Summit X Feet on a (legacy) Summit

There are several of us who have purchased the Summit X feet from ML to use to upgrade our (legacy) Summits. I'm creating this thread as a place to discuss the results of that upgrade, and I am welcoming all to chime in. I thought about entering this under the "tweeks" section, but decided that since there has been so much intrest shown about Summit upgrades, that it belonged here in Main Discussion.

Installation was a snap. I first thought that because of my bad back I would need assitance lying the Summits on their side to change out the feet. This turned out NOT to be the case. The entire process took less than 20 minuits. Repositioning and dialing them in was another story. The increase in height and the ability to achieve zero rake make subtle differences in setup to achieve ultimate soundstageing, so set aside a good hour to play around with positioning.

In my room, the differences in terms of low-level detail retrieval and microdynamics is noticable. Previously, with the speaker at about a 6 degree (rearward) rake the midrange and highs would, at least partially be directed towards the ceiling and the ceiling wall boundary of the wall behind my seats. The resulting reflections would muddy the sound to a very small but not unnoticable degree. Another factor that has influenced the overall sound is an apparent small increase in the volume of the mid frequencies. I'm not sure if this is because the center of the panel is now at ear level, or less is bouncing around. Anyhow, louder ALWAYS sounds better, so I am noticing improvements in midrange presence. Even my wife was able to pick that out without coaching.

The last point is an area that needs further work on my part to properly assess. The Bass seems weaker, and I'm not sure yet if that comes from less resonance because the bottom driver is higher off the floor, or because the bottom driver is now angled slightly backwards ( I have the taller feet on the back) rather than straight downwards.

I agree almost fully with your assessment of the positive impact of a more vertical panel stance, except for the bass being weaker. I had been using jtwrace's custom (rear) spikes for quite some time, settling for ~+2 degree backward rake, and never noticed any loss of bass. In fact, using my XTZ Room Analyzer, I've consistently found (at least in my room) that the bass response from ~25-65 Hz is consistently 4-8 dB higher than the midrange and highs, thus requiring some attenuation with the 25 and 50 Hz controls. I just installed the new legs yesterday for the +1 rake, but haven't had a chance to listen in depth, or remeasure with XTZ, as I'm in the middle of reconfiguring my system.

If your Summits are on carpet, you might try placing a ceramic tile, or butcher block, underneath them, to see if it positively impacts the bass. This was previously disussed in another thread...
http://www.martinloganowners.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4267

DrJRapp said:

...The last point is an area that needs further work on my part to properly assess. The Bass seems weaker, and I'm not sure yet if that comes from less resonance because the bottom driver is higher off the floor, or because the bottom driver is now angled slightly backwards ( I have the taller feet on the back) rather than straight downwards.

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One theory regarding the weaker bass may a result of the woofer being elevated higher above the floor. Particularly the down firing woofer.

More than likely the bass seems weaker because of slightly less bass reinforcement just like you would experience if you placed a subwoofer in the corner of your room equidistant from the walls. In that case the bass is louder but also muddier than it would be if it were placed in a more optimal location.

You'll typically notice a little less bass when you add bass traps to your room but that is because they're absorbing the lower frequency bass nodes which cause that boomy sound and muddy bass.

The slight elevation of the Summits woofers should result in slightly less bass but tighter bass. If you want more bass then you can tune it to your liking with the control knobs.

Craig said:

The slight elevation of the Summits woofers should result in slightly less bass but tighter bass. If you want more bass then you can tune it to your liking with the control knobs.

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It does...and I did and the net result is slightly tighter bass.

I complained about the cost, but at the end of the day it was worth it! Well worth it!!!!!!!

sleepysurf said:

If your Summits are on carpet,

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In South Florida...hah hah ha...you should know better than that.

DrJRapp said:

In South Florida...hah hah ha...you should know better than that.

Click to expand...

There are many carpeted homes in Florida.

I'll be installing mine at least by this weekend.

DrJRapp said:

II complained about the cost, but at the end of the day it was worth it! Well worth it!!!!!!!

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What is the cost?

They are $56 per leg list price. Depending on your situation you may get different discounts. My cost is not representative since my company is a CEDIA member.

Whew. I see what you mean.

My take FWIW.

Bringing the panel to perpendicular, or a close proximity thereof, should result in a big performance bump for all ML users, assuming all other aspects of the system are close to optimal.

The price of admission more than justifies the overall improvement in performance.

GG

The more I listen the more impressed I am. I've been revisiting a lot of my classical collection with the new feet installed and I'm very impressed with the newfound ability to hear individual instruments from within the group.

I'm also beginning to wonder if perhaps most of the performance gains heard by reviewers like Jeff (Tonepub) are really just attributable to being able to set the newer speaker up properly with the new feet. Whatever the case, the (legacy) Summit IS quite a bit better performer with the new feet, so whaterver they cost you...buy um!!!