First post

[JG316]

Greetings from Maryland, USA. I picked up a pair of Martin Logan aerius i speakers free to a good home from a track buddy. PO claimed they were working when parked in 2012 but needed woofers replaced. Aside from a little dust the speakers looked new and came with the original packaging and promotional material.

Its been ~40 years since I last listened to electrostatic speakers and was anxious to set them up. Wow was I impressed with the clarity of the mid range and high end frequency response. The bass sounded fine as well but more listening is required to understand why the PO indicated the woofers needed to be replaced.

I played Take Five by Brubeck, Hey Nineteen by Steely Dan and Flamingo Sketches by Miles Davis and they are awesome and sound better than my AudioMonitor Gold 20, Cambridge Soundworks Tower II and Vandersteen 2ce signature speakers and look forward to A/B comparisons. I'm driving them with a Hafler DH-500 with signal path from FLAC files on a Synology NAS running Roon, Bluesound Node2i endpoint, Schiit Gungnir multibit, MacPro tower running HQplayer upsampling. Look forward to learning more about ML electrostatic speakers from this forum and understanding what's different in the design and sound stage in the new generation speakers like the EL9, ESL X and ESL. Back to music.

 

[twich54]

JG, welcome ! with regards to the dust on your new found Logans, I trust you gave them a good vacuum !

 

[TomDac]

Welcome aboard and congrats on the Aerius i's. One of the better models ML made back in the early days. Post back when you find out why the PO thought the woofers needed work.. would be interesting to hear what he says.

 

[JG316]

Thanks and certainly detailed it; wash, clay, polish and waxed it

JG, welcome ! with regards to the dust on your new found Logans, I trust you gave them a good vacuum !

 

[JG316]

Thanks Tom. I contacted the PO and he said there was cracking noise in one of the woofers. To isolate the woofers I disconnected the terminal jumpers and connected the interconnects to the low frequency terminals. Played heavy bass music, Lee Scratch Perry, and I heard the cracking noise in one of the speakers. Recognizing that the lower and upper grills are 2 pieces and the bottom ones held in by velcro applying a little pressure to the lower grill got rid of the cracking sound. To fix this I'll remove the trim rails by tapping from the bottom up and shim the grill and/or add new velcro. Quick question for you. I heard thin metal jumpers are ineffective and should be replaced with a 14g wire with spade connectors. Any truth to this?

Welcome aboard and congrats on the Aerius i's. One of the better models ML made back in the early days. Post back when you find out why the PO thought the woofers needed work.. would be interesting to hear what he says.

 

[TomDac]

Quick question for you. I heard thin metal jumpers are ineffective and should be replaced with a 14g wire with spade connectors. Any truth to this?

IMHO, the stock metal jumpers are probably ok. Get some 14g wire and make some and see if you can hear any differences.