ELEGANCE MY WIFE LOVES TO LOOK AT THEM JUST AS A PIECE OF ARTWORK.
SOUND
RELIABILITY

REQUIRES A POWERFULL AMP TO GIVE IT THE JUICE IT NEEDS.

I power this speakers by using the nakamichi av-10 receiver and using the carver series II sunfire amplifier at 300Watts. This speakers sound the best. Tight base and crystal highs. The base is well controlled and floor shaking. I think this is possibly the best combination for this speakers. Martin logan allows you to add a little more bass with a +2db switch which i believe makes them slightly boomy, may need this on certain music. I do not need to adjust my tone controls for about 90% of my music. That is they are in the center position. That IS JUST AMAZING. NO ADDED BASS OR TREBLE AND THEY SOUND THE BEST. WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT IN A SPEAKER FOR THIS PRICE? ONE WORTHY NOTE, THE WOOFERS DO NOT ROT OUT LIKE MOST SURROUNDS. THE WOOFERS I HAVE ARE THE ORIGINAL WOOFERS MADE IN 1986. I AM STILL USING THEM IN 2007 WITH NO NOTICEABLE DIFFERENCE EACH YEAR. AMAZING.

Customer Service

THE BEST. ONCE I HAD A SMALL PROBLEM AND ALL I HAD TO DO WAS TO CLEAN THE BOARDS THE DUST IN THE BOARDS ACTUALLY SHORTED OUT THE HIGH SMALL CURRENT SUPPLY TO THE STATIC PANELS. THANKS MARTIN LOGAN FOR THE FREE ADVICE. AMAZING.

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NONE

speed

size. they're kind of big.

these speakers, with the right components, are outstanding. one guy in this forum claimed that they have some sort of a bump. he should get better source components. i've a consonance 2.2 cdp, a meridian pre, rogue m-120's and the sequels and they reproduce joni, massive attack, richard goode, and everything else perfectly. get them and get good hardware. they're a steal in their price range. a steal, if you got good equipment (dude). paid 1600 CAD

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just the other type, traditional speakers (many)

Very good midtones en vocal, basses much better than Aerius, which I now use as rear speakers.

High's, especially for opera's and such

Bought them a month ago, Aerius were to weak in bass. These are much better. Sounds perfect with Pink Floyd, classical pieces and movies.

Very high resolution loudspeaker, gorgeous design.

Originally some lower mid-range / upper bass intergration problems, but was able to resolve.

When I originally purchased these speakers (previously owned), I had a very hard time finding a solid state amp that would drive these speakers to moderately high levels. They presented a very demanding load, and caused several amps to shut down due to thermal overload. I later purchased an Aragon 4004 mk.II, 200 watts per channel, which provided plenty of juice to drive this beast. Now that I had an amp that could more than adequately drive the Sequel II's, I still had a problem intergrating the lower mid-range and upper bass. I tried everything, bi-wiring with different speaker cables, various interconnects, phase change between ESL and woofer, nothing seemed to rectify the problem. Then, thanks to puncture holes in one of the ESL panels while moving to a new place, I had to purchase a new pair of SL3 panels (only $450.00 per pair, what a bargain). While I was at it, I replaced the woofers for an additional $200.00. The resulting change in the overall sound was astounding. Gone was the lower mid-range / upper bass intergration problem, there was even greater resolution, the speakers were now much more effecient and had much better dynamics! I suspect that Martin Logan has voiced the SL3 panels slightly different from the original Sequel II panels, they are now more coherent with the woofer. I would recommend anyone with older Sequel II's to upgrade to the newer, better sounding SL3 ESL panels. And they're a great bargain to boot!

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Vandersteen 2ci, Snell EIII

Excellent build quality, clarity, soundstage, aeshetics.

Low-bass.

I just graduated high school, and other than my Sony 3-ways, these are my first pair of "real" speakers. The Sequel II's are excellent speakers and perform outstandingly everywhere except low-bass regions. I have yet to hook them up to my Marantz 96 and MIT cables, using inferior Sears equipment and they still sound glorious.


Bottom line, speakers for $1400 are not supposed to sound this wonderful!

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None.

Detail, effortlessness, tonal accuracy

Somewhat limited dynamics, require precise positioning and lots of space behind the speakers

I've owned my Sequel II's for over 10 years and I've played them in all different environments, with all different types of equipment. A few mods I've made:
1. They CAN rock and the bass is vastly improved by removing the lower half of the metal grill - it blocks too much woofer output. Also, place a sound absorbing baffle between the stat panel and the woofer to limit reflections up into the stator.
2. Replaced the binding posts with the totally copper ones that Enid Lumley used to love so much.
3. As they've aged, the crossover covers have tended to vibrate with loud music and I place a heavy weight (a spare transformer on one side and a 5 lb. scuba weight on the other - I'd use VPI bricks if I had 'em) on the top to damp the buzz.
4. Position, position, position. Try everything - you'll get it right and it'll be sweet.
On the used market (selling for about half of their original price), they can't be beat so I'm giving them 5 stars - about a 4.5 when they were new. I'll give 4 stars for overall rating because there are better speakers out there for not much more money: Soundlab (great used value if you can find them), Thiel, Aerial Acoustics and others I haven't heard.
Martin-Logan provides great support and they'll be around for quite a while yet. They make a solid product which sounds great year after year. I'm keeping mine, they're moving to the rear channels with a CLS II/Entec SW-1 quartet taking over the front.

Similar Products Used:

CLS II, Soundlab A-3

There are at least three advantages to electrostatic speaker designs.1. The large surface area spreads the sound out. Instead of the high frequencies coming from one location and the midrange coming from another, they are mixed together to give you a more integrated, natural sound.
2. Every conventional tweeter I've heard has a hissing sound to it. Even $2000 dollar a piece Energy speakers with $1800 amps on each channel sounds the same way. That makes voices sound un-natural. Electrostatic technology eliminates this concern.
3. The thin sheet of mylar and its enclosure radiates sound in the front and rear, with equal amplitude, which almost doubles your money and gives you a more spacial sound.

These are most amazing speakers I ever heard. Given enough power (100 watts per channel or better), they do great things to music. It is recommended to use separate power sources for the electrostatic and woofer portions because of the respective capacitive and inductive loads placed on the amplifier. Separate inputs are provided.

Martin-Logan Sequel 2
Glorious in the 250HZ and up crossover-less frequency range. Fatal mid-bass deficiencies. Too resonant bass bin with awful 170HZ cabinet resonance (in my samples). Livable only with bi-amping, and perhaps 3dB more power to the low frequency drivers to cure bass lightness. Plus a 6-10dB notch filter centered around cabinet resonance frequency. How did they let this design out with such a fundamental design flaw.

Anyone out there tried reinforcing the bass cabinet?

I owned these for about 1 year. It was a frustrating experience. Having owned many high end speakers over the years I just couldn't believe how power hungry these babies are. 100 WPC is an absolute minimum. I could not find a SS amp that didn't sound hard and brittle. Tubes sounded OK but I needed to mortage my house for an appropriate high power tube amp to make them work for me.
Good looking speaker, horrible low - mid bass, terrible integration between the ES and the 10-inch cone bass driver. If that were not enough, these are way to beamy for me and offer a fairly small sweet spot.

Sold them for Magnepans and I have never looked back.

They are working great here. No problems with amplifier (T+A from Germany).Yes, little problems at low-mid range and upper bass, but thats all.