Customer Reviews

MartinLogan Motion 10 Floorstanding Speaker (Black Ash, each)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Now I know that most reviews on Amazon state that the product they are reviewing is "best for the price". This is particularly common with speakers. Don't let this fool you. Martin Logan has ultimately hit the pinnacle of speaker performance-to-value with the stunning Motion 10's. To start, I purchased these speakers about a month and a half ago from a certified reseller on Amazon for about $225.00 each. The shipping was great and the customer service was also at the five star mark. The speakers arrived in some large boxes filled with styrofoam molds and elegant covers for the speakers themselves. Not long after hooking up the speakers and setting the impedance on my receiver to 4 ohms, I played the first track and immediately was in disbelief. The music (Maroon 5, in my case) sounded spectacular. The bass was excellent for speakers with such a small footprint, and the highs/midrange was truly something special. Keep in mind that in the owner's manual, there is a small excerpt stating that there is a 70 hour "burn in" period during which the speakers get accustomed and begin to sound much better. This could be noticed after about 30 minutes of listening! Fast-forward to today, and the 70 hours have been achieved. I am speechless to how well these speakers actually play! Being a 16 year-old, most kids my age fail to appreciate clarity or the stereo imaging created by a speaker. I for one, found it to be something quite overlooked in speakers at this price point. Not only is this a great value, but also a product that will keep serving you for years to come.
Pros: Great sound, small footprint, elegant design, great cable hookups, ribbon tweeter, magnetic grille, bragging rights for owning MartinLogan
Cons: Easy to topple over by small children, could use a better low-frequency extension

Don't waste your time looking for other speakers that cost hundreds more; the real deal are these Motion 10's

Martin Logan is traditionally known as a very high-end audio company catering to serious audiophiles. The Motion 10's are designed to be both affordable and compact, and they certainly deliver in that regard.

I replaced my Sony floorstanding speakers with the Motion 10's. I was immediately struck with how unobtrusive the Motion 10's were when compared to Sony speakers. The Motion 10's are lean, modern, and attractive. The best analogy I can come up with to describe them would be to compare a greyhound with a husky - both are great looking dogs, but like a greyhound, the Motion 10's are sleek and stylish. They blend into a room, rather than standing out as large speakers. They come with built in stands that raise them off the floor. This enhances sound, since the sound is not wasted being absorbed into the floor. The stands have a high quality, rubber coating that both protected my hardwood floor and prevents the speakers from sliding around. You can also unscrew the rounded, rubber bottoms and replace them with included pointy screws that are designed to work with carpet. I also like that they come with attractive speaker covers, to keep dust out when the speakers are not in use. The hookup was quite easy, and I appreciated the push-style speaker terminals that really keep the speaker wires secure.

As far as the sound goes, they are pretty impressive. These speakers use a "Folded Motion Tweeter." In sum, this technology delivers very satisfying, clear highs. When combined with the solid bass delivered by these speakers, the end result when watching movies is excellent. When using speakers as part of a home theater system, you want a speaker that can handle vocals, sound effects, and background music with excellent clarity. The Motion 10's deliver in all areas. For gaming, my Xbox 360 is hooked up to my home theater system so I can play in Dolby Digital. The beautiful, cello-based soundtrack of Bioshock 2 had never before sounded quite as clear and brilliant as it did with the Motion 10's. They also handled the booming explosions, gunfire, and related audio of the game very, very well. For me, gaming has never sounded quite as good as it does now with these speakers.

I think sound quality is very subjective obviously, so in the end I can only tell you that I think these speakers sound excellent, especially with movies. The bass response is very solid, and the highs are expertly reproduced. Overall, I think they offer an excellent balance between price and performance. In the end, however, you just never know for sure until you hear them yourself. But coming from an established audio company like Martin Logan, you at least know that you are getting quality speakers from a well-known and established source.

The Martin Logan 10 speakers are fantastic - clear and powerful at any volume.

My home theater setup is a 550w yamaha receiver, a JBL subwoofer, and two Martin Logan 10s to go with my projector/htpc source. I typically use this media room to watch movies or football/basketball, and these speakers are ideal for either use.

I also listen to many genres of music, and couldn't be happier with the delicate, clear sound provided by the speakers. My sister brought over a recording of her performance in the university's orchestra (Rachmaninov), and the whole family gathered around to listen. We turned off the subwoofer to avoid muddling the sound, and we were rewarded with crisp, clean notes and a powerful bass. My mom even commented that it sounded better on the speakers than the live performance did! The bass is very good on these, but not powerful enough to use without a subwoofer in a real home theater environment. For enjoying music, though, these would be perfect as a standalone pair

The speakers were well packaged, and very easy to setup. It even comes with mountable spikes to improve stability on the carpet. These replace the stock rubber feet intended for use on hard flooring.

The banana plug connections are a great option, but I really liked the spring-loaded receptacle for accepting stripped and twisted speaker wire. Much more usable than the twist lock system that my receiver uses.

The speakers themselves just look cool, too. The feet extend about an inch or two on all sides beyond the speakers (for stability), but that does mean that they will stand out from the wall a little. It looks like they are floating in the room. Just keep that in mind if you are looking for speakers that will fit in flush to your other equipment.

Length:: 4:19 Mins

I don't know a whole lot about the technicalities of sound, but I can tell what sounds good and what doesn't, and these speakers sound good. That they look good is a bonus too. They're not too skinny like other tower speakers I've seen. These are pretty solid.

To give you the details, we hooked up our speakers with RCA High-performance speaker wire (16 AWG) and connected them to a Sony STR-DE335 receiver amp which gives 100 watts per channel. From what I'm told, and it makes sense, the power and type of receiver/amp you use will make a difference in what you get out of the speakers. A weak receiver just wont do it justice.

In the video I mention a subwoofer on the bottom of the speakers, but I don't think they're technically subwoofers, if you're an expert, you'll be able to tell, but the bass was good enough to make it sound like small subwoofers were there. The bottom looks like the bottom of a subwoofer. Either way, you can see for yourself in the video and the bass sounds great which when it comes down to it, it's how they sound and how they look.

The only issues, as mentioned in the video, are that they could be knocked over if you have little kids running around and the fabric covering on the top of the speakers may be a little harder to clean than if it was just wood on top.

Other than that, they're great speakers. Everyone we've had over has commented on how they like the look and how well they sound.

As part of the Amazon Vine program, I actually received the MartinLogan Motion 8 Center Channel Speaker (Piano Black, each) and was in the market at the time for new set of speakers for my home theater. The "free" Motion 8 actually provided the impetus for shopping around. Initially I was set on purchasing the Motion 12s (and considered these, the Motion 10s, thus the review) to complement this center, but in the end my final decision went to a competitor and I'll explain why.

I also wrote a review for the MartinLogan Motion 12 Floorstanding Speaker (Black Ash, each) which I also auditioned when I bought my system. I didn't end up with the Motion 12s either.

The Motion 10 is Martin Logan's "cheapest" floor standing speaker, just below the MartinLogan Motion 12 Floorstanding Speaker (Black Ash, each). For the price, currently $800 for the pair, you would be getting a very full, crisp, clear sound. The one thing this floor stander lacks is the dedicated midrange driver. If you audition this speaker, which I recommend highly (that big box retailer with the Geek Squad has them to audition), and compare this directly to the Motion 12, you will notice that they aren't the same speaker and don't sound the same. This one is missing a level of clarity that the Motion 12 has. I attribute it to being just a 2.5 way speaker (no dedicated midrange driver) instead of the 3 way (dedicated midrange driver) like the Motion 12.

For the money, however, these speakers offer a lot to love. Phenomenal sound. Clear highs, unmuddied mids and slightly deep bass. At $1000 a pair MSRP, you'll be hard pressed to find something that will please your wallet this well, along with pleasing your ears.

While at the big box retailer I also auditioned several B&W, Def Tech, Polk and Energy/Klipsch speakers. All sounded good but the Martin Logan Motion 10 here, when comparing directly to 2.5 way comparable speakers, really stood out with a much more clearly defined sound.

The frequency response on the Motion 10 is 65-25kHz. What this means is because it doesn't go lower (65 Hz isn't bad for a 2.5 way speaker), you may find it doesn't have the bassy punch you might want. If you plan on using this speaker in a 5.1 home theater, you cannot forgo buying a subwoofer. These can't go low enough to get even close to providing the proper LFE thump you will most likely want. For me, it provided enough bass in music to be satisfying, but did leave me desiring just a bit lower bite. I listen to progressive rock, heavy metal and some alternative type music (along with some classical). Those that listen to rap or anything bass heavy, don't even consider running these speakers without a subwoofer to cover the lower end of the frequency range.

If you have a larger room you wish to fill with sound, don't buy the Motion 10s. The size and power of these would be ideal for a small to medium sized room. If you have a largish room (20x20 or larger), definitely look to the MartinLogan Motion 12s without question. Your ears and your room will love you for it, plus you won't need to bump the volume quite as high as you would need on these to get the same aural coverage.

These speakers are power hungry. They are rated at 4 Ohm impedance. In discussions I had with Martin Logan's customer service, they stated that these speakers would actually work out well in a 5.1 setup with the Denon AVR-3311CI I was planning to couple these (or the Motion 12s) with. For me, if the manual says 4 Ohm nominal impedance, I would have a difficult time believing anything other than a 4 Ohm rated receiver (or amp) could properly drive these, though during several auditions I experienced no issues using the installed receivers to power these to rather high levels. Who knows, maybe Martin Logan is just being overly pessimistic with the 4 Ohm rating? I don't know.

I've used this analogy in other reviews. I originally had a 12 year old HTIB (home theater in a box). I was sent the Motion 8. It opened up a level of clarity from the HTIB center I had never had the pleasure of hearing. Crystal clear dialog and sounds. I was ready to buy Martin Logans. I first auditioned the Motion 10s. Going from my HTIB to the Motion 10 was like lifting 2 down comforters off of the speaker; it added that much clarity and depth. The next step was to the Motion 12s. Again, this was like removing a blanket off the Motion 10. Then when I went to the speaker I ended up with for my 2 fronts, the B&W (Bowers & Wilkens) 683, it was like removing 2 bed sheets from the Motion 12 even. I had the money to afford the extra price of the 683s (price parity of the Motion 12) and went with those in the end, simply because I took the time to listen.


If you're looking something with Wife Acceptance Factor, you can probably get away with these speakers (or the 12s) so long as she is OK with the floor standing space requirements. They aren't ugly, far from it. They are quite an attractive pair of speakers, I especially like the odd design of the floor stand, and when paired with the Motion 8 they have a commanding appearance, but not over stated. At least not in my opinion. If you really have to have invisible speakers to get the WAF, these, or any floor standers, are NOT the place to look.


So am I saying the Motion 10s or 12s are bad and the B&W 683 is superior? For me, yes, it is. However my listening tests don't really tell you much, other than I love my B&Ws. What you need to do if you are seriously looking for the best speaker for your budget, you MUST go and audition several lines from several manufacturers.

5 stars because when compared to speakers in this price range, the Motion 10s offer a better sound (to my ears).



Here's something I wrote for the Motion 12s, which stands for the Motion 10s and ANY speaker buying decision you might want to make.


When deciding on what speakers to purchase, there are some steps you should take first.

1) Decide on your budget.

2) Once you know your budget per speaker, look at multiple vendors' offerings (decide on floor standing or bookshelf; PLEASE do not buy cube speakers or speakers from that well known and advertised vendor without comparison shopping, despite the high WAF of said vendor). Look at the specifications on paper and decide not based on brand name, but on how closely the specs match, on what to focus your potential purchase on.

3) Find somewhere that stocks your main choice, and hopefully other choices and AUDITION THE SPEAKERS IN PERSON. This step CANNOT be overlooked. Do NOT purchase on a whim from Amazon. Audition several speakers side by side with exactly the same material, hopefully a broad spectrum of what you plan on using on the speakers. If you like what you hear and Amazon has a better price, THEN buy from Amazon, but please don't deaf buy (kind of like a blind buy, but since it's a speaker, it's deaf) any speakers, ever. You may be happy but you'll likely have a nagging in your head that you may not have made the best sonic decision you could at the price you wanted to pay.

4) Find another location that offers the same speakers and audition there as well.

5) Purchase somewhere that you can return them without much hassle. Even if you love them in the store, depending on the acoustics of your room, you may find they aren't the speakers for you, in which case it is imperative you be allowed to return them for a full refund.

6) Ensure you properly configure your listening room/area and speaker configuration. Many times speaker "problems" are really just the location of the speakers.

7) Enjoy your final purchase for many, many years to come

The first thing we noticed after setting up our MartinLogan Motion 10s is how compact and attractive they are. Standing on either side of our entertainment center, they are tall and sleek with a small footprint but with good stabilizing feet to keep them upright. There are also levelers you can screw into the bottoms, but we found that simply setting them on the carpet was fine. Next we were amazed at what a great experience it was to watch movies while listening to them on the MartinLogans. The sound is full and deep and you really get to appreciate all the sound effects. Also, I love listening to the radio with the speakers while I am at home.

The MartinLogic 10 can handle 100 watts of power, and we found them to have a nice smooth response throughout the range. Specifically, stated frequency response of the Motion 10 is 65 to 25,000 Hz (Hertz). Human audible range of frequencies is said to be 20 to 20,000 Hz, however most people hear in a narrower range, around 30-16,000 Hz. With a low end (bass) response of 65 Hz you may think the response is a little flat, but we found the bass to be strong and firm, without the floor-shaking boominess of subwoofers. The Motion 10s use what they call a "folded motion transducer" for a tweeter. The tweeter's surface has a series of small folds like an accordion. This maximizes the surface area, as compared to the smooth surface of the typical dome tweeter. The high frequencies (treble) it delivers is very clear and smooth. The tweeters also have thermal/current protection, so power spikes won't kill them. The crossover is set at 3000Hz. This is the frequency at which the incoming signal is divided. Frequencies below the 3000Hz are sent to the woofers; everything above 3000 goes to the tweeter. The result is a very full and balanced listening experience.

We are enjoying our MartinLogan speakers very much and recommend them to anyone in the market for good speakers.

Clarity, style and power, all combined in a luxury speaker. That is what I thought upon first setting up a pair of MartinLogan Motion 10's with my home theater system. Their sleek design makes finding just the right location for them in your home an effortless task.

Each speaker comes pre-assembled, with stands already mounted to the bottom of each one. Simply slide these speakers out of the shipping box, remove the surrounding styro-foam and attach the 2 magnetic fronts to the speaker and it's set up and ready to wire in. No need to have any tools on hand. We added a JBL Balboa 10-inch sub woofer to our set-up and we are able to fill our living area of our home with exceptional sound! Depending on how you intend on using your speakers and what kind of audio performance you are looking for, would determine if you need a sub to run with these floor speakers. I would not say that it is absolutely necessary, as their range is quite good. But to get that deep boom of a base, whether it's for movies or music, a sub would be a good idea. I love the sound produced by my MartinLogan Motion 10's as they are, but adding a bit of base to the set-up makes it phenomenal!

I highly suggest going through the recommended burn in time for new speakers. You can tell right away that even with the exceptional sound, that it gets even better as time goes on. There was literally a difference in the sound from when I first set them up, and a half an hour later. Much like wine and cheese, these get even better with time.

MartinLogan has been producing top of the line speakers for many years, for customers ready to spend several thousands of dollars to get the best possible audio for their listening experience. They have taken their exceptional products and created a home theater system, with the same high end results and designed it for those of us with a more reasonable budget.

For a set up that's top of the line, these MartinLogan Motion 10s are perfect!

Before I get into this review, understand that I am a neophyte when it comes to sound technology. I am not one of those experts who can listen to 20 different speakers to select the one that is best. I can detect the difference between bad and good but the nmarginal differences between good and excellent usually escapes me. I don't know how to judge good to excellent. But I know what I like and I suspect there's a lot more people like me than those 'experts.'

The MartinLogan speakers stand about 3 feet high. It is hard to tell from the picture on Amazon's website, but they are attractive and well built products. They come with rubber feet on the bottom, but there were spikes that could be swapped out for the feet to suspend the speakers above a carpet. Since the area in which I placed the speakers is carpetted (a carpet can kill the diff between bad and good...it depends how much energy gets lost to the carpet). Hooking up the speakers could not have been easier. You don't need a power cord (other than the one you'd have needed for your stereo anyhow). In my case, I took the cabling out of the speakers that were already in place and put them into the back of the MartinLogans.

The first thing I listened to was television for a cartoon. Cartoon generally have decent sound since all the audio is usually captured in studios as opposed to live TV where the sound may be caught live and wild on location.

The sound was pretty solid for cartoons. Next I tried a non-HD tv show and the results were fair. When I kicked over to the same show on HD, the sound was much improved. Coming off television, I was happy with the results, though it may have felt a little flat on non-HD stations. Next, I tried a music channel on FIOS. The sound was better than the tv shows and this confirmed what I always suspected, that the music stations enhance their sound delivered over digital access.

All in, for television, the results were pretty impressive. Then I put in an REM CD and the speakers came to life like nothing I'd ever heard. It literally felt like I was in the same room as the band, within five feet. The sound was so impressive that my wife came running down to point out how good it was. If FIOS was capable of delivering audio as solid as my 9 year old CD player, that would be a really impressive package.

Last, I put a blu-ray movie into the player (Up) and the speakers came even more to life than with CDs.

I can't recommend these speakers enough. Not only do I love 'em, I'm ready to buy more for the rest of my house.

These are truly beautiful stereo speakers - and I mean that both in regard to the music and the physical appearance of the units. About the latter first. Too many speakers tend to call attention to themselves, so that you walk into a room and all you can do is look at these huge monstrosities in the room. These are attractive, but do not force you to look at them; they don't overwhelm a room. They do offer truly overwhelming sound. As I type this I'm listening to some of Beethoven's Middle Quartets and really loving the music, something that I could never previously have done with my home theater's right and left speakers. These offer outstanding range, with more depth than I would have anticipated in Floorstanding speakers.

I am so delighted with these speakers that I have gone ahead and ordered the matching front center speaker and subwoofer. I can't wait to see how they all sound in tandem. I will eventually get a pair of MartinLogan speakers for my back right and left speakers. Every sound system has a weakest link and now mine is the amplifier. While I have loved listening to these speakers, they are hideously underpowered at the moment. I will say that when I've played them at the highest volume, there isn't the tiniest hint of distortion. I am definitely going to upgrade my amplifier ASAP.

I recommend these speakers as strongly as possible. They probably are not as good as MartinLogan's main line of speaker, but those are definitely out of my price range. These give brilliant sound at a fraction of the cost of their more expensive brethren.

After going through a plethora of speakers for my 5.1 surround system, I finally settled on these. I first heard the $1000/EACH speakers at Best Buy and was blown away by Martin Logan brand. But I just could not afford $1000 per speaker for left and right channels. After hooking these up to my Sony receiver and balancing them, they were probably the best I could ever get for my budget which was actually $1000. so I was pleasantly surprised that they sounded so good for the price. What I liked about them was that I could actually hear crisp clear dialogue for the first time!! I know the center speaker is the dialogue speaker and I have a good Yamaha for that but it seems that if you want to hear good dialogue, it helps to get good left and right front speakers. And Wow!! These Martin Logans also have great bass even though I already have a sub woofer. Happy camper here.