Audiophilepure

The performance of the ESL 15A’s has been nothing short of phenomenal. Every genre of music has been well served by these wonderful towers. They can rock Pink Floyd and the band’s larger-than-life sonics with ease. Then they can bring a female vocalist into one’s living room. Large-scale orchestra? They don’t even break a sweat. There wasn’t a single music sample thrown at these transducers that wasn’t handled with close to perfection.

This next part is the most subjective, least scientific look at these speakers in this review. In business travels, I will often frequent high-end audio stores just to get a feel for ‘what’s out there.’ As mentioned earlier, one pair of speakers reminded me a lot of the experience with the MartinLogans. This was discovered during a demo session with the Wilson Audio Alexx V speakers being driven by a pair of McIntosh Labs MC1.25KW mono amplifiers. The listening room was about twice the size of the one in my home. The big Wilsons had this huge presence that brought goosebumps. At $164,000 per pair, they blew me away with how well they brought everything to life.

The ESL 15A’s, in our listening room, elicited a similar response. They feel like a speaker with no realistic limits in our room. They did so with a $29,000 price tag and with an amplifier that retails for $14,000 vs. the $31,000 amp pair that was driving the Wilsons. Does this mean the $29,000 MartinLogans are a match for the $164,000 Wilsons? That would require a rigorous series of blind listening tests in the same room to find out if that is true.

I attended the Rocky Mountain Auudiofest every year for many years. It was for me an opportunity to renew acquaintances, preview new products and meet manufacturers.  My first exposure to the “Meitner Mafia” (Amadeus, Susan and Ed) was at RMAF.  If I remember correctly, EMM was showcasing their digital front end and their brand new MTRX 
 amps.  Ed and Susan were sequestered in an adjoining room, which is to say it was not obvious that they were attending.  My friend Jim and I were much taken with the amps and the sound of the system.  At some point, we were asked if we would like to meet the designer.  That began a long relationship with Ed and eventually Amadeus. Several things were immediately clear, that Amadeus was protective of his father, that Ed was brutally honest and that he did not suffer fools lightly.  Fortunately, he made an exception in my case.

https://www.hifinews.com/content/techdas-air-force-ivreed-1h-turntablearm

This is a singer who has rock ‘n’ roll in his veins, and the live performances of rock standards like ‘Susie Q’ and an early cover of The Beatles’ ‘I’ll Cry Instead’ were delivered with such impact that the surface noise disappeared like tinnitus in a hurricane. There was something about the playback that enabled you to listen through the detritus. In addition to the sounds of the venue, Rivers’ distinctive vocals, with his mix of textures and a hint of nasality, were as perfectly reproduced as I have heard… and I am a Rivers devotee.

Toying with a worn-out LP is hardly an ideal way to assess a piece of equipment, but it does educe the belief that a fine system can work wonders with a less-than-wonderful recording, or in this case an LP in not-so-pristine condition. With the sonic spectacular that is Hall & Oates’ H2O [RCA RCALP6056], a mint original, the bottom end heard on ‘Maneater’ made me question what was alleged to be the logical sonic sacrifice of the Air Force IV versus the Air Force III. Surely the overall mass of the III, the vastly heavier platter, would lead to greater impact and weight? At no point did it sound like the IV was losing anything to the beefier III.

https://www.whathifi.com/speakers/hi-fi-speakers/marten-parker-duo-diamond-edition

Unusually for such revealing and analytical performers, these Marten speakers won’t go out of their way to highlight those flaws. You can hear the shortcomings easily, of course, but they remain in proportion, and the good parts of the recording will still shine.

However, feed these speakers a diet of great recordings – classics such as Miles Davis’ Kind Of Blue or Take Five by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, for example – and they will turn in a performance full of subtlety, dynamics and cohesion that’s almost eerily convincing.

That the Marten Parker Duo Diamond Edition are capable of a high level of resolution should not be a surprise. Such qualities should be a given at this level. However, what sets them apart from most rivals is the degree to which they step beyond the mechanics of hi-fi – you know, a cone moving backs and forward, crossover components and enclosure resonances – to put the music front and centre.

These speakers sound impressively natural regardless of whether we are talking about rendering instrumental textures in classic jazz recordings or the nuances of Billie Eilish and Khalid’s vocals on the wonderful song, Lovely.

With its $1,599 MSRP, the Onkyo A-50 Network Integrated Amplifier is essentially a streaming computer built around a very good integrated amplifier with a built-in DAC and phono stage. You can build a very feature-rich system by simply adding a pair of speakers and streaming all of your music to it, and you can add a turntable or CD player to it later if you’re into physical media.