Auditioned the CLX's - Finally

[SteveH]

Finally, finally managed to get to see and hear the CLX. I know that much has been written here already on this speaker - and it was great to read Tonepub's latest review just published. So in a way I have to confess I can't add a lot to what has been said...

I reviewed an anniversary pair whilst on vacation in London last week. The dem set up itself was not ideal - the speakers were set up in the dealer's main front shop (the only room large and wide enough for them) so I had to put up with walk in customers, mobile phones, mail deliveries etc.... but I shouldn't complain too much: at least I saw and heard the CLX for myself.

I spent about 2 hours listening - all to my CD's. The set up (selected by the dealer) was an Audio Research CD7, Krell FBI and Transparent cabling. I won't say much about that choice, but it seemed to work very well.

Let me be brief: the highlight of the audition was listening to Diana Krall 'Live in Paris', which I've practically worn out over the last few years...so I know it very well. I was frankly astonished: I really did sit up in the chair and did a double take. I thought I knew this CD....In fact the CLX pretty well beat my Prodigy's in every respect (I think I should be upset about that!): what really struck me was the imaging, depth & sound staging - and the sheer transparency & natural, tonal accuracy of what I heard. Oh and the texture - in fact almost everything you can think of was done so well.

I've never heard anything reproduced like that outside of a live performance. Just for comparison, and immediately after this audition I spent a few minutes in the next room listening to a pair of $45,000 Wilson Max II's: they sounded great to me, but at twice the cost there was really no competition.

I'll admit that I went into the audition with a healthy degree of scepticism: I did not believe that I would hear something which would make me fundamentally reappraise my system. I'm listening to my Prodigys now as I type this - with a Krell Evolution 2 Pre Amp, Transparent ref MM cabling etc. and I know, now, as I listen that something is fundamentally missing....

One last point on the visual design of the speaker: this is subjective I know, but I was not entirely won over. That said I personally would not choose the white anniversary version - I think these speakers look far better in a rich cherry finish. And with the lights turned down and the music playing...

I have no idea what 2009 will bring, but the CLX is now high on my list....Finally I've found a very worthy replacement for the Prodigy, one day - funds and a good trade in deal permitting

 

[jfm]

Also auditioned the CLX for the first time, and thought I'd ride onto your thread, Steve, and not start a new one.

I was vacationing in Hong Kong and the good people at Audio Supplies kindly set up the CLX for me. They had Pass Labs X600.5 amps driving the speakers (those are 600-watt monoblocks, up to 110 watts in Class A), and a Pass Labs preamp (not sure about the preamp, but it could be an XOno). Source was a Metronome Technologie Kalista transport with CD3A Signature DAC. Overall, a set of outstanding looking gear.







The room was set up for another pair of speakers in HT mode, that's why the CLXes appear to cut inside the screen. Room is about 6 meters by 4 meters (roughly the size of my own room, sparking furious visualizing on my part).

A few mental notes I made to myself, after an afternoon of listening to this setup:

About that bass
I am now convinced that the sound of dipole bass is the sound of bass that I like. For me, the CLX's bass is its best attribute. It just sounds so natural and integrates with the rest of spectrum so naturally. The speed and quality of the ML midrange applied to the lower frequencies? Yup, that's the sound I would like to have.

To sub or not to sub: I made a quick mental exercise and looked at my list of albums on my phone. Of the 600 albums I have, CDs and LPs combined, I think I would like to listen to the CLXes with subs, say with my Depth, on only about 10 of those albums, and several of them are demo discs that I listen to rarely. I listen to mostly jazz and R&B, with some classical and classic rock, and a little pop.

The Music
Though the years I've assembled my own systems to listen to the music I like. With the CLX, I would be exploring much more music, even those that I thought I didn't like. For example, I have a CD of the LA4, Just Friends. The band is composed of Laurindo Almeida, guitar; Bud Shank, alto saxophone; Ray Brown, bass; Jeff Hamilton, drums. First-rate musicians, but playing music that I never cared for. Until I heard the album on the CLX. Then I got the point of their music.

And that's it -- album after album that we played on the CLX, I got the point of the music. Rock, symphonic orchestra, jazz combo, big band, various kinds of ethnic music, male vocals, female vocals, choral groups. anything we played made me concentrate on the music and not the sound. Not just the music, either, but also the music-making. This was made possible by the ability of the CLX to, for example, focus on the soft playing of a percussionist in the midst of the all-out assault of the rest of the orchestra.

The CLX may just be the cure for audiophilia. I would be too busy exploring more music, and more diverse music, to have to think about gear.

How they look, to me
To my eyes, from the listening seat, they look perfect. I think I'd prefer them in black, but the silver color looked great too.

Compared with other speakers
My previous favorite all-around speaker was the Sonus Faber Stradivari Homage. I made a post on them a while back. They're still great, but they are my favorites no more.

I listened briefly to the Spires, which they also had, and they sounded fabulous of course, as have the Summits. But now all ML hybrids will sound to me like, well, hybrids. They would not have the CLX's dipole bass.

I've been impressed with the bigger VSAs, with the big Burmester in the right room, with the Avantgarde Trio and its monster sub. But none have brought me closer to the music and music-making than the CLX.

Here are a couple more pix from my point and shoot cam:

A closer view of the gear


A view of the listening seat through the CLX

 

[C.A.P]

Great stuff guys ! The bass on these is just so tight and detailed. Mix that with the midrange and you have a world class sound.

 

[User211]

Here's the website for the shack you heard the CLX in: http://www.audiosupplies.com.hk/. Best brush up on your Chinese first, though.

I wonder whther they thought they had a cat in hells chance of selling you a pair. Did you pose as an American based in HK or something? Just curious. You seemed to have listened to a lot of disks.

Hope you had I nice time there. I know I did. Where did you stay? One thing that amazed me is how clean the place is.

I think you got really lucky to hear them driven via the Pass amps - the way they are voiced would suit them well, I think, if they sound anything like the lesser Pass amps.

They are a world apart from Summits, I think. Just a damn site more natural sounding. It's easy to just "get involved" in the musical performance rather than hear the hi-fi, so to speak.

Quite a bunch of audiophiles, the Chinese. Shame you weren't there for the 2008 show...

 

[Bernard]

Room is about 6 meters by 4 meters (roughly the size of my own room, sparking furious visualizing on my part).

From other comments/reviews I thought that they needed much more room than that - that's about 19.5 ' x 13'.

 

[SteveH]

Great write up JFM... There's no question that Martin Logan have built something quite special with the CLX. One thing that interested me - looking at your pics - the side walls appear quite close to the CLX's. In my own experience I have found that panels, especially, work best on the long wall: I've experimented with this in several different room set ups as I've been forced to move around with my job over the years... The write ups of the CLX's (including Tonepubs published on this site recently) seem to concur I think that the long wall is best.

So it's good to hear that what you heard still sounded so good: many prospective purchasers may not have the kind of room which permits siting the speakers on a long wall, and that would be a shame - buying something like a pair of CLX's only to be disappointed once they've been installed. I'm sure there are many good systems out there that suffer from a physically constrained set up - but that's reality I guess.

But a great write up - thanks for sharing this.

Steve

 

[twich54]

From other comments/reviews I thought that they needed much more room than that - that's about 19.5 ' x 13'.

Bernard, I was kinda thinking the same thing ?? yet by the pictures they don't seem that cramped ?

based on comments by Jeff, I would think 16-18' of width with 26-30' of depth would be ideal.

 

[Bernard]

Bernard, I was kinda thinking the same thing ?? yet by the pictures they don't seem that cramped ?

based on comments by Jeff, I would think 16-18' of width with 26-30' of depth would be ideal.

Dave, they ARE rather close to the side walls, as SteveH has also mentioned. I wonder, though, if you could mitigate this situation by heavily damping the side walls......not that I will be able to afford to buy CLX's soon !

 

[User211]

Dave & Bernard - well, they filled that huge room in the London show with sound - so they do like a lot of space if it is available. I'd like to hear them again in a room this size to see how well they do work. I'm betting this is not ideal but I am sure they'll still sound absolutely great, relatively speaking.

 

[JonFo]

Nice write ups both, thanks.

I had to comment on the ‘dipole bass’ and how the CLX does bass vs hybrids.

I believe what people most react to regarding bass on the CLX is the fact that it’s very low distortion (as compared to a single cone, E.g in a Spire ), the other aspect that is also tightly linked is the fact that it’s a line-source covering that frequency, vs a point source, thus obeying the same SPL response curve as the main panel. This means that the frequency balance is better maintained at the usual distances we sit from big speakers like these.

Most dipole bass setups sound good because A) they are generally done as line sources of cone drivers due to the huge loss in output caused by the open back, and B) for all the same reasons IB subs are the only way to go, a driver that has equal pressure front and back, will produce a more linear travel and have less ‘compression’ distortion than an enclosed driver would.
However, all dipole systems suffer from lack of bass output ability due to the physics of rear-wave cancelation. So this also reduces the number of room modes in the low-frequency that might be engaged, and it’s the lack of room mode resonances in the low frequencies that’s perceived (rightly) as beneficial.

However, the other way to deal with this is to have a well treated front wall with plenty of bass trapping, and adequate room treatment elsewhere and I believe one would hear not only the clean bass the DualForce ESL generates, but also a deeper and louder low-end balance.

But ultimately, I still believe (and Jeff seems to lean towards, having deployed two subs ) that a CLX needs augmentation with subs to be truly a fullrange system.

 

[DTB300]

Dave & Bernard - well, they filled that huge room in the London show with sound - so they do like a lot of space if it is available. I'd like to hear them again in a room this size to see how well they do work. I'm betting this is not ideal but I am sure they'll still sound absolutely great, relatively speaking.

Agree. ML's can sound good in smaller room, but IMO you need an acoustically treated room to accomplish this task. Having ML's closer to the side walls also warrants the need of 1st reflection point treatments. While the CLX and CLS are different, I have heard the CLS sound great in a similarly sized room (13 x 19)

People should not shy away from ML's solely based on room size as there are plenty of models available to fit each persons and their room needs.

 

[C.A.P]

Bernard, I was kinda thinking the same thing ?? yet by the pictures they don't seem that cramped ?

based on comments by Jeff, I would think 16-18' of width with 26-30' of depth would be ideal.

Although they would sound GOOD! Its not IDEAL. These babies will fill a 25 x 40 room easily and sound their best ! You are not gonna do it with a 3 watt pentode but if driven right these things will create an aura of sound. When I heard them in a smaller room( DaVinci) it was not the magic I heard in Seattle. They both had identical amps running them too with same digital front end.

Hopefully Overture has a BIG room so you can get the real jest of these.