I USED TO SELL AUDIO EQUIPMENT FOR A CHAIN THAT SOLD "UPPER MID-FI TO ENTRY LEVEL HIGH END". WE HAD A GOLDEN RULE FOR SYSTEM DEMO....NO MATTER HOW MUCH A CUSTOMER WANTS TO HEAR NINE INCH NAILS, NEVER, EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES LET THEM...WHY? BEACAUSE NIN ABSOLUTELY SHREDS ALL BUT THE BEST SPEAKERS( AND EVEN THEN THE MANAGERS DIDN'T LIKE HEARING TO MUCH DISTORTION FROM THE B&W 805'S. TO ALL OF YOU WHO SAY THAT THE AERIUS ISN'T SUITABLE FOR LOUD MUSIC PLEASE CONDUCT THIS EXPERIMENT.....FIND A SET OF WELL BROKEN IN AERIUS. MAKE SURE THEY ARE CONNECTED TO A HIGH CURRENT AMPLIFIER, GET A GOOD POWERED SUB....AND SHOW ME ANOTHER SPEAKER THAT CAN TAKE THE ABUSE OF NINE INCH NILS AND SOUND BOTH EFFORTLESS, AND DARE I SAY IT ..ALMOST NATURAL. MY OLD B&W'S WERE A BIT BRIGHTER, HAD A LITTLE MORE MID-BASS, AND THEY DID IMAGE BETTER(THERE IMAGIMG WAS AWESOME!) THE LOGANS ARE BETTER ALL AROUND( GIVEN MY CHOICE OF MUSIC-BRIAN SETZER, ECHO AND THE BUNNEYMEN, THE SMITHS, CLANNAD,THE CLASH, JOHN COLTRANE...NOTICE THAT MANY GENRES HAVE BEEN MENTIONED? THIS IS WHY I FEEL THE LOGANS ARE A GREAT ALL AROUND SPEAKER!I OBVIOUSLY OWN A PAIR OF MARTINLOGANS. I WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT PROSPECTIVE BUYERS ARE NOT PUT OFF BY MANY OF THE STATEMENTS ON THIS PAGE SUCH AS "WORKS WELL WITH THE BEST EQUIPMENT AVAILABLE". WHILE IT IS TRUE THAT YOU WILL FIND MANY HIGH QUALITY/HIGH COST SYSTEMS FEARTURING THE AERIUS, THEY WILL SOUND GOOD, AS LONG AS CAREFUL ATTENION IS GIVEN TO EQUIPMENT SELECTION (PLEASE NOTE THAT I DIDN'T SAY YOU HAVE TO SPEND A LOT OF MONEY)
ROOM PLACEMENT IS CRITICAL
YOU NEED AN AMP WITH GUTS, WHILE A KRELL OR AUDIO RESEARCH MAY BE IDEAL, I GET SATISFACTORY RESULTS WITH AN OLD ADCOM 555II. I HAVE EVEN HEARD THEN POWERED BY A NAD INTEGRATED AMP.
YOU WANT A CLEAN PRE AMP...THIS IS CURRENTLY MY LIMITING
I ALSO USE A POWERED SUB THAT HAS A TOTALY ADJUSTABLE CROSSOVER. I SET THE GAIN LOW, AND THE XOVER POINT ABOT 38HTZ. THIS IS JUST ENOUGH TO REINFORCE TH LOW BASS.
MY SYSTEM? NOTHING FANCY
ANALOG FRONT END: ARISTON ICONII TURNTABLE W/SUMIKO BLUEPT
DIGITAL CAL AUDIO DELTA DRIVE,PS AUDIO SUPERLINK D/A (OLD 18BIT KIND)
PREAMP ADCOM 555II/AMP ADCOM 555II
MARTIN LOGAN AERIUS
M&K V100 SUB
CABLE ESOTERIC AUDIO AND MONSTER

Come on guys, We all know that aerious don't have the bass you looking for. But go out there buy a def.tech. PTL15 sub your problem solved. As far as I'm concern, Martin-logan got my paycheck. The vocal and the image is there even
I drive them with my Onkyo thx919. Can't wait for the sunfire to park in my
system. If you don't like your aerious or any other martin-logan, email me
and give a reasonable price I'll take the pain off your back. Roni44@hotmail.com

I heard a brief-but-promising demo of the Aerius i and decided to do a full audition with better components. [I'm in the market for speakers in $2k-2.5k range.] So today I auditioned them connected to a Pass Aleph 3 amp (Stereophile Class A) and a Cal Labs CL-15 connected directly to the amp. My music ranged from Beethoven's 9th, Kathleen Battle/Wynton Marsalis baroque duets, Acapella (all-male), Art Pepper (small ensemble jazz) and a variety of R&B and acoustic blues. I conducted this audition after my 11/9 review of the ProAc Response 1SC/REL sub combo (see my posted review).
The Aerius' midrange and treble are just plain fantastic--absolutely world-class. Airiness, spaciousness and liquid detail are excellent. Subtleties like natural decay and reverb, such as the mass choir in the large cathedral singing the "Ode to Joy" or the glorious voice of Kathleen Battle singing "Let the Bright Seraphim", are reproduced in full measure with these speakers. Compared to the ProAc monitors, the presentation was much bigger with the Aerius, and thus more realistic. While the ProAc was no slouch in the treble and midrange, the Aerius was preferable in reproducing the size of the original venue and showing the resulting air and space characteristics.

However, I'm not sure that the Aerius was "better" than the ProAc. I have now learned first-hand some of the trade-offs inevitable in choosing quality speakers at an affordable price. While listening to the ProAc, I found myself wishing for a bigger and more realistic sound. But with the Aerius, I found myself wishing the presentation wasn't so laid back. One of the characteristics of the dipole panels is that the perspective is well behind the plane of the speakers. I have heard Audio Physic speakers which also have this perspective and enjoyed them, so this is not an objectionable characteristic per se. However, I found the Aerius to be too laid back for my taste. The ProAc's, by contrast, present vocals well forward of the rest of the mix. But I loved the spaciousness, detail, effortless, tonal integrity and big sound of the M-Ls. So...which trade-off would be more acceptable? That depends on your tastes, but I would go with the Aerius. Those panels are just fantastic on every score, from detail to liquidity to tonal accuracy.

Up to this point you'll notice I've only talked about the panels. Of course, there's the 8" cone. The Aerius is really Martin-Logan's mini-monitor equivalent, so it doesn't do low bass at all. I ultimately didn't like this speaker because of its bass performance, but NOT because of lack of bass. The ultimate flaw of this speaker is that what bass it does do is noticeably slower than the panels. Moreover, it is not at all taut or precise, but rather ill-defined. These characteristics were brought into sharp relief on R&B selections. These speakers made the bass and rhythm sections sound as if they were off beat! Nor was this a subtle characteristic. While tapping my feet to the music, it was obvious that the bass cone wasn't keeping the beat. Even on jazz ensemble pieces, it was difficult to follow the bass line due to the lack of precision (compared with the wonderful panels) of the cone. This was less noticeable than the lack of speed evident when playing R&B-type music, however.

On balance, I was sorely disappointed with this speaker. The lack of bass was a minor irritation once I realized I was essentially listening to a monitor. It had more weight and authority than the ProAc 1SC, for example. But the glaringly evident divergence between the cone and panel performance when pushed (as with R&B music) made this an unacceptable choice for me. Even the lack of definition I might have chalked up to non-optimal speaker placement (M-L's are known to be highly placement sensitive). But the integration of the cone with the panels just doesn't work across the broad range of music. I suppose if all I listened to was vocals and chamber music, then this would be an excellent choice. But to my ears the Aerius' faults go beyond acceptable sins of omission (lack of bass weight) to sins of commission, the most glaring being lack of acceptable cone-panel integration.

Despite the things this speaker does so very right, I must disagree with Stereophile's Class B rating and with the overwhelmingly positive reviews on this site. My rating is 2 stars.

Ihave owned a pair of aerius i's for about 6 months and i would have a hard timetrading them for anything except bigger martin logans. I like jazz, blues, and comtempory christian music and i find these speakers to be, for the money, the
most transparent speakers i have ever heard for voices and acoustic instruments. I will have these speakers a long time......Les

Post-script to my Aerius review: The SL3's are MUCH better...the cone/panel integration works well with this speaker. So save your money and pay the extra $1,000 for the SL3's.

I've owned the Aerius-i's for over a year, and at first I also thought that the woofer was not matched well with the panel. But I experimented with placement using the formula from the Cardas site, mentioned in an earlier post. The difference was huge. If the speaker is too close to the back or side walls, the bass goes soft and mushy. If the speaker is placed right, broken in and warmed up, the bass is very solid, focused and fast. It doesn't go down to the extreme lows, but the bass that's there sounds musical and well-integrated. I'll save you the trouble of looking at the Cardas site. Just measure the wall behind the speakers. Then place the speakers so the center of the woofer is .276 times the wall measurement from each side wall. And .447 times the measurement from the back wall. My room width is 11.25 feet. So the woofer centers are a hair over 3 feet from each side wall, and a hair over 5 feet from the rear wall. I suspect that some dealers demo the Aeriuses without placing them properly, which is why they've gotten negative reviews.

I think some people above are a bit too power hungry. I listened to these speakers powered by a VAC 35 wpc tube amp. They were awesome. That was plenty of power to make them sing, and they would probably be even better if you bi-amped them, maybe a nice solid state amp for the woofers. These speakers were amazingly transparent, incredible imaging. I listened to some fast orchesteral jazz, and they were awesome. I think the tubes leant a nice warmness and openess to the sound. I listened to them for a good 45 minutes. After that, I listened to the other speakers on my list, the Vandersteen 2Ce's. The Vandy's were nice, but after about 2 minutes I shut it off. Not even the same league. These are a phenomenal speaker for the money. I give it a five if considering the price, otherwise a four because I know the SL3's are out there...

Disappointed with Aerius Performance.You pay 2000 Bucks and there is no Bass. Looks like this is fussy speaker with lot of time needed for locationI feel a speaker should reproduce all - Midrange, Bass, highs and lows.Why leave the bass ? Over and above 2000$, you add another 1000$ for Subwoofer. Not worth, instead go for Vandersteens 2Ce signature, Thiel Cs2.3 which performs all round very well with highs and lows.

Beacuse of the price and poor Bass, I give only two star

Postscript to my 11/14/98 review: Do not even think of spending $2,000 on the Aerius until you hear the $1,500 Magnepan 1.6 QR! [See my review dated 12/28/98.] You will be pleasantly surprised if you thought M-L had a lock on spaciousness and airiness in the mids and highs. The Maggies are legitimate giant-killers for the price. Think "coherence"....

Hello All,
Just a brief note to put something to rest about the Martin Logan product. For those of you who comment about the Martin Logan's lacking in bass detail, I have not experienced the same anomolies you speak of. The speakers provide the best liquid and dynamic midrange available for the price. I for one do not hear a lack of bass integration or involvement from the speakers. I've owned 3 different pairs of M/L's (Sequel II's, ReQuests, and Aerius I's) and each one has provided the best sound ever in my particular room. If there is one criticism that can be said of M/L speakers, that would be they are placement critical. However, speaker placement is something that needs to be determined with any speaker choice and does not restrict itself to M/L's.

For those of you considering the purchase of a pair of Aerius speakers, I would suggest trying them first before buying a larger Martin Logan speaker. I have a 20'x15' room that initially contained a pair of Sequel II's. I upgraded these to a pair of ReQuests. The ReQuests sounded great but were actually too large a speaker for a room of this size. Because of that fact, the dynamics of the Sequels were actually better than the ReQuests in the room. I recently sold the ReQuests and bought a pair of Aerius I's. These are performing more than adequately in the room. Every signature sound I've experienced from the M/L product has revealed itself with the Aerius I's. If you too have a room of similar size, I would suggest auditioning them before a pair of SL3's or certainly ReQuests. The money you save would be better spent on a system upgrade rather than a larger speaker.

For those of you who constantly criticize the M/L's for a lack of bass or bass involvement, I don't experience that in my system. I'm a heavy jazz listener, and as a result listen to a lot of dynamically recorded music. From Mingus, Carter, Peacock, LaFaro, McBride, Chambers, Gomez...I could list a hundred different players and recordings. The point is, I have not listened to a single bass instrumentalist solo in my system that didn't provide me with a detailed abundance of bass. Every nuance of sound created by the instrument and the performer is there.

To criticize this speaker BASED (pun intended) upon a lack of bass involvement is an unfair and invalid criticism, IMHO. Martin Logan speakers in general require tweeking in the room for proper placement and thereby deriving the fullest benefit from them. I hasten to criticize the opinions of those who've had a negative experience with the M/L product. But, it makes me wonder if they've actually heard the product with not only the best electronics, but also with proper placement of the speaker. My personal experience has been that results will vary widely and heavily upon both electronics and placement.

My current system contains the following:

Threshold T-200
BAT VK5i
Aerius I's
Meridian 508.24
JPS Superconductor Cable throughout

Give the Aerius a try in your room. These speakers are available in abundance used on the web and if they don't suit your needs, you would have little difficulty reselling them. I don't believe this can be said of many other brands however. The Aerius is an extremely popular speaker. This, in spite of those who criticize the speaker for a lack of bass. The Aerius is what it is...and it does what it does extremely well for my ear.

An easy 5 star rating *****!

Enjoy!
bebop8