MartinLogan New Subwoofers Demo @ Audio Advice Live 2024

[gene]

MartinLogan brought three all-new subwoofer series to Audio Advice Live 2024. Covering a wide range of prices, these new subs all promise precision, value, style, and great build quality. The Dynamo Foundation Series is the entry-level offering, while the Dynamo Series offers upgraded performance and aesthetics. The Abyss Series uses dual passive radiators to squeeze big bass out of small boxes.

I had a chance to listen to the MartinLogan demo room, which consisted of a pair of Motion XT B100 bookshelf speakers powered by an Anthem STR Integrated Amp, with a pair of Abyss 8 subwoofers providing the bass notes. I came away impressed. Initially, I was sitting in the front row, only about 4 feet from the B100s, and didn't expect good sound. However, what I got was precise imaging and a very wide soundstage with spaciousness from the side walls. The bass was seamlessly integrated, though a bit too energetic in the very low registers (20-25Hz range). MartinLogan told me they purposely did NOT engage Anthem ARC Genesis on the STR Integrated Amp to temper the room modes to give people a sense of how the system would perform in a real room with no EQ, just proper time alignment and bass management.

Read: MartinLogan Subwoofer Overview & Demo Report

 

[XaVierDK]

Wouldn't the Dynamo 12 theoretically extend lower in-room than either of the Abyss subs, since their use of passive radiators necessitates steep high-pass filtering below the passive drivers' tuning?

Either way I hope you get to review some or all of these

 

[floptop]

From the ML brainiac that we go to with questions -

"The passive radiators in our hybrid (Abyss) system are tuned to deliver significantly more output in the lower octave of bass, typically around 40hz - below. This gives them a big advantage over the single driver front-firing Dynamos when it comes to max output capability in the deepest bass frequencies. While the lowest bass extension frequency is almost identical in the specs to the Dynamo "price" equivalent, the Abyss subs will have a lot more headroom in that bottom octave."

Dynamo has an advantage in headroom in the mid-bass region (50-60hz)... "Dynamo 12 has a slight midbass advantage due to that beautiful single 12" woofer, but the Abyss 10 will leave it in the dust when it comes to 40hz-below output headroom."