planartubeman

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5, 3.00 votes

Price Paid:  $4000.00 from Audiogon

Summary:
Unbelievably realistic speaker (with synergistic electronics). If you buy a pair be prepared to upgrade all your signal chain unless you already have high end gear. Have heard them sound fantastic with only one SS amplifier-a very expensive and powerful beast! I run my panels with VTL tube monoblocks for an incredible sound with zero listening fatigue. How anyone can return to cone speakers after living with these is beyond my understanding. Female voices soar so sweetly.

Strengths:
No crossover in the midrange.
Incredible customer service.
Holgraphic soundstage.

Weaknesses:
Large size-not a problem for me as I have a huge space for them. Your wife might disapprove of the size and their need to be placed several feet into the room-buy her flowers and be nice or divorce/kill her.
Are "full-range" but once you've used them with a high-end subwoofer you'll realise the bottom octave was not being reproduced.
Make you fall asleep enveloped in beautiful music-or is that a strength?
Panels are a difficult load for amplifiers to drive-need plenty of headroom.

Similar Products Used:
None

Price Paid:  $4500.00 from private

Summary:
I want to share my pleasure listening to the Monolitic III's. Incredible soundstage and transistion to base after proper placement. Tube amps (mono) are a must for that real life stage sound. I drive each panal with Yakow Aranov 100W tubes. KAV 250's work fine for each bass. These speakers will find your weak component, so be prepared to upgrade. Vinyl recordings are sweat. If you use CD's be prepared to shell out more bucks. I finally chose a used Krell KPS 20i to spin my CD's.

Strengths:
These beast are 1 under the Martin Logan Statements which go for 100,000 pair. Great bargin for the price. These will please any audiophile

Weaknesses:
Big and fussy with placement. Heavy too You must use the active x'over. I know its an extra $4,000 but awesome and sweet

Similar Products Used:
Krell KRC preamp, KPS CD, KAV250(Bass) Yakow Aranov tube amps for mids and trebles Solid Silver speaker cables

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
I have owned Martin Logan speakers since 1992 and have been completely taken by the ESL's massive strength in the midrange frequencies. So, when it was time to upgrade the Sequel II's, I went to check out the Monolith III's. I spent weeks comparing them to the latest and greatest dynamic speakers within an equivalent price range. I went so far as to go blind-folded in order to avoid a bias for brand or price. And I settled on the Mono III's. Once they arrived at my home and were connected, I found they were in need of significant burn-in time. And power. While the SL3's were little piglets, the MonoIII's are state-fair-prize-winning-sized hogs! But then, when is having too much power a bad thing? I acquired a Krell KSA 250 for the panels and a Krell KAV250a for the bass frequencies. (And swapping my 20amp switch to a 30amp switch in my electrical panel.) Having tried the passive approach, I much prefer the bi-amped sound through M-L's great Exos active x-over. The sound is truly remarkable. While placement is a challenge, once the sweetspot was located, the soundstage became a mile wide and 100 yards deep! And the detail was so sharp that weakensses in source material are always revealed! I expected the bass frequencies to be the speaker's greatest weakness (quite noticeable on the SL3's) but was pleasantly surprised with how quick and tight the subs reproduced sounds. The active crossover also helped a ton at this point with flexible adjustments to match my room through both the contour and boost capabilities.) I have since heard a few dynamic speakers that have caught my ear (ie Vandersteen but at nearly 2xs the price), but have never regretted my decision to buy the Mono 3's.

Strengths:
Clarity, mid-range warmth and detail, surprisingly good bass response

Weaknesses:
size, tough to find the sweetspot

Price Paid:  $6500.00 from dealer - out of business now

Summary:
Purchased in 1990. Room definitely needed sound treatment due to the curved bipolar ELS panels. Tried many different electronics over the years. Gary tubes (SLAM-100) sound excellent in mid and top, but too fat in the bass. Solid state amp needed on 12" woofer for sure. Added a little damping mat inside woofer cabinet - now tighter bass! Pass Labs X350 on top, B&K 442 on woofers. Sony 777ES player, M-L electronic crossover (designed by ex-Krell designer working for M-L), passive pre-amp.
Deep, powerful and tight bass after years of tweeking components, room, room placement. 4AWG woofer wire helps! 8AWG to stats which drop to 1 ohm. Seamless transition from woofer to stats. Overall, amazing 3-D imaging, very deep and large. Awesome dynamics in medium size room. Extremely fine detail and resolving power with very little colorations - and no tweeter beaming like is heard with every conventional "cone" speaker design! Excellent liquid clear mids and sweet extended highs. Very musical but you must have clean electronics!
Last fall, I purchase new ELS panels - the original ones were showing their age (10 years) - they lost some efficiency and one panel became slightly soft in the top octave, so stereo image shifted. New panels, once broken in are excellent - very alive sounding (better dynamics), and top octave has returned. Overall, extremely involving and life-like sounding.
By the way, the factory has very nice, knowledgeable people if you ever need service or advice. The Pass amp is the best sounding SS amp I have heard, very "tube like" dimensionality and dynamics but far deeper and tighter bass.

Strengths:
extremely realistic, 3-D, superb detail, sub + full range ELS.

Weaknesses:
Very fussy about placement, require SOTA electronics

Similar Products Used:
Ohm Acoustics Model A - full range speaker (omni)

Summary:
I have the Monolith III's mounted in CSL IIz frames.The woofer is a pair of Vaf DC-X [vaf.com.au].These are fed by an active crossover at 125hz with a Rotel 985 THX. The Logans were being driven by a Krell 300i in throu-put mode.The sound was sweet but a little thin.150W[300w-4ohmn] wasn't enough for these power-hungery babys.A Carver A-760X reveald layers of sound that were only hinted at before.Fed by a Arcam Alpha 8SE CD[HDCD] and Audible Illusions Modulus 3 preamp; BLISS!!!

Strengths:
Reveals everything

Weaknesses:
Reveals everthing