Martin Logan Aerius...

[primalfear]

I'm new to this site, so firstly i'd like to say hi.

I've been into hifi for many years but after selling all my kit after the birth of my first child 2 years ago i'm now back in the market place again.
I've just bought a pair of Martin Logan Aerius and i'm having to think what should I match it up with!?! Any ideas?
I'm on a budget!!

Thanks in advance.

Phil

 

[Graffoeman]

Having just gone through that process with the Martin Logan Vistas, I would say that their recommendation that an 'amplifier should double its output into 4ohms and preferably double it again into 2ohms' needs to be regarded pretty much as gospel. You may get away with not quite doubling again into 2ohms, but doubling into 4ohm is, I would say, a must. So you're looking for upwards of 100w, but 200w will be better, with a spec of 200/400/800w at 8/4/2 ohms. When you start looking at these specs, there's not much around, and it's all pretty much solid state, Class A.

Krells, Audio Research, Bryston - that sort of thing. BIG, hot and heavy! As an indication of what to listen for, I could hear distortion in the upper freqencies when an amp wasn't coping.

There was also a fairly recent thread of another member who lost a DPA amp to a pair of ML CLS's. IRC, the amp sort of melted a bit.

Edit : Oops, silly me, forgot to mention what I ended up with, which is an Audio Research 100.2 - cost me £1500 s/h. Perhaps not quite the authority of the bigger Krells, in the bottom end, but it sounds lovely and it doesn't break a sweat with the Logans.

 

[lbr]

BIG, hot and heavy!

mmm nice . Now back to hifi...

First off - welcome t' forum.

Twas I with the meted DPA - may or may not have been the MLs, but I have my suspicions.

Either way, I found myself in the market for a replacement and I ended up with a second hand but recently revamped Krell KSA250 for around £1800. That definitely doesn't have a problem driving the speakers. I don't think it would have a problem driving the Arcadia

My recommendations, particularly if you are on a budget (knowing what budget precisely might help to narrow the choices - one man's £100 is another's £10,000) would be to search second hand for something 100-200W into 8ohms and as the G-Man says, double that into 4 and at least a goodly rise again into 2. The MLs dip to a little over 1 ohm, so they present a difficult load and need a meaty amp IMHO.

When I looked I had a good trawl of the forums, eBay and HiFiAdverts and there was a reasonable choice of stuff around the £1500 to £2000 mark. There's a guy selling a Classe CA 2200 on HiFiAdverts that I was interested in - I emailed him but he didn't get back to me until after I bought the Krell so I think it may still be available (it was a couple of weeks ago anyway). That may be a nice amp.

 

[anubisgrau]

heard the biggest unison research unico power amp with these speakers. sounded good (if a real ML hater can say so). it could be much cheaper than any of the mentioned US power monster amps.

 

[Werner]

Actually the old Marantz PM80 and PM90 series of integrated amps did quite well on the Aerii, and one could safely expect a Quad 707 or 909 to be equally good or better.

The doubling of power into halving impedances is not really required. What you really need, as with most electrostatics, is an amplifier that remains unconditionally stable with a capacitive load.

 

[zanash]

I'll second the quad 606 707 909 .....

are your the "i" spec ?

I'm currently running opera consonance cyber 800 to great effect with my ml aerius i's

 

[primalfear]

Well im currently running a Quad 77 intergrated as it's what I had laying about so getting hold of a Quad 909 might be the best and fairly cheap option and run the 77 as a preamp.
I've also borrowed a Roksan Kandy power amp to try and it actually sounds ok but im not sure how well it would cope when the inpedance drops below 4ohms.
I'm also on the look out for a cd player,.. I should never of sold my Nu-Vista.