Marten
Design
FAQ
(Frequently Asked Questions) |
| 1.
Who is Marten Design? |
| Marten Design is a Swedish company dedicated to
building speakers using the latest technologies that are deployable in
ordinary rooms at prices much more reasonable than their closest
competition. |
| 2.
What finishes and colors do Marten Design speakers come in? |
| The smaller speakers come in a cherry
veneer. The Coltrane comes in shiny gloss black with a number of front
panel woods: maple, cherry, oak, or walnut. |
| 3.
What Do It Yourself performance-improving modifications can be done to
the Marten Design speakers? |
| There is not much more required to
optimize these speakers than to carefully position them, adjust their
feet so that they are pointing ever so slightly up or down, to taste,
and to feed them good music. |
| 4.
What are these weird ceramic drivers, anyway? |
The Accuton ceramic drivers are "the
only dynamic drivers that work with a perfect piston movement. That
means that the drivers do not have any break-ups (flexes) in their
frequency range. Therefore there is not any of the audible distortion
that you can find in most other drivers on the market, more or less.
Because of the distortion free reproduction, the sound becomes very
detailed and transparent (distortion masks details). It is essential
that all the details are included to be able to get such a natural
rendering.
The ceramic is an aluminum oxide and has got a thickness of only 150
um (0.15 mm) on the middle range and bass drivers as well as 50 um
(0.05 mm) on the treble drivers. This makes the cones very light and
allows a very fast and dynamic
reproduction. One can say that the drivers have the best of both
worlds, the micro dynamic and resolution in an electrostatic driver as
well as macro dynamic in the dynamic drivers." |
| 5.
What are these weird diamond tweeters, anyway? |
The membrane of these tweeters is made
out of diamond, the most rigid material that know of. Therefore there
are no resonances whatsoever within the audible area. The first
resonance appears at 100 kHz, which is significantly above the audible
frequency range. This tweeter "has a 0.75" (20mm) inverted Diamond
dome (a single piece of pure Diamond). The frequency range is extended
to almost 100 kHz. The stiffness to weight ratio of the diaphragm is
about five
times higher than the extremely rigid Ceramic drivers. Sound
propagation in Diamond material is around 18,000 m/sec, the highest of
any existing material. Distortion figures are magnitudes below
conventional tweeters".It is now
widely accepted that, even though the human ear cannot hear
frequencies above 20,000 Hz (and typically not even that high), that
the frequencies we do hear interact in an audible manner with these
ultra-high frequencies that we do not hear directly. Harmonics just
sound more 'right' when they are accompanied by their natural
ultra-sonic counterparts. |
|
6.
How long do the speakers take to break in? |
| TBD |
|
7.
What amplifiers are people using with the speakers (Coltranes)? |
Good results have been obtained with
the:
- Edge Electronics NL-10, NL-12, and
Signature Ones
These amps produce a very clean, detailed sound, and very much just
pass through whatever the source components and material produce
- Audio Note Conquest and especially
the Audio Note Kegon
These amps are very musical, dramatic and controlled - every nuance
of these romantic amps are exposed by these speakers.
|
|
8.
What speaker cable are people using with the speakers? |
| Good results have been obtained with
the Nordost Valhalla speaker cable as well as
their Valkryja speaker cable. These speakers are very revealing, and
the very revealing nature of the Nordost cable lets the quality of the
upstream components shine through. |
|
9.
Are the speakers bi-wirable? Do they accept banana and spade type
connectors? |
| Yes. Yes. |
|
10. How are people positioning the speakers? |
| These speakers, unlike almost all other speakers,
really like to be positioned near the wall. This is not to help the
bass as is often the case with speakers that want to be near the wall,
as the bass is very well rendered in quantity and detail, but to
flush out the soundstage - it is otherwise supernaturally deep.
These speakers also like to be pointed straight ahead,
and not toed in. This is common with top-flight speakers that do not
have front baffle problems. Toeing them in seems to cause interference
problems between the sound waves coming from each speaker which
exhibits a 'leanness' to the overall sound. Perhaps if the
speakers are farther than 9 feet or so apart, then some more toe-in
might be warranted, but in general, we think close to the front wall
and firing straight ahead is what does it for these speakers. |
| 11.
Who are all the Marten Design dealers? |
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