Better late than never

I'm the proud owner of a pair of Spires! Never owned ELS or planar speakers before but always envied the wonderfully clear soundstage and transient response. Here's how I got here:

My trusty ADS 1590 bi-amped speakers of 25 years finally gave out a few months ago. My initial reaction was to try and fix them. I had partial success before additional failures made me question throwing good money after bad.

This gave me the opportunity to listen to current speakers out there. I initially started auditioning traditional "box" speakers. Then, one of the shops I visited the had ML's and so I asked to listen to them... there was no going back!

I have never been so happy, so emotionally involved, so in awe of the lifelike realism of the sound they produce! I was hooked! I then found several other ML dealers and went to each shop to compare sound, policies, and prices. It was between the Spires and Vantages. Ultimately, I really felt the Spires provided a thicker, fuller, warmer, richer even more life-like sound. I figured that the cost difference amortized over another 25 happy years was justified.

That's the great news!

The not so good news is that I can't get them to sound as awesome at home as when I heard them. Granted, they only have a few days worth of music playing on them, and I've done an entire upgrade to my home theater, so everything is new: speakers, speaker cables, AVR, etc.

I'm looking for some expert advice on what I need to do to get the awesome sound that got me hooked. I've already perused the site for some ideas and will further elaborate on my current setup. However, since I'm just introducing myself, I don't want to ramble on excessively. To help you guide me, I will briefly note the sound characteristics that I heard in several showrooms vs. what I hear at home with barely a few days of listening:

Showroom:
Image was rock-solid, centered between speakers. Couldn't even discern that any sound was coming directly from speakers themselves. Female voice on my eval CD was warm and full; Backup singers had presence; Sax sound was full and with weight--like the real thing; Drum sticks sounded wooden as they are.

My Living Room:
Image is good between speakers. Some sounds occasionally appear to come from speakers themselves (speakers not invisible, as above). Female voice on my eval CD is natural if slightly edgy and not as full or rich sounding; Backup singers do not come through with as much presence; Sax sound was medium, not thick and lush; Drum sticks sounded more metallic than wooden.

Any immediate thoughts or advice before I get into more details of setup, etc.?

I am really happy that this forum dedicated to ML owners exists and I look forward discussions and advice!

Regards,
ANDREW

Welcome Andrew

I'm sure others more qualified will answer your question better.
But both the panels and woofers will take time to break in.
I believe most users report break in to take about 100 hours.
They should get better sounding as they break in.

I'll let the experts comment about amplification, rooom acoustics, placement, toe in, and rake.

DC-Audiophile said:

This gave me the opportunity to listen to current speakers out there. I initially started auditioning traditional "box" speakers. Then, one of the shops I visited the had ML's and so I asked to listen to them... there was no going back!

Click to expand...

congrats on the new speakers. can you give us room dimensions and a equipment list and approximation of placement a pic would be best. these really need to break in although they are finicky to the room for sure,

Congrats and welcome...

DC-Audiophile said:

The not so good news is that I can't get them to sound as awesome at home as when I heard them. I've done an entire upgrade to my home theater, so everything is new: speakers, speaker cables, AVR, etc.

Click to expand...

Andrew, Welcome !

In order to get out of your Spire's what you heard in the showroom, is to replicate it as close as possible. Your room.....distance from front, back and side wall positioning, speaker center-to-center distance, toe-in, rake, etc. Acoustic treatments, corner bass trapping, first point of refection, etc.

After all of the above then all your upstream componetry comes into consideration.......... yes you have your work cut out for you, but then it's part of the journey / fun ! :music:

Welcome and congrats!!

Everything that everyone else has said is very important. Equally important is for us to know what amplifier are you driving the Spires with.

DC-Audiophile said:

My Living Room:
Image is good between speakers. Some sounds occasionally appear to come from speakers themselves (speakers not invisible, as above). Female voice on my eval CD is natural if slightly edgy and not as full or rich sounding; Backup singers do not come through with as much presence; Sax sound was medium, not thick and lush; Drum sticks sounded more metallic than wooden.

Click to expand...

Do you have glass (windows, etc) behind the speakers? ALL he symptoms you describe I experienced initially with my Summits in my prior home where I had some large windows behind the speakers.

My solution was some heavy sound absorbent window treatments and moving the speaks further out from the front wall.

First off, Welcome to the Site!

DC-Audiophile said:

I asked to listen to them... there was no going back!

Click to expand...

Yeah, we hear that a lot around here.

DC-Audiophile said:

The not so good news is that I can't get them to sound as awesome at home as when I heard them. Granted, they only have a few days worth of music playing on them, and I've done an entire upgrade to my home theater, so everything is new: speakers, speaker cables, AVR, etc.

Click to expand...

First of all, do not judge the sound of your speakers or attempt to tweak setup until they are broken in sufficiently. They need at least a hundred hours of relatively loud music played on them before they are going to start sounding as they should. The woofers and, to a lesser extent, the panels, must be broken in before you will get proper sound. It is pretty useless to try to tweak the setup until that occurs.

While they are being broken in, I suggest you read your manuals thoroughly and then do a lot of research on this forum. There is a ton of information on this forum about how to properly set up these speakers.
Dipole speakers are a little more difficult to set up than normal box speakers, due to their nature and the room interactions. But following the advice here, you will be able to get your speakers to sound their very best. If you set them up properly and have quality equipment upstream, you should be able to get them to sound much better than what you heard in the dealer showroom.

Good luck, take your time, and enjoy the process. Once they are broken in and dialed in, you will be amazed at the sound.

It seems that the spires have become a very popular speaker. when it first came out I wondered how it would do.

Welcome DC-Audiophile. Burn in is always needed on new speakers. What amp are you running on them? Ribbon speakers love power.

engtaz said:

Ribbon speakers love power.

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Engtaz, while the above is a correct statement, it does not correctly describe Martin Logans. ML speakers are not ribbon speakers; they are electrostatic speakers. Magnepans are an example of ribbon speakers. It is an entirely different technology. I think ribbon speakers are actually more power-hungry than electrostatics.

Wow, what a wonderful welcome! Thanks all for your kind words and suggestions! I will soon post either a diagram or picture of my room. Right now its a mess with the furniture in parts while I re-wire and install new equipment.

I'm driving them with the new Arcam AVR600, a very musical AVR with over 150w into 4 ohms. The 600 has a direct mode that not only passes analog signal directly, it also shuts down all digital processing. Essentially giving me a high quality integrated amp for 2-channel stereo listening. However, for my 5.1 system, it now has all the upgraded codecs for lossless movie sound tracks. I have Kimber intercommects and speaker cable going to a Pioneer BDP-51FD which does double-duty as BD/DVD through HDMI and CD playback through analog.

I was a separates guy years back but due to space and aesthetic constraints/preferences, I've gone more for the integrated approach. The AVR600 replaces my prior Marantz SR-19. In the day, I wasn't too concerned with its amplification as my ADS speakers had their own biamp modules. The Marantz only needed to fire up the center and surrounds. The AVR600 seemed to be the best all-around solution to upgrade everything at once, especially given that the Spire's have their own amp for the bass section.

I think that at this point its a room acoustic issue, which with the help of this forum and some experimenting I hope to resolve, though lots of variables to address!

This certainly will be a fun project!

More to come...

Sorry about the Ribbon slip. I know they are electrostatic speakers.

Congrats Andrew!! the break in time is so true for bot the speakers and the electronics. Wish I knew about the Arcam when I purchased my Rotel AVR; the reviews are intriguing..

I ran my AVR as much as I could for the first couple of months.. if I went out for a few hours or half a day, I'd stream music at a decent levels and now it's really sweetening up quite nicely.

Just give them the proper time to break in; you're working a double whammy breaking in bot the AVR and the speakers.. Once it 'comes to life', you can start tweaking placement, toe in, etc..
Enjoy! Sounds like a sweet system!

OK, so here goes...

First, some notes and information about my living room:
- All measurements are in inches and correspond only to the segment next to the measure. Ceiling height is 100".
- This is in an apartment building so interior walls are drywall, exterior walls are brick and floor/ceiling is concrete slab. Entire unit has wood floors.
- Open segments correspond to entry ways to/from foyer, dining room, study.
- The entry way to study has pocket doors which can be closed, though not depicted in the diagram.
- Each of the 2 large windows is covered with fabric blinds.
- There is a throw rug (not depicted) between the entertainment center and sectional, and as wide as the sectional.
- There is no throw rug in the open area of the living room, though I may soon lay one there.
- Driven by Pioneer BDP-51FD player, Arcam AVR600 in direct 2-channel mode.

Attachments:
PDF diagram I created this afternoon of my living room;
Older photo of entertainment wall with Spire cropped in as its currently a mess to show.

Next, some information on a store where I auditioned speakers which appears to have little to no accoustic treatment and they still sounded great, though only slightly less so than the store with lots of acoustic treatment:
- Store is wall-to-wall carpeted.
- Store ceiling is significantly higher than mine and a drop ceiling.
- Store does not appear to have any wall acoustic treatment.
- Store also has a window behind listener postion.
- Store also has corner next to left speaker, and open space next to right speaker.
- Store photo is stock and does not show Spires when I listened to them. However, I requested they be separated by about 9 feet and 29" from back wall to somewhat mimic my home conditions.
- Store dimensions overall larger than my living room and left speaker was not positioned as close to corner as mine inevitably will be.
- Driven by dedicated CD player, preamp and Sunfiire 2-channel stereo amp.
- They sounded significantly better than mine do now.

Attachments:
Stock photo of store showing where I sat and where the speakers where, as per above.

Final comments:
I've started doing some research on acoustic treatments and also have looked at several of your own setups which seem nothing short of amazing! I found references to ATS Acoustics and GIK Acoustics. Also, I found out about a company, Hy-Tech, which sells a sound reduction paint coating (http://www.hytechsales.com/prod150.html). I'm curious what you think of these.

Of course, I'm getting ahead of myself! Lets first figure out what the acoustic problem is, then figure out how to best solve it! That's where I'm hoping we can all work together and I can benefit from the years of collective experience this forum has!

Thanks to all for your comments. Now that I've provided the info on my end I can start addressing specific questions directly.

Regards,
ANDREW

MickeyVee said:

I ran my AVR as much as I could for the first couple of months.. if I went out for a few hours or half a day, I'd stream music at a decent levels and now it's really sweetening up quite nicely.

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I used a trick that Peter Moncrieff, who wrote the review in WSR suggested: Namely, find a CD with lots of brass instruments. Put it in repeat mode. Disconnect all speakers from the AVR. Set the AVR to PLIIx to drive all channels, even if its a 2-channel CD. Set the volume to about 76, just below clipping (this figure would be AVR specific). Let it run for 24 hours. Although it will not exercise the current fluctuations, it will exercise the voltage swings from the music. Again, no speakers should be connected.

I tried this yesterday and the AVR is sounding a little smoother today! The above suggestion was found on the extended version of the review.

theWB said:

Welcome Andrew

I'm sure others more qualified will answer your question better.
But both the panels and woofers will take time to break in.
I believe most users report break in to take about 100 hours.
They should get better sounding as they break in.

I'll let the experts comment about amplification, rooom acoustics, placement, toe in, and rake.

Click to expand...

Actually, the bass response seems pretty good so far! All I had to do was dial each speaker back by about 3db to reduce some boominess, most likely from the wall proximity.

Cheers!

DrJRapp said:

Do you have glass (windows, etc) behind the speakers? ALL he symptoms you describe I experienced initially with my Summits in my prior home where I had some large windows behind the speakers.

My solution was some heavy sound absorbent window treatments and moving the speaks further out from the front wall.

Click to expand...

I tried bringing the speakers further away from the wall today. They improved in some areas, though not in others. I also put many of my large sofa cushions on the wall (about 4ft) behind each speaker to see if this affected the tonality. Again, nothing definite. Is it too early to be experimenting while the speakers break in?

Rich said:

First off, Welcome to the Site!
...
Good luck, take your time, and enjoy the process. Once they are broken in and dialed in, you will be amazed at the sound.

Click to expand...

I think you're right. I'm chasing a moving train!

Hi and welcome to the club.

You definitely are doing all the right things to try and dial-in your setup.

The diagram you posted really helps to make determinations for recommendations.

So I downloaded the PDF and used in-document drawing and annotations (the red boxes and circles) to give you my specific feedback. Hover over item, and you will see the embedded comments for that object. There's a good bit in there. See updated version attached to this post.

Some general commentary:

With such an open and somewhat asymmetrical room, the treatments I recommended will help re-establish some of the balance in both imaging and spectral domains.

One of the big differences I believe you will note if you follow my recommendations is a much better focus of the image, especially from the dampening of the reflections from the wall behind your seating location.
Also, if possible, try and get the listeners head to be at least 3’ from the wall behind them for the smoothest bass and fewer reflections induced imaging issues.

It’s not that many pieces and they can be done in a way the fits décor.