MartinLogan and Benchmark teamed up at Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2019 to debut the new MartinLogan Motion Series of loudspeakers.
You haven’t been into hi-fi if you haven’t heard of the name MartinLogan. A perennial mainstay brand that’s been focused on high-performance electrostatic loudspeakers since the early 1980s. More known for their thin-film designs, their Motion Series of loudspeakers has been offering a little something different in the MartinLogan product line for some years now.
The new Motion Series receives more aesthetic updating than it does technical. When you have a good thing in technical terms, don’t go trying to fix what isn’t broken. Cosmetically the Motion Series was due for an update, and that’s what we have in the new Motion 60XTi floorstanding speakers ($1,600 ea USD) and the new Motion 35XTi bookshelf speakers ($650 ea USD).
At RMAF 2019, both models were being shown alongside dual MartinLogan Dynamo 800X powered subwoofers. With a complete rack of Benchmark Media System audio electronics components. Starting with the DAC3B digital-to-analog converter, LA4 line-stage, and AHB2 stereo power amplifier.
Music was sources from an Aurender N10 network streamer, while cabling throughout the system was provided by Benchmark.
How it all sounds? Well, at first I didn’t notice the subwoofers were on, which is a good thing. They blended so well that Denis Chern (of Benchmark) and I had to visually inspect the system to see if they were in fact on and operational. All confirmed, they were indeed on and contributing well when we decided to turn them off.
At the time we were demonstrating the 35XTi bookshelf speakers. Which were more than enough able with musical bass, but adding the subs took things to the next level of scale and depth. Once the subs were reactivated, things just seemed right at home.
Moving on to the 60XTi floorstanders, I would be very hard pressed to say the subwoofers were even necessary. As the material we auditioned didn’t need that extra step with the floorstanders. Had we cued up a Blu-ray copy of the Sylvester Schwarzenegger action-comedy “Subwoofer: The Movie” maybe so.
by Eric Franklin Shook
