Original Aerius vs Source

Hello All,

New to this post and would like your help. I have a pair of the original Aerius made in 1993. I replaced the panels about 9 years ago and I think they are due to be changed again. Considering the age of the speakers internal workings, would I be better off to purchase a new pair of Sources, which is within my budget, or get new panels for the Aerius. I'm driving them with an NAD T763 A/V receiver which is pretty clean. I haven't heard the Sourses yet so I don't know if they sound different than the Aerius. ML did email me that the panels will run about $500 and yes I have vacuumed the panels which did nothing to improve the sound.

Thanks for your time.

sog3

sog3 said:

Hello All,

New to this post and would like your help. I have a pair of the original Aerius made in 1993. I replaced the panels about 9 years ago and I think they are due to be changed again. Considering the age of the speakers internal workings, would I be better off to purchase a new pair of Sources, which is within my budget, or get new panels for the Aerius. I'm driving them with an NAD T763 A/V receiver which is pretty clean. I haven't heard the Sourses yet so I don't know if they sound different than the Aerius. ML did email me that the panels will run about $500 and yes I have vacuumed the panels which did nothing to improve the sound.

Thanks for your time.

sog3

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Hola Sog3...to my ears a liking, the Source is better, because it has the new micro-perf panel and the woofer is better integrated and blends very nice with the panel. Also has more open sound than the Aerius. The Absolute Sound Mag, has the Source as the best speaker in budget price tag. I am sure that they did listen many sounding speakers and came out with this award to the Sources. But everything of our beloved hobby is a matter of liking. Trust your ears and listen both. Choose the one that you liked most!!! The Aerius is also a very nice sounding speaker on the other hand, and this particular model made Martin Logan to be into the low budget good sounding speakers too. Do not get me wrong here, $ 2000.00 is a lot of money for a pair of speakers, but not for a super high-end ones. Happy listening,
Roberto.

In terms of the "sounding better" keep in mind that though the Source has a newer panel, it is much smaller than the Aerius and has a considerably smaller sweet spot....

Just a thought.

sog, welcome...... IMO, two pairs of panels in sixteen years seems a little excessive.....I would possibly question the enviroment in which they are in ?? I know you said you vacuumed them, but on a regular basis ??

regardless, get out and listen to the Sources and report back !

Still on my original panels on my 1995 Aerius . To me they still sound great . D.R.

Maybe my hearing isn't as good as it was but I don't hear an degradion from my original panels on my Aerius i speakers which i bought new back when. I do vacuum often and clean the terminal with cleaner. Maybe i should replace the panels instead of the amp!

sog3 said:

NAD T763 A/V receiver.........panels will run about $500 and yes I have vacuumed the panels which did nothing to improve the sound.

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Let's do some math here, $2,000 -$500 for new panels leaves $1,500 difference.

I would purchase a 100w used tube amp for $1,000 and spend the other $500 on a variable output CD player (if not spinning records) or used tube preamp.

I did something similar about five years ago, no regrets.

Give the panels a shower before replacing them, see the tweaks section.

Thread link:
http://www.martinloganowners.com/forum/showthread.php?t=604

Keep the Aerius

In my opinion,keep the Aerius.For the prices of the new speakers,you could vastly improve your system.Figure $500 for panels,$699 for new Emotiva processor,and $600-$800 for a Sunfire amp.I think you may will enjoy this way more than the new speaker route for close to the same money.

Thanks for all the replies. I've decided to get new panels for the aerius'. I do like the looks and sound of them. I'll probably look into feeding them with a seperate amp and use the NAD as a preamp.