MartinLogan Motion 4i Review (bookshelf speaker)

[beagleman]

I may be an idiot but at least I can hear the dialogue on my TV shows now lol. In the area I needed to fit these in the slim size is nice and I don't expect much from them. I probably wouldn't have bought them if I had seen a review on here compared to what was out there when I got them. I do cringe more on the larger Motion 35 speakers I bought though! They do sound fine to me without any EQ but I am sure they would get a similar test result here.

I do NOT see anyone being an "idiot" as mentioned above. And I do not see all listeners thinking utterly flat response is the most ideal or perfect sound.

Sure I think flat response and low distortion is a good (goal?) thing, but it does not take into account all the specific things that a huge variety of listeners will fine important OR to their liking.

Room acoustics, listener preference, and often just the hearing of the listener, or their music preference, will often make one find a speaker that is tilted up on the high end more appealing overall.

 

[watchnerd]

The brand dilution of this speaker makes me weep.

 

[Buckaroo Shanzai]

From the review:

I also can't figure out why the port is tuned so low. Would it not be better to be tuned a bit higher so that it provides more support for upper frequencies that are sagging right now?

Below reflex port resonance, cone excursion increases sharply. Thus, tuning higher than 60Hz is a very bad idea without a high-pass filter. Sure enough AVRs have that possibility, but customers may still get that wrong. I think it's a flawed design.

 

[Matsuo Mayu]

I may be an idiot but at least I can hear the dialogue on my TV shows now lol. In the area I needed to fit these in the slim size is nice and I don't expect much from them. I probably wouldn't have bought them if I had seen a review on here compared to what was out there when I got them. I do cringe more on the larger Motion 35 speakers I bought though! They do sound fine to me without any EQ but I am sure they would get a similar test result here.

Planning to buy 4i as well...objective data is one thing while how it sound is other thing I would rather say as all speakers is made tone-tuning. And this one, just under 200 dollars right now, all I want is just their AMT unit, their treble~~~

 

[Dalprad]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the MartinLogan 4i speaker. I purchased this from Amazon a couple of months ago. It costs US $188.

The design of the 4i is unique and gives a feeling of quality/luxury:

View attachment 101761

As you see it has an AMT tweeter and woofer. I thought the bottom thing was some kind of port. Alas, it seems to just be a belly button. The port runs into it so maybe it does something:

View attachment 101762

The binding posts are spring loaded and very difficult to terminate with bare wire. I guess it is designed to be flush mounted to the wall but then what happens to the port?

Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.

I performed over 800 measurement which resulted in error rate of less than 1% throughout the range.

Temperature was 60 degrees F. Measurement location is at sea level so you compute the pressure.

Measurements are compliant with latest speaker research into what can predict the speaker preference and is standardized in CEA/CTA-2034 ANSI specifications. Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel.

Reference axis was the tweeter center.

MartinLogan 4i Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:

View attachment 101763

Gosh, what were they thinking with that tilting up response? Sounding good in a showroom? But what showroom these days? Folks buy things online but maybe it impacts the first impression. Aside from that we also see a lot of little peaks that indicate resonances. You can see the source of some in the near-field response of the radiating elements:

View attachment 101764

That tall resonance peak from the port around 850 Hz is unfortunate. I also can't figure out why the port is tuned so low. Would it not be better to be tuned a bit higher so that it provides more support for upper frequencies that are sagging right now?

Early window response shows some additional issues:

View attachment 101765

Combined we are going to have a bass-shy, bright speaker:

View attachment 101766

Normally we like to see that arrow point down almost 10 dB. Here it is hardly doing so which means perceptual effect would be one of brightness.

The little woofer distorts a lot as well:
View attachment 101767
View attachment 101769

Directivity story is good though:

View attachment 101771

View attachment 101772

View attachment 101773

Here is our impedance:

View attachment 101774

Dips to below 3 ohm so better have a decent amplifier.

MartinLogan 4i Speaker Listening Tests
I always start with my female vocals. For all of two seconds the sound was OK and then became so jarring and sharp. High pitched as you can get. And not clean either. Switching to bass heavy tracks resulted in no reproduction of lower notes resulting the overall volume noticeably going down. Boosted the bass a bit with EQ which helped tonality but the terrible fidelity of the highs remained so I gave up.

Conclusions
Martin Logan marketing material talks a lot about them bringing down the sound of their electrostatic speakers to these boxed units. Well, if this is the sound of their electrostatic speakers, heaven help them all! The 4i is basically a pretty screech box. OK, I am being a bit harsh. But just a little. This is basically a "lifestyle" speaker designed to look good. The sound it produces if not that fit for consumption.

Needless to say, I can't recommend the MartinLogan 4i speaker.

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I've owned these for a about a week. Here is my experience. If not attached to the wall, they absolutely need to be close to the wall to get any low end. I did not find vocals to be harsh on most recordings. On pop female vocals that actually sound nicely "airy". These speakers reveal bad recordings readily. For example, 80's rock that is typically bass light and harsh on the high end comes across poorly. These vary greatly between genres. On some recordings I'm really impressed, and others just sound meh. I've also noticed that these speakers like to be played at slightly higher levels. You can hear it cross the line as you turn them up. At low levels they sound like a typical smaller speaker. However, there is one environment where i would say these are perfect, and that would be a small condo or apartment where you want clear sound at good levels without angering the neighbors. If you have these against the wall and you are sitting on a couch that is against the opposite wall, you will perceive a very nice (not boomy) increase in bass. Just enough to enjoy it without shaking the floors and getting "the stomp" from the neighbor. I have experienced moments of harshness, but just as many moments of impressive clarity on certain recordings. I like a little bright, but these can cross the line at times. Proper placement (which is really different for these) makes a massive difference. For a very specific setting, these are quite good, but won't replace stand mounted speakers that sit away from the wall in most cases. Lastly, I'll mention that these have a nice, wide soundstage. Thanks for reading!