Open, transparant, smooth, very nice sound even at low levels, crystal clear,

Lack of overwhelming bass (so you needed a sub anyway)

Great !!! Never heard anything like this before. Very critical to your upstream gear. Placement was not that difficult after you have owned a Magnepan.

Similar Products Used:

Magnepan 1.6

Clarity

A bit thin sounding

I was in the market to buy an upgrade for my GR20 Monitor Audio speakers, which I find a bit forward souning. Read a few reviews on here and decided to audition the Martin Logan Aerius i speakers.

The dealer kindly let me take them home (deposit left) and I set about connecting them to my system. Bryston SP-1, Sunfire 300w and Sunfire cinema grand. Linn LP12 (Vinyl) Music Fidelity A3 (CD) and Pioneer DV737 (DVD).

The first thing to note is the sheer height of these speakers. If you have a room less than 25ftx25ft, then these will dominate. The positioning of these is crucial to obtaining a reasonable sound and it took a bit of messing about to get a position that sounded ok. What I found was that sitting in the 'sweet spot' the Aerius i's sounded too bright and grainy, so it was better to offset them from the true directional position to the listener.

You need to give them around 30 minutes to warm up to get the best sound and some of the initial brightness evens out. I noticed something on these speakers that I have never noticed on anything before and that is the point where a tone switched from one driver to another. It was very noticeable where a bass line was prominent and you could clearly hear the bass switching from the electrostatic panel to the woofer. Not very pleasant and made for slightly unusual music playback.

On the plus side, if vocals are your thing, then these deliver a middrange that is hard to find on a normal speaker. Listening to David Gray delivered a clarity that other speakers can only dream of. The tonality is outstanding.

Switching to AC/DC - COD, the starting chords are excellent, but then as the bass line comes in the crossover problem rears its head and spoils the listening pleasure.

Earlier the same day, we had listened to Zingali speakers, www.zingali.it, a horn speaker by design and these leave the ML's dead, although sadly they were out of my budget £4000 GBP.

In summary - opera or mainly vocal listening are outstanding, but as a general purpose speaker they are not for me.

What did I buy? - nothing yet. Listening to a pair of Gershman Avantegarde RX20's at the weekend and the smaller Zingali 2's which are £2500 GPB. My monitor Audios are still the best I have heard in my budget and will not be replaced until I find something better - which is proving harder than i thought. The monitor Audios cost only £1500 GPB and have currently outperformed speakers costing twice that price - interesting!!!

Similar Products Used:

Monitor Audio GR20, Zingali Overture 2s, Final 0.3.

I have been listening intensively to Martin Logan Aerius i speakers for two weeks now. These are splendid speakers: full of life, with remarkable depth of soundstage. The music is simply there, it 'hangs' somewhere in the room in all its silky sensuousness, shot through with rivetting musical detail. No troubles with the bass. To my mind listening to them is an experience akin to sipping a great Burgundy.
I had no difficulties finding the right location in my listening room (measuring 9 by 4 meters with pretty high ceilings, 3 meter high). They are simply free standing, somewhere in the middle of the room, about 2.50 meters apart, with an enclosed space of about 10 cubic meters behind them. The optimal listening point is in the remaining angle of an equilateral triangle. My speakers are driven by an Albs PAM-9 preamp and two assorted monoblocs. CD-player is an old Micromega.

I auditioned both the Aerius i and the ML SL3 in a room which was about 35% bigger than my listening room. There the Aerius lacked muscle and the SL3 provided a listening experience very similar to the one I have with the smaller Aerius in my room.

It is true that these speakers really excel with voices and small ensembles. This is particularly evident in Baroque repertoire or contemporary classical music, where the music often assumes a breathtaking presence and liveliness. Take, for example, any one of Steve Reich's ensemble pieces on his own Nonesuch recordings - 'Music for 18 Musicians' or 'Six Marimbas'. On my previous speakers this stuff was rather dull, but with the Aerius it comes fully to life and becomes a very engaging musical experience.
But I have a strong taste for symphonic music and this works very well too, provided you have a good recording to start with. Early Telarc recordings (Stravinsky Firebird/Shaw, Respighi Fontane di Roma/Lane, ...) show magnificent detail, depth and dynamics. Score reading suddenly becomes much easier with all these orchestral voices so clearly located in space. Same with good piano recordings: it is easy to distinguish both voices which makes listening so much more involving (eg. Viardo's reading of the 24 Shostacovich Preludes, again on Nonesuch).

Rating: very good bang for the buck. Five stars.

smoothness of sound, openess, aestetics, value

slightly diminishing sound outside of sweet spot

These speakers are uterly amazing. I have never had a musical experience like this. Acording to many previous reviewers one should supposedly drive them with high wattage amplification. Also there seems to be some concern on the low end. While one will benefit by the addition of a nice sube, I choose a HSU, it is not all that important. The speakers do go deep, and are sufficiently loud, even in the music categories I prefer, hip hop and classic rock and they sound amazing. I also only drive them with a 50 watt tube amplifier and it is able to drive them well, also smoothing out the sound giveing a very detailed yet musical quality.
Associated equipment:
Rotel 951 CD
Golden Tube SI-50 MKII
HSU VTF-2
Alpha core micro purl interconnect
Audioquest 6+ speaker cable
Lovan Stands

Similar Products Used:

B&W CDM NT, ML Scenario, Thiel lower end

Open, wonderful sound!

Lacking bass

I just started building a decent system for music and home theater. I was lucky to find a pair of the Aerius i's used at a local dealer. They were a bit above the price range I had wanted, but after hearing them I was willing to spend the extra. I recently added a Velodyne subwoofer, which does a significant job filling the low range. The Aerius speakers lack on the low end, and a subwoofer is a highly recommended addition.

Live music is exceptional on these speakers! The sound is very open and can fill the room nicely, even at lower volumes.

Because of the dipole design, the speaker placement is very important, and takes some tweaking before they sound the best.

You forget there are speakers in the room

Be sure you have a room that compliments these speakers

If you want a pair of speakers that cause your chest cavity to compress your heart, then these speakers are not for you.

I'm a little older now and can appreciate the finer things in life e.g. Thelonius Monk, Charles Mingus, Eva Cassidy, Yo Yo Ma etc. These are just a few of the artists that really come through with the electrostatics. I am finding it hard to satisfy the need to find more and more acoustic and vocals (a thriving area for the Aerius i's).

Everyone below who submitted a review has accurately put into words the fantastic results of these speakers. In addition I can add:

The time spent to improve the sound for the Aerius i's is in the room. This will be your greatest enemy in trying to get the most out of these speakers. If you think there is a problem don't blame Aerius i's look hard at your room and speaker position. Space them like the manual shows (a very well written manual) and if you're lucky, pick a room in the house with a door (a lock is recommended). Go to town positioning the Aerius i's until you are satisfied. Take the time to minimize the reflections and dampen the room accordingly. For me this took about a week to get very good results for someone who is only willing to put so much time and money into any hobby. The return for your effort will be fully compensated. These speakers may not fit the bill for everyone but if it is all about the music, not the equipment then you will get your money back within a month!

Also remove any seating furniture that accepts more than one seat. Why? It's not that the area outside the sweet spot doesn't receive great sound but if they care as much as you do about the sweet spot they will whine continuously until you relinquish your seat (yeah right)! If they don't whine, well then they just don't get it and will eventually want to talk about the carpet or whatever. Therefore eliminate this problem by placing a nice large leather chair (no ottoman) in the zone and get ready to enjoy!

I chose to separate my surround sound system from the 2 channel audio system and think that if you have the space for a 2 channel system, you can build a simple, high quality system around the Aerius i's. You can actually spend less and get excellent results.

System: Krell 300i, Sony SACD 333es, Technics M-1 Reel to reel. Looking for a good turntable and surge protector. I demo'd the Ricahrd Gray for 3 days and have not been convinced. Any suggestions?

Similar Products Used:

B&W Nautilus 805

Excellent Sound, Pure Sound, Nice Looking, Value, Everything.....

None for the price.

The speaker is very musical and it's extremely enjoyable which you can listen to for hours. At last it's worth it to purchased this speaker for under $2500 My associate gear include:
Amplifier: Classe CA-100
Pre-Amp: Classe CP-45
D/A Converter: Classe DAC 1 (On the Way)
CD Player : Sony DVP-NS700P
Cable: MIT Terminator 2, Super Silver II RCA,PSS SECTET.

I'm new in Audio thing, so if my system is not matched between one another , could someone please give some advices which one of my system should i change or upgrade. You can email me to sb_79@hotmail.com thank you.

Similar Products Used:

ProAc Studio 125 and Response 1.5 , Magnepan 1.6OR, Dynaudio Audience 80, B&W DM 604 S2 and B&W DM 605 S2

Warm, transparent, fast, musically organic

Sounds better single wired

This is a follow up to my previous review. The many positive comments I made about the Aerius (i) were when I ran the speaker single wired NOT bi-wired.

I have sinced tried the speaker in the bi-wire configuration. The speaker sounds worse in this configuration (brighter, thin, less dimensional, less palpable presence).

I don't know why but in my system single wiring sounds more dimensional, more musically organic. Confirms the adage experiment and trust your ears. Be interesting to see if others have had this experience.

Similar Products Used:

Various Magnepan

Speed, clarity, architectural styling, sound and build quality.

Kind of picky in terms of set-up within the room.

I have waited exactly one year to write this review.

Here's my set-up.

click here


I am still pleased with these speakers. The clarity, soundstage, speed and sound quality are all exceptional. The build quality is exceptional. My wife loves these, and very much appreciates the sound improvement over my old system as well. Even after a year of critical listening, I still do not have any negatives to say about them.

A friend of mine and his wife recently recorded an album of her vocal music in a Nashville, TN recording studio with professional musicians. (If you've never been involved with recording a studio master, understand this: You listen to the music, again and again and again and again and again, making adjustments to the mix, adding reverb etc. and generally taking "take after take" while monitoring the session on some of the best loudspeaker monitors in the world. Basically, you are REALLY familiar with the sound quality of the music when you are finished.

Anyway, my friend came to my house to play his newly mastered CD. The best compliment about these speakers can only be summed up by the excited cellphone call he made immediately after listening to her new CD: "Honey, you've never sounded better!"

Similar Products Used:

First electrostatics I've owned.

clarity, range, smoothness

none that I have noticed

Let me begin by saying I am *not* a highly knowledgable and critical audiophile, but I *do* know what sounds good. I haven't owned any real high-end equipment (currently I have, in addition to the Aerius i's, JBL bookshelf speakers for home theater, DB+ towers in the bedroom, and vintage Marantz Imperial 8's in the basement)...the ML's are my "treat" to myself, and are used in my "private getaway" upstairs 11x17 den and listening room. When I first purchased these, the room had a tile floor and they sounded quite "bright"...now that the room is wall-to-wall carpeted, that has been toned down somewhat. I concur with others' notes on placement - experiment in your particular room and you will arrive at great sound. I listen to (generally) 80's rock and techno, perhaps the most bass-intensive music extant, and have no complaints with the bass output of the Aerius i. I also agree a "break-in" period is helpful...the more you listen, the better they get! I admire the high-end amplification (tube amps, etc.) used by many of the other reviewers, but I must sheepishly admit to running these with a humble, new, 100w Onkyo hooked to a top-line Technics single-CD player. That's it. Two components. As I said earlier, this my "listening room" and no television, computer, etc. will ever be welcome in there. In my living room, I have a stack of components nearly from floor to ceiling, but space/arrangement considerations preclude using the ML's down there. I am currently listening to a live John Hiatt CD on the ML's, and if I settle into my recliner at the other end of the room it's just like I'm front row center. I realize it's easy to spend more for speakers, but I fail to see why it's necessary! Highly recommended!