my Yamaha is handling the 5 ohm center and surrounds fine.

Brad
 
Brad,

I wish that i could place it up front. Your way is better. Two problems for me: 1. house builder put my sub channel in the back; and 2. I don't have any room up front for my sub behind the Vantages in the corners. If i had the room, then i would definitely go your route. I do crank up my 35 Hz dial on the Vantages to +1. My Depth i is at Level 4; Phase 90; 25 Hz dial at +0.5. What are your settings??

I have not added an amp because my house needs some new gates...thus, this is where most of my tax return is going!:( In addition, my room is small and i use my setup for mostly HT. The volume on my receiver goes at highest to -21 or so (this is loud enough for my wife and my ears)...and to THAT volume, my receiver has been great so far...no clipping even with the most demanding movies. Therefore, i am going to hold off on an amp for now.
 
Thai,

This is my recommendation after carefully reviewing your pictures of your room and our discussions:

1) How far back are your ears to each speaker and how far apart is each speaker (center line to center line)?

From the picture your listening reference point seems to be quite far back in a 16' deep room. Maybe move the sitting position forward and/or move the speakers forward.

2) By moving the speakers forward you have plenty of room to put the sub in a front corner behind a Vantage for a more ideal location. Actually the Vantages probably like more distance from the front wall. I wish I had more room to play with from the wall.

3) Get another LFE RCA and connect the sub to the AVR. Abandon the original sub RCA in the walls. Also, you now can plug the sub into your power conditioner.

4) I know you don't listen a lot to 2-channel, but get two speaker wires and connect the speaker line level of the sub to the back of the AVR. This helps the bass for two channel listening.

5) Sub settings are mostly dependent on room size and what's in it for acoustical properties. Even so, I have my left Vantage at +2db (near the sub) and my right Vantage at +3 to 4db (has more room opening on that side). Phase at 90 degrees. I have my Depth i set at +2db, volume at say 4.5 for stereo and 5-6 for HT. Depends on the content. I have my x-over at 45 hz, but will still experiment at 35 etc.

I am trying to remember where I left my x-over on my AVR at. I think it may be 50 hz. I set my Vantages at large and my Montages can handle large as well. You should keep only the Vantages set to large. I am not sure for your center though. So far I like what I hear, but always tweak, tweak and more tweak.

I have both sub connections: LFE to my AVR and speaker line level to my slave amp. My Vantage speaker wires are spade lugs to the amp and bananas wires connect to the sub. I will eventually go to pre-outs when I get a pre-amp with them.

6) Keep in mind the Depth i I have found is very sensitive to distant from each wall in the corner. ML in the manual recommends 2” from the speaker face plate to the wall. I can’t get that and I have about a “fist” width between the walls and face plate. I really like my setup so far.

I read you’re looking for amp advice thread that I thought has lots of good discussions, so I thought you were going that way. Hey you could always do what I am doing and spend $800 ($1000 MSRP) for a new Rotel RB-1080 200wpc (cheaper used). Let the slave amp power the Vantages and the Denon power the center and surrounds. That would take a lot of duty off the Denon because of the low impedance of the speakers. As you know the Vantage and center are killer on amps. Your rear surrounds are not that bad.

Good luck.

Brad
 
Brad, thanks for the tips. Well, if i move the Vantages forward, then my center (Stage) would have to move too (i want them to be as close to being on the same plane as possible), which means that my whole rack has to move too. Not an option for me, at least aesthetically.

Since my room is narrow and entrance is narrow (as it is now), it will be tight if i move the couch forward.

But, i will make measurements today to see if i can squeeze the Depth i up front. It will be tight for sure.

On my Denon in PURE DIRECT mode, the sub is ON (aka 2.1)...crossed over at 40 Hz.

On HT (5.1), my Vantages are crossed over at 40 Hz, Stage at 80 Hz, Vignettes at 80 Hz, and Depth i is crossed at 80 Hz. All my speakers are SMALL, as per Audyssey and THX recommendations.

Well, gotta go do some measurements.:)
 
Thai,

In an ideal world to have those three speakers in a center plane is nice. But you have competing optimizations and therefor priortize which are most important. I think most important is to get the Vantages further a way from the wall and the 1/3 toe in to start. Then get that sub located as discussed. Leave the stand and rig as is. In the AVR you can adjust the speaker distances and +/- db to compensate for the speaker location changes.

If you look at most peoples rigs that also have HT duty, they don't concentrate on having the three speakers in the same plane. I don't with mine and with the adjustments sound perfectly fine. Actually better because I concentrated on optimal placement of the Vantages and the sub. The center will fall in line with the adjustments noted above.

I understand the couch must be tight and the pictures don't show it very well. After measurements you can look at alternatives to optimize.

FWIW, my Depth i and Vantage speaker are pretty close as well, but function well.

It looks like your HT5.1 settings are fine, except I would make the Vantages "large". The reference standards don't always know we have amped woofers for pronounced bass. Try the change, you will like what you hear. ;)

My AVR in "Pure Direct" mode cuts out the LFE subwoofer and surrounds for only two channel only listening. The surrounds are cutout as well, unless I use pre-outs. That is also one reason why I like to connect the speaker line level to the amp as well. I talked to ML reps and this is what they recommended me to do. Try connecting it both ways that I mentioned before and per the op manual.

Take care and good luck.

Brad
 
Brad,

My Vantages are a little over 2.5 feet away from the back wall...and about 2 feet from sidewall. For both asesthetic and sonic reasons, i prefer the 3 major speakers up front to be similar. Since my room is small, it would look really weird to have my Vantages way forward of the my entertainment rack & center channel.

In addition, since my system is mainly HT, the center channel is utmost important sonically...and thus, i do want my Vantages to blend with the center channel (without too much of boosting dBs to correct for distances). This is why i went with the Stage along with the Vantages up front so that all three have the same "sound."

In Pure Direct mode, the Vantages become important...and so far, they are spectacular.:) In this mode, the Vantages are LARGE. I have turned the Subwoofer OFF. The Vantages in this mode does produce good accurate bass.

In HT mode, i prefer my Vantages to be SMALL because i was not that impress with the deep bass on the Vantages in heavy bass movie scenes. And IMHO, an 8" woofer in a very small cabinet has limitations (powered or not) and can never produce the bass that is needed in a movie. And this is why i upgraded to the Depth i to get more grunt below 50 Hz. In addition, bass coming from different directions (as is the case with MY SETUP) can cause a lot of problems with bass output (or so i have read). The Depth i makes a good addition to my system...even better than i initially anticipated.:)
 
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I have reorganized my theater room so that i can now fit my Depth "i" in the front of the room where it belongs. It just fits in there.... :)

Next week...i will have PS3 40 GB in the theater room to serve as my DVD/BR player.
 

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Here is my PS3:
 

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Nice System!

Hi Thai - Nice System! My system is very similar to yours except you have the better Center. I have been contemplating a separate amp for a while now. I would be very interested in finding out the differences before and after the addition of the Sunfire. Let me know. Thanks.
 
Hi Thai - Nice System! My system is very similar to yours except you have the better Center. I have been contemplating a separate amp for a while now. I would be very interested in finding out the differences before and after the addition of the Sunfire. Let me know. Thanks.

You're not kidding...very similar system! Will keep you posted.
 
Finally got it...installed it...adjusted it (via Audyssey). The sound seems a little bit clearer (esp. at higher volumes) and the volume can go higher without feeling like my speakers are strained (or AVR's amp strain, not sure). I need more time to fully evaluate...but i think that my Denon AVR was a pretty decent amp, so this may explain the lack of earth shattering differences. In addition, my room is fairly small...so, this upgrade was as much for sound as to complete my setup. :eek:
 

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