Martin Logan Prodigy Speakers - Big Speaker Small Room

I've had a couple of weeks now living with these Logans.



To be honest I may have done them a disservice drawing any conclusions about them before I'd given them a bit of time.



First things first, they are big, not just big, heavy. My house is a newbuild but the boards creaked under their weight, they are not speakers you want to change your mind on. You don't want to move them between floors, or even between rooms. They are a two-person job really and although I managed to get them inside my house from the delivery van, I had to employ the experience of my 70yr (poor) old dad to at least help guide me up the stairs and indeed stop me banging into walls.




They're a good 50KG each, they are big, they are cuboids so a blooming awkward shape as well as a heavy one, okay enough moaning.




















How do they sound?



Here's this word again, big. Big soundstage, big bass. They have a pair of 10" drivers in the base of each speaker. One forward facing and the other on the rear to cancel out any standing waves created in the corners of rooms. This works surprisingly well, nullifying nodes and energy created in corners of rooms (especially small ones) so you just hear the bass created from the front driver, which is more than enough.




Just to be clear, I've always been a big speaker/small-medium room sort of guy. That's not because I don't like smaller speakers, it's just kind of how it's always worked out. Of course this has created problems, usually of overpowering the room with sound pressure, usually with the low end being boomy and muddying not just the lower end, but most frequencies in general.




I've managed to nail it a couple of times, once with my Quad 63's with the help of some digital parametric EQing and also with my Cambridge Acoustic Grand Master Evolutions. The latter was done with a fair amount of acoustic treatment and it took a few weeks of changing and experimentation before things really started to sound good.




A couple of general rules of thumb I've come across whilst treating small rooms with acoustic treatment:



- Use corner bass traps which are at least 10 inches in depth at the middle point. Anything less is pretty much pointless and won't help with anything below around 60hz. Of course, if you can go thicker, you will absorb lower frequencies and more of them.


- Absorb a percentage of all frequencies behind the speakers. Especially with dipoles. This means absorbing a percentage of the entire frequency range reflecting back at you. How much absorption you require will depend on how much distance you can put between the rear wall and the speakers whilst paying attention to the positioning of the speakers to still provide a satisfactory soundstage/central image etc.

The general theory of absorbing the first reflection points still apply here, perhaps even more so in small rooms, however care must be used in relation to the final point.


- Do not over-absorb. You can get a very nice bass response and indeed imaging after laying down plenty of treatment but often at the expense of the midrange and indeed the high frequencies. Quite a few times I sit back down after getting a really smooth low frequency response and suddenly realised I'm missing a load of midrange detail and punch; it just becomes woolly and dull.



Luckily for me the Logan's deal with a lot of the low end issues in my room themselves (as mentioned) by cancelling the standing waves from each speaker with their rear driver. They sound very even and powerful, allowing me to concentrate on just getting the mids and highs spot-on. An absolute blessing really because it means I can forgo a lot of extra acoustic material which allows the speakers to breath a lot more and as a result sound a lot more natural than they otherwise might have done had I had to damp those low frequencies with material alone.



Another ace up their sleeves is the Logan's 3db bass boost switch. Off, it's still got nice depth and detail to basslines, on, it thumps you in the chest but still without being boomy. To be honest, since I nailed the low-end response, they are on for the extra 'kick' but they certainly don't require it in my opinion, it is fun though . . .




As you can see from the pics, they are well diffused behind and slightly to the sides but nothing more is really needed. Although I have been tweaking all week but it's now just more a matter of personal taste as to how much of a 'forward' sound you prefer of indeed maybe you prefer a more laid-back treble response, obtained by using a little bit more treatment here and there.




I also have some soft furnishings in the room and it is carpeted so there is a good amount of natural acoustic absorption present. The extra bits here and there really do help when the volume goes up and means that the soundstage doesn't 'collapse' like it can do in untreated rooms. It's good to test things at high SPL's as even in large rooms the hard surfaces usually make things sound very shrill and harsh indeed which you wouldn't even realise until it's cranked a bit. Of course if you never listen at these volumes, no worries.




Again I come back to the point of creating balance in the room. A balance between having enough damping at your usual listening volume to control frequencies whilst retaining good response at lower and higher listening levels. I've set up treatment before and though it's great only to be greeted by a dull and muffled sound when I try the same setup at lower (evening) listening levels.




In small room's you're already at a compromise, and everything from there on in is just a series of continued compromises. You just have to fall on one side or the other at each hurdle you come across.




Right, so the room is done. Relief all round, not least from me!



Now the fun can begin.



I'd had them running on my Neurochrome 686 during the setup/tweaking period as the majority of my listening will always involve this amplifier I suspect.



Just for fun, I swapped in my custom 300b amplifier. Only 18w or so (massively underpowered for the Logan's) but the transformers are enormous and built to take it, so I thought I'd try.




Presentation was very ,very lush, as was expected. It was a lot of fun listening to some acoustic sets and some jazz with vocals thrown in. Very palpable imaging, very good texture and timbre on instruments. The combination 2nd order harmonics from the tube amp and the speed of the transients from the panels of the Logan's is just very special indeed. Bass too was actually incredibly good but this amp always surprises me in that regard.




686 goes back in and suddenly it just shows you how far ahead it is compared to most amps out there. My 300b is a great amp, but it is limited in regards to its ultimate power and scale. Low level listening is an absolute joy within the constrains of genre's which agree but the Logans want power and lots of it. The 686 is able to deliver this, seemingly at any level I've tried so far. The music sounds as exciting and engaging as well as being as detailed and punchy at almost any volume level.




So I'm happy with the setup of the room, the partnering equipment and the general presentation. Now final millimetre tweaks.




My room is not symmetrical, far from it. Unfortunately this has always meant small compromises in regards to having a perfect centre image for vocals and drum kits. Not with all music but occasionally a kick drum could be 1ft to the left of dead centre or a vocal could be panned unnaturally outside of the soundstage (not in a cool way).




I've had this problem with most speakers I've had in here and had concluded it was simply down to the unchangeable room dimensions. To a more or lesser extent it is however I have managed to manipulate the Logan's in such away that the effect is barely noticeable now and if you weren't listening intently for it, I doubt you'd know it was there. Like I say it's only on very specific tracks and I probably only pick up on it because I know it is/was an issue and I'm probably just being very VERY picky here.




Overall the sound from these speakers is just more of all the great attributes I've heard in my other favourite speakers. The hybrid design, in my opinion, provides the blueprint for as close to the perfect design as I could think of and the best of both worlds. Drivers to move a load of air and thump you in the chest, electrostatic panels to tickle mids and highs into your ears whilst integrating pretty much seamlessly with said drivers. There's barely a trace of them being two different approaches to sound reproduction.




I went from Quads back to cone speakers for a while. I really enjoyed the different presentation and indeed absolute bass thump from the cones but ultimately always knew I was missing the magic only panels can provide (in my opinion of course!).




I tried to give Quads the missing drive and low end most of them are missing by integrating subs as best I could. In truth I got close but nothing in comparison to how this design performs.




Looking forward to a long and satisfying relationship with these, if not least for the health of my back and my bank-balance!




Cheers