I just switched from the Harbeth SHL5+ to Marten Duke 2 earlier today after trying the Harbeth with the Luxman for almost a week. The Naim is still a better match to the Harbeth than Luxman. I recently acquired a balanced interconnect for the Luxman and sound quality of the Dukes has improved again.
The Luxman L-590AXII is very sensitive to cables. I currently have an Acrolink 8N-2080 III Evo XLR that goes between the DAC and Luxman and the difference is surely transformative too. Although I currently have a £2,400 Chord Signature XL connected to the Duke 2, I am looking at the Acrolink speaker cables as a potential candidate to replace the Chord in the near future.
My stands are PMC Twenty and thus far I’ve been happy with them, although when I bought the speakers, at much more than I had budgeted, I did feel they were a bit of a compromise over what might have been more suitable to get maximum performance.
I plan to revisit stands in the near future, and these will be on the shortlist, so thanks for the recommendation.
These stands are 620mm tall so I assume they are the SS6? I know the Marten stands are taller at around 720mm. These SS6 are pretty much the perfect height for my listening position as the tweeter is just above my ear.
I previously had Custom Design FS104 open stands with my ATC19s which worked well. I tried these with the Martens too but the solidsteel stands are a massive improvement over both the Dynaudio stand 20 and Custom Design stands. I’m ordering a pair
I suggest checking out Audiomica speaker cables. I have the Dolomit red reference cables on order. I’ve had these on demo for the past few weeks and I really like them. They worked well with Luxman L-509x and are great with my Naim amps too. Also very reasonable and cheaper than Chord.
Update. I have been listening to the Marten Duke 2 driven by the optimised Luxman L-590AXII. The balanced Acrolink cable brought a transformative difference to the system. The Luxman is now sounding even better than before. Very nuanced presentation in the treble and everywhere else. Even better control in the bass as I can now hear the layering in the bass, a detailed and textured bass. Due to improvement in the bass, I have moved the speakers closer to each other by two inches to compensate for the more powerful bass.
A photo showing the image of the Luxman now moved to the bottom of the rack. The balanced cable is rather stiff and can’t be hidden behind the rack. The Luxman is really quite massive as shown in the photos.
The Marten Duke 2 sounds very good driven by the optimised Luxman L-590AXII. Very happy indeed. The speakers are quality when properly matched with a suitable amplifier.
Another note is rock music now sounds great through the speakers. It’s amazing how the amp (and cable) changes everything. The Marten is not a lullaby speaker as I might have thought earlier.
Do let us know if you happen to try the Dukes and compare it against the S40. A caveat is the Marten requires rather top-notch equipment to sound its best. Based on my limited experience, the Duke 2 does not sound too good with 282/HCDR/250DR. I think it needs at least a 252 or better 552 to sound great. The Marten sounds excellent driven by the Luxman L-590AXII which in turn requires a quality cable to shine. The difference with the cable swap is not subtle.
Just upgraded the USB cable from Wireworld Ultraviolet to Tellurium Q Ultra Silver and another round of improvement. Overall better clarity and reduced smearing and digital nasties in the treble. The Marten Duke 2 keeps giving with cable upgrades from interconnects to now USB cable.
Nice, they’ll take a while to run in but don’t get disheartened, my Dukes went through a very short phase when running in where I really thought I had made an expensive mistake. Once they got over it though, there was no looking back. Is the picture of the finish you chose? It looks really smart.
They look very nice indeed. Thanks for the update. It is good to know the Oscar Duo managed to improve upon the Dynaudio S40. Harbeth SHL5 non-Plus to me is inferior to the SHL5+. Nevertheless, after getting the Dukes the SHL5+ are now sitting at the corner for several months now collecting dust, and I’m not sure when I will switch to the Harbeth again. The Marten sounds really good when optimised. They are so transparent and will reveal any change with upstream components and cables. Any mismatch and they will tell you something is wrong, especially brightness or hardness. I’m glad they sound great from the off with your existing gear. As you might have known, I needed to revamp the whole system to get the Marten to work.
The Marten is very different from the Harbeth. The Harbeth are more forgiving than the Marten in the sense they will still sound good if not great when matched with any partnering equipment. The Marten will sound poor when matched with the wrong amps.
That’s true. I’m not going to let the SHL5+ (and 282/250DR) go unless something really serious crops up.
Enjoy the Oscar Duo. Currently there are 3 models within the range of standmount from Marten which comprise of the Oscar(Duo), Heritage(Duke 2) and finally Parker(Duo) . I’m not sure how different do these speakers sound but I’m sure they are all excellent. I presume the biggest difference with the top model Parker Duo will be the improvement in bass response since it has a rather large 9" aluminum passive radiator which is placed at the rear of the speaker. I have never seen anything like it before as the technology or implementation is something new to me.
If you guys want to see various well done videos with Marten Duke 2’s, Harbeth 30.1’s, Harbeth Super H5plus, Proac D2R, Proac DB1’s I found a guy on YouTube. All the videos are done with various electronics, from Supernait 3 with High cap DR, Superuniti, Hegel gear, Macintosh gear. He has about 40 videos total, this guy must be a serial gear flipper, but his videos are top quality. Go to YouTube and type in the name “Nam Tran”
My favorites are the ones done with the Harbeth 30.1’s.
True, in the end you are actually hearing the headphones or speakers you are using to watch the videos. At least in this case, the guy seems to do a good job recording the various equipment.