By Fred Manteghian, Guide to Home Theater
June 2001

I've always loved the sound of planar dipole speakers that big, bigger, biggest rendition of life so it's not surprising that MartinLogan's planar electrostatic designs have been among my favorites. The Prodigy, ML's newest and penultimate design, is as close to perfection as most audiophiles short of those able to afford the company's flagship Statement E2 can reasonably hope to get. Joining the Prodigy for this review is ML's new Theater center-channel speaker, along with a pair of ReQuests bringing up the rear. So while you're reading this review, sit down in your favorite chair, put on some sultry jazz, and pretend just pretend that you, too, are listening to the Prodigy.

The Prodigy, along with the slightly smaller Ascent and the even smaller Scenario, represent a significant step forward in the company's electrostatic/dynamic design philosophy. All of these models share a "floating" curved electrostatic panel that is visually, if not physically, de-coupled from the bass module, which contains a dynamic cone woofer of appropriate size for the panel in question. In the case of the Prodigy's 4-foot-tall electrostatic element this means two 10-inch woofers a forward-firing aluminum cone and a rear-firing fiber cone and a 28-inch-deep cabinet to house it all.

MartinLogan refers to this dual-woofer implementation as its ForceForward technology, which makes its debut in the Prodigy. By playing with the Prodigy's crossover, ML has attempted to avoid what the user manual refers to as a "50Hz suckout and a 100Hz bump" caused by bass reflections off the wall behind the speaker. While the manual never explains exactly how this is accomplished, the implication is that it may involve toying with the phase and frequency response of the two woofers, operating them on a fine line between bipolar (both drivers in phase) and dipolar (the two out of phase) operation.

"...with the finest program material, the Prodigy
was capable of bringing out more detail than I could
have imagined. Across the frequency band, it was
the most even-handed of players."

The Prodigy and the Theater employ the same excellent speaker posts I first encountered in MartinLogan's Scenario, which allow you to hand-tighten your connection with confidence. The Prodigy provides two pairs of these binding posts for bi-wiring or, if you wish, bi-amping. I was in the pretty position of having in-house the Sunfire Cinema Grand Signature amplifier, which offers both voltage and current source outputs for each of its three front channels. I hooked the Prodigy's electrostatic panels to the higher-impedance "current" outputs (approximately 1Ohm) and drove the woofers with each channel's low-impedance "voltage" outputs. The manual even gives details on how to bi-amp the Prodigy, though I didn't try that option.

If, for some reason, you feel the need for a bit more oomph, the Prodigy features a switch that offers a +3dB boost centered at 50Hz (one way of reducing a 50Hz suckout, I suppose). [If the suckout is caused by a room mode, boosting is unlikely to help much.-TJN] I found the speakers' performance more to my liking in the neutral position, even though they were placed well out in the room.

Finally, there's the blue light. A button near the top of the woofer's front panel illuminates a small MartinLogan logo that shines through the electrostatic panel in the coolest blue you've ever seen. I turned it off to prevent being distracted while watching movies, but it's there if I ever need it.

The Theater center-channel speaker is built around a short but wide electrostatic panel that covers most of the cabinet's width. This is bookended by two 6.5-inch woofers, and at its center is a column of three 1-inch soft-dome tweeters, the latter used to increase the horizontal dispersion. The whole convex affair is practically a mirror image of ML's smaller Cinema center, which I reviewed last year. MartinLogan has obviously placed a premium on the dialogue intelligibility and improved low-frequency performance that a state-of-the-art center must provide.

For this review, I moved my reference ReQuest speakers to the rear of the room to function as surround channels and put the Prodigys in their place. The larger ReQuests (their panels are nearly the same size as those in the Prodigys, though of different construction) thus replaced the much smaller ML Styloses in my system. Thanks to the ReQuests' 12-inch woofers, I could now cross the rear channels over to the subwoofer at a much lower frequency. While bass is non-directional below a certain frequency, a full-range speaker can put more of the portion that is directional exactly where the sound engineers wanted it.

Two for Tea
Electrostatic speakers are frequently described as being "fast"; that is, having superb transient response. That may be, but their most distinctive sonic characteristics derive from their large panels and dipole design. The large panels operate not as a point source but as a line source: Step away from a MartinLogan and a conventional dynamic speaker and you'll notice that the ML retains more of its volume with distance. That's a function of the cylindrical wavefront of a line source vs. the spherical radiation pattern of a dynamic speaker. Listen to a song fade out on Prodigy speakers, and your ear is never drawn to that single area of the speaker baffle where the tweeter is hidden. The song just fades out.
The Prodigy's electrostatic panel also radiates sound front and back in a dipolar pattern, unlike a conventional box speaker. The rear radiation is out of phase with the front, and while this can lead to unintended cancellation and reinforcement at some frequencies, in practice, sufficient distance between the speaker and the wall will ameliorate most of this. In fact, this two-sided nature is responsible for much of what is so grand about the big, bigger, biggest sound of dipole speakers. Even in 2-channel stereo, two dipoles can fill the space between and behind them without requiring that the listener's head be held rigidly still, lest the illusion of the soundstage never emerge.

"Few speakers can recreate the ambience
of a live movie theater, but the MartinLogans did,
recreating not just any movie theater, but a
theater great in size."

The latest curvilinear electrostatic panels from MartinLogan have benefited from more R&D than did their forebears, including visible differences in the stator design between the ReQuest and the Prodigy. The result: more neutral and extended upper frequencies. The resolution of the ReQuest was always exceptional, but it did tend to soften the more acerbic and aggressive treble balances of many movies and pop recordings.

But with the finest program material, the Prodigy was capable of bringing out more detail than I could have imagined. Across the frequency band, it was the most even-handed of players.The treble was neither muted nor, after a reasonable break-in period, aggressive. Cymbals sounded full-bodied but never tizzy, revealing the thickness of their gauge. The speaker's frequency response was consistent and balanced at all volume levels, exhibiting no noticeable compression. Piano recordings, in particular, sounded utterly enthralling and realistic. My kids love Chopin for homework or just mellowing out. If Norman Rockwell were alive, he could have painted us all gathered around the 'Logans, sitting out the winter chill with smiles on our faces and goodwill in our hearts.

The Prodigys did not need to be pushed hard to come to life-even at low levels, they imbued instruments with lifelike character. I spent a peaceful Sunday morning listening to some early Beatles at levels that wouldn't wake a church mouse, and still felt the sense of involvement that comes only from completely connecting with the music. And while you shouldn't try to judge a speaker's reproduction of timbres with the recording of an electric instrument, some musical events transcend such concerns. The electric guitars on The Beatles (Apple SWBO 101, LP) reveal the accurate buzzing twang of string against fret; with the Prodigys, I could almost imagine the amount of pressure exerted for each note performed. "I got blisters on me fingers!"

There is a certain grandeur to full-range planar speakers that spares the woofer without spoiling the mix, but customers keep complaining that they want more bass from electrostatics. While grafting a dynamic woofer to a panel speaker addresses that concern, it introduces new challenges, not the least of which is the differing radiation patterns of the two types of transducers. With the Prodigy, MartinLogan has come as close as I can imagine to solving the integration issue. The sounds of the lower registers of stringed instruments were projected forcefully, but with a delicacy indelibly inked with the same signature as the midrange.

I'm not sure if the Prodigy's success in this area is more dependent on the ForceForward technology, which plays games with the crossover, or on the fact that the Prodigy, with two 10-inch woofers, simply has more square inches to push air with. The end result was a bass that sounded not only better integrated with the panels than most such designs, but more powerful and realistic as well.

Room treatment and speaker positioning were critical in attaining the most the Prodigy had to offer. The ReQuests had been fabulous in my small, overdamped office, but turned bass-shy in the big home theater, a problem largely ameliorated by the subwoofer against the front wall-a take-no-prisoners, 18-inch Velodyne FSR-18. Still, even in my stadium of a room, I expected that, with some work and double the woof, I'd be able to attain my goal of perfect stereo sound forever, sans sub.

I started with the Prodigys about 57 inches from the front wall, a few inches out from where the ReQuests had been. MartinLogan recommends a panel-to-wall distance of 0.618 times the room height. Though the height of my room varies from 8' I" in front to 7' 2" in back (the step-down occurs a few feet in front of my listening position), I used the front dimension in my figuring and ended up repositioning the Prodigys about 59 inches into the room. Imaging was improved considerably by toeing-in the speakers fairly severely-I could just barely discern the breadth of the side oak panels, which meant that the axes of the Prodigys' forward-firing woofer cones converged just slightly behind my listening position. My room is on the hard side; the quicker the music gets to my ear, the less deleterious the smearing effects of secondary reflections. It's the simple things in life.

Of late, the Prodigys have encouraged me to comb through my 3000 albums, enjoying them for all they're worth. If all speakers sounded this good in stereo, home theater might have never been invented. But it was, and that's where this MartinLogan surround system really took off.

There's plenty of bump and grind, which the MartinLogans pounded out without complaint. The full-range Prodigys and ReQuests were crossed over to the Velodyne sub at 40Hz and 63Hz, respectively, and I was honestly able to get the volume up to about as loud as I imagine the Coyote Ugly bar is on a Friday night.

Speaking of Crowe, this time Russell, the Gladiator DVD has an emotionally powerful music score by Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard. Merging an epic orchestral sound infused with sorrowful, almost Gaelic overtones with more post-production processing than you can shake a stick at (oops, there's another effect), this is one thick soundtrack. The opening battle was excruciatingly real with the picture off. Arrows passed overhead as burning spheres fired from catapults exploded, engulfing the forest around me in flames. I made my way to a couch, where I dug a shallow ditch for myself and listened to the proceedings with one eye open, all the while fearing detection.

"Switching to the DVD input showed just how
enveloping and critical the full MartinLogan
system was in recreating the worlds these
directors had envisioned."

It was like that with movie after movie. The endless layered rains, whether prominently or just barely perceived, pierced by sirens and horns, cars, or trains, make Seven (New Line Platinum Series N4997, DTS/DD) a movie you have to admire, even if you don't care for this dark, demented tale. As the sound of the metronome coming from the center channel accompanied Morgan Freeman's character into sleep, it drew my attention so naturally that it wasn't until I'd replayed the scene a few times that I heard the frantic tick of wind-up alarm clocks, the drizzle from outside, and that mother of all annoyances, the bleating of an electric alarm clock, all sidling in from the other channels fore and aft. The ability of the MartinLogans to put me in the center, to completely immerse me in a film's virtual surroundings, was impressive enough to defy comparison. Few speakers can recreate the ambience of a live movie theater, but the MartinLogans did, recreating not just any movie theater, but a theater great in size the walls seemed to move away from me as the MLs' dipole nature worked in tandem with the aural clues left by the sound engineer and great in sound.

Using the DTS soundtracks available on all three of the aforementioned DVDs, I was able to use the pushbutton configuration capabilities of the Theta Casablanca II processor to switch from my DVD setting (in which all five main speakers plus subwoofer were engaged) to my CD setting (set to drive the Prodigys full-range, with no sub, center, or surrounds). In simple 2-channel, most dialogue was completely absent, although echoes of voices occasionally appeared in the left and right channels. Switching to the DVD input showed just how enveloping and critical the full MartinLogan system was in recreating the worlds these directors had envisioned.

The Theater center-channel proved leagues ahead of the older Logos. I didn't have to do any comparisons, so obvious was the improvement. The Theater's array of three tweeters and two small woofers draped around a relatively small electrostatic panel served only to improve the center channel's primary function: Dialogue was crystal-clear, but not harsh or pointed. With some movies, male voices, clearly close-miked and "looped" (i.e., re-recorded and overdubbed in the studio), could be a little thick. But in multi-channel music there were no aberrations of note. And most important of all, the Theater blended exceptionally well with the floor-standing Prodigys.

Conclusions
This is the best sound I've had in my home theater. For the money, it oughta be. This +$17k system ($10,000 for the Prodigy, $2495 for the Theater, $4800 for a pair of ReQuests) is priced so far in the stratosphere that most readers will have a better chance of picking a DirecTV signal off it than actually wedging one through their front doors.

Various dipole and bipole speakers, both conventional and panel-driven, share a sonic quality that effectively moves walls back and away while putting the listener-viewer in the center of the action. It just so happens that, in my experience, this setup does it best. Even if you'll never be able to afford this system, you owe yourself the favor of finding a MartinLogan dealer and asking for an extended audition. That way, you'll know what to listen for in a less costly system. You can get reasonably close for much less money. You just can't get this: big, bigger, biggest, best.