Heard the CLX today!!!!!!!!!

Burke, Cherian, and I had a fun afternoon. Don't need to sound repetitive, but everything you have heard from CAP, Tom, and others is true. Amazing musicality. The bass integration is to die for. The best I have ever heard.

The system was all Krell Evolution ($50-60K) and a Sim Audio CD player at times, as the Krell SACD player did not like ripped CDs. The Krell stuff is pretty analytical, but the system was awesome. The system pretty much got out of the way and we were listening to music, despite a not quite perfectly treated large room.

The speaker has BIG sound. Big, in a sense of a Monolith soundstage, yet with the speed, focus, and transparency of the Summit/ Vantage era speakers.

We ran into some issues when we juiced the volume. There was some distortion as the bass panel was vibrating so much on the left speaker, it kept jamming into the speaker. We even had shut down the Krell Monoblocks the first time we blasted the volume. Not quite sure what was going on there, but it happened only at high volumes.

An amazing speaker! It's the Logan sound, but exponentially better than the best of the other Logans!!!

You lucky fellow, you. Personally, I am hoping a pair will show up at the Hong Kong Hi-End show. But since the Chinese seem to be funny about the internet, I can't find any website coverage for it. I think I'll be lucky if there are some...

Hope there isn't a real issue with those bass panels and high volumes...

User211 said:

You lucky fellow, you. Personally, I am hoping a pair will show up at the Hong Kong Hi-End show. But since the Chinese seem to be funny about the internet, I can't find any website coverage for it. I think I'll be lucky if there are some...

Hope there isn't a real issue with those bass panels and high volumes...

Click to expand...

If I were lucky, I would be bringing them home tonight. As I was getting into the car, Burke gently suggested that I leave my car parked in front of the store front and take the speakers instead!

I hope you do get to hear them on your trip. There is nothing like mixing travel with other hobbies. You can probably call Martin Logan and they will let you know what their display plans are at the show.

David,

Since I am going to go anyway, I'll leave myself in suspense! More fun that way... and a REAL bonus if they show up!

Do you have any purchasing plans? Or are they a pipe-dream, so to speak? Hell, it's only a car, after all!

Justin

User211 said:

David,

Since I am going to go anyway, I'll leave myself in suspense! More fun that way... and a REAL bonus if they show up!

Do you have any purchasing plans? Or are they a pipe-dream, so to speak? Hell, it's only a car, after all!

Justin

Click to expand...

Realistically, not in the next 5 years, as my wife and I have other priorities in the short term. I will own them sometime in the future, though, unless my hearing goes.

After hearing them, I do know that some people will definitely retire later than they planned or incur a debt the were not expecting. They are that good.

Dave Thanks for the review.
Cherian and Burke your thoughts??
Burke, you know your the Chicago camera man. What happened??

CLX distortion

Do you know about the DB level when you heard the panels distort?If I was thinking about a $20,000 purchase this would definitely send up a red flag.Hopefully there was something else wrong and not the speaker.Please let us know what you are able to find out.Thank you.

The CLX are the best MLs I have listened too to date. The soundstage is as big as the Monoliths and I can say this from first hand experience. The sound coming from the panels is true detailed and clean. The bass coming from the panels was very good and the speakers did disappear. It was that transparent. My only comment about the bass is it is not chest thumping. You can hear it but you can not feel it. I think you will need a sub for that chest thumping feeling. Set the sub crossover as low as it can go and forget about it.

I’m not sure if it was a quality issue but when we cranked up the volume and I mean cranked it up the bass panels did distort badly (I have had my Monoliths louder). To the point we could hear crackling from the bass panels from both left and right side, and then the Krell monoblocks shut down. We re-set the amps and all was working. Again any time we turned up the volume the bass distortion was back. I could even hear the distortion at medium levels. Again I’m not sure if the cause was the speakers or amps.

The CLX is a winner without a doubt. I have listened to more costly speakers that did not sound as good. The CLX is good value for the money when compared to other speakers that cost twice as much. Don’t get me wrong $20k is out of my league but in 10 years on the used market who knows.

Cherian said:

I’m not sure if it was a quality issue but when we cranked up the volume and I mean cranked it up the bass panels did distort badly (I have had my Monoliths louder). To the point we could hear crackling from the bass panels from both left and right side, and then the Krell monoblocks shut down. We re-set the amps and all was working. Again any time we turned up the volume the bass distortion was back. I could even hear the distortion at medium levels. Again I’m not sure if the cause was the speakers or amps.

Click to expand...

I think if I had just dropped $70,000 on a system and this happened I would be a wee bit concerned.

Kevin

I don't know whether this helps, but I really don't think ML are going to market $20K speakers that distort at medium volume levels....

Always thought Krell amps were dodgy!!! But maybe the speakers WERE faulty...

User211 said:

Always thought Krell amps were dodgy!!! But maybe the speakers WERE faulty...

Click to expand...

I'm not a crazy about Krell amps sonically, however sonics aside, I think a lot of SS amps are going to have trouble driving those bass panels (with their enormous capacitance!) It might be necessary to use a couple of Roger Sanders' huge ESL monoblocks to drive the CLX's properly

Since no one else has mention bass distortion and this is the only time I've seen it mentioned that amps have shut down driving them, I would at least slightly suspect the amps weren't up to the job. If the amps were flat-lining I would think it to show as bass distortion as it nears a DC signal.

+1 on hearing them with Sanders Monoblocks.

I'd insist on it before dropping $20K on speakers.

Also, I believe they absolutely do need a sub. They are dipoles for crying out loud, they will never go deep enough without a sub.

The only question is what Crossover point? Seems like 60Hz or so would be a good place to start.

The amps that poweed the CLX were Krell Evolution 600 monoblocks. I would think these can drive a set of CLX with some ease. I guess I could be wrong.

Glad you guys heard what we were praising. As for the amps distorting , I dont know. Im sure there were the usual Sheffield Drum demo disc. That is a good one too. The sound with the Mac mono blocks in Seattle was LOUD and did not distort ! I say 100 db loud and better !

Cherian said:

The amps that poweed the CLX were Krell Evolution 600 monoblocks. I would think these can drive a set of CLX with some ease. I guess I could be wrong.

Click to expand...

I would not assume that nothing was wrong with the speakers. As soon as we sat down, Burke pointed out the reflection of light on the bass panel. It seemed like the left speaker's bass panel had much more movement than the one on the right. This was true across all recordings.

As for amps, I would want to hear with all the quality amps - Sanders, Pass, CJ 350, Mac, Ayre, etc.

For what it's worth, which is probably not much - I owned a Krell 400xi intigrated for a while. The 1st day I got it (powered my Magnepan 1.6s) I hooked it up and cranked it a bit (probably in the high 80 db range) after only about 30 minutes. Bass flap big time. After a couple of hours I tried it again and they went much louder with no sign of flap. The 400xi is known for running hot.
The only thing these 2 situations may have in common is that Krell was on the faceplate of the amps, but I wonder if the Krells you guys were listening to were warm. The 400xi took 2 hours or so to warm up.

Cherian said:

The amps that poweed the CLX were Krell Evolution 600 monoblocks. I would think these can drive a set of CLX with some ease. I guess I could be wrong.

Click to expand...

having built several high output speakers myself and having had electrostats as my sonic gold standards for years...it is most likely the panels exceeding their limits not the Krell monoblocks....I have yet to hear them but IMHO sounds as if the CLX is in definite need of support of at least a sub.

The third in the Party chimes in

I am going to echo what everyone before Tom, ... David and Cherian have said. These are absolutely the best Martin Logan has produced to date.

Precision Audio & Video had two pairs of CLXs that we were able to see, The 25th Anniversary edition, which we listened to and a pair in light cherry that they had just uncrated. The aluminum 25th Anniversay edition is the better looking of the two the grey anodized aluminum frame is fit so well that it seems to be one single piece of metal, They are also 50 lbs heavier than their wooden siblings. the fit and finish on the wood is first rate also but you can easily see the three pieces of wood that make up the frame.

Wayne, Sorry about the lack of photos in the rush out the door I forgot the camera. (An excuse to return one Monday afternoon, Precision Audio is four door north of the Green Mill).

Rather than say the same thing as everyone else I will just confirm it. I will also say that we did not hear the CLX under the best of conditions. Precision Audio is in the process of moving and the facility is still under construction, the room treatments were just laying up against the wall. The room was about 17 x 17 and the sweet spot was more than one person wide. If we sat in a line front to back all three of us could enjoy it at the same time. Also as Cherian has said you could walk all around the room and the sound was still very good, one speaker did not overpower the other as they do in my room.

As for the distortion that we all heard, my guess is that we were north of 110 db.

On the next trip I will bring the Sanders mono blocks with me and Dave will bring his BAT preamp. I also spoke with Albert Sportis about a home audition as well. A necessity as my room is small 11 x 14. I would dearly love a pair of these but I am sure they would not sound their best in such a small room and my wife is not going to give me another room that is for sure.

--burke

Horchem1972 said:

Do you know about the DB level when you heard the panels distort?If I was thinking about a $20,000 purchase this would definitely send up a red flag.Hopefully there was something else wrong and not the speaker.Please let us know what you are able to find out.Thank you.

Click to expand...

The electrostatic loudspeaker principle has a natural sound pressure limit,
about 120 dB/square meter of radiating area in a theoretically perfect
design. The CLX has about half a square meter of radiating area, but it's double membrane technology help things up a bit. However, a glance at the CLX bass panel tells me that the stator/membrane distance is pretty small
at 2,5 (?) millimeters and this can be the bass limiting factor of this speaker!

It's my humble opinion that ML designed the CLX to be accompanied by a good sub.