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Some love for Martin Logan Dynamo SW

rogerd1

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Nov 14, 2023
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Hello, I want to share my initial experience with a Martin Logan Dynamo 1600x. Where I live SVS isn't as readily available as ML, so price play differently as in the states.

This is a Living room, half open plan about 5,000 cubic feet (tall ceilings, concrete), I was able to compare it with a Monolith 10 V2 (that I'm returning for second time).

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I like a lot the solid build of the woofer, is a tank but is able to reproduce higher bass frequencies beautifully as compared to the Monolith, putting the later into shame in my view. This is a stereo music setup. I haven't run the ARC app yet as it appears that calibration only works in iOs not Android.

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For the Monolith, both SWs had the "Christmas led failure", meaning they will halt operation at minimal voltage swings showing red-green flashing led, amps seems very very fragile to the point that I cannot trust that design. ML is solid in that regard.

Perhaps the 1600X is an overkill (if that is a word) for music in 5,000 cu.ft, maybe a 1100X (or two) is enough, but I can't change it.
For the ML, the pros I see:
- Very musical, easy to integrate with my Elac Carinas. The Monolith can't do that even with Roon Eq.
- 15 inch woofer is very authoritative, will go very low and I can see it would be great for Movies (but I don't see much Movies).
- App seems nice, yet, i need to run the room correction on an iPhone to see if it further improves.
- Amp and woofer seem very solid. Woofer is very stiff.
- Able to reproduce tight bass and also very depth low bass, with the Monolith i wasn't able to hear tight bass even with it's 10 in woofer, eq and front plug!
Cons: Cost twice the Monolith!
Standard, not beautiful looking

I hope doing some rudimentary tests in the future in case anybody is interested.

Edit:
1600x not a overkill in 5000 cu.ft for demanding songs.
I ran the ARC app from an iPhone, it works very very nice, a 2 minute room correction procedure. This may be a game changer for anybody not having AVR/external correction, you can disable the correction via the app and hear a huge improvement when is on, at least for my use case.
ML Amp/dsp is way more capable at higher volumes than the one in Monolith which seems to dsp-compress or run out of breath in comparison. 2 different leagues of subwoofers.
Still impressed with the 15" middle-high bass capability in comparison to the one in the 10", doesn't make sense but it is.
Other Con: currently is in the downfiring postion, unfortunately it dances a bit in hard floor
 
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