No one ?
Finally, in 15-18 days I will be able to listen to Marten Parker Duo and compare them with Duke 2
I will come back with my opinions.
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Good to know. I would be interested to hear about your experience. FWIW the Duke 2 is endgame for me. But one would never know 5 or 10 years down the road… 
(still, I’m convinced it would be the end of the road for me).
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Are you going to listen to the Diamond version or standard? Earlier in this thread I posted some comments re the Diamond version and whilst they were undeniably great sounding speakers, for me there wasn’t enough of an uplift to justify what would have been a £14k cost to change, even without the stands! For the standard edition, I guess the cost to change might be in the region of £4-5k so I’d still want a big uplift for that.
I think the Duke 2’s as stand mount speakers will be hard to beat if you like Marten voicing. Of course you can get different sounding standmounts, personal preference is everything.
I think my next speakers are more likely to be floor standers than another standmount, I’d like to listen to Oscar and Parker Trios.
Be interesting to hear how you get on…
And I think Duke2 will be very,very hard to beat.
As you have seen, Marten has removed the Heritage series from their website.
I’m wodering why ?
As I said here, the quality of the parts and components used in the Heritage series is extraordinary.
Low loss copper foil coils and silver/gold in oil capacitors from Mundorf, drivers from Accuton - the bass one being in the Hall of Fame on the Accuton website, more precisely - C173-6-191E ceramic bass-midrange, new tweeter, which uses pioneering technology to achieve diamond-like performance…
I think that Marten realized that this series has an exceptional sound, uses high-quality components, and for the price asked, the profit is too small…so they released this series
After all, it’s a business and all companies try to make as much money as possible
This is my opinion…
I would agree. At £14k to upgrade, it’s just too much although the Parker Duo diamond edition may sound spectacular. I reread your post made on Feb 2022 (I didn’t realise it’s more than a year already) where you commented that the Kula/Parker Diamond sounded similar to Gryphone/Duke2. It’s true that system synergy is more important than the evaluation of a single speaker or component in the system. Also, your remark on the Duke2 sounding too laidback with the Luxman L-509 is interesting. Although I love the sound of my Dukes driven by Luxman L-590AXII, at least I am aware the speakers have potential of sounding more dynamic with improved transparency and air with a different amp such as the Gryphon 300.
By the way, I listened to the Marten Parker Trio just lately driven by monster Vitus amps when I went to collect my Lumin U2 mini at the dealer. Just a word of caution. As we all know the room and system synergy play a huge role, and the speakers need to fit the room. The Parker Trio sounded boomy in the room as the bass was too much. I played some familiar tracks and it didn’t sound good with the bass being the main culprit. The room had some bass traps and treatment on the walls which according to the owner did help tame the bass frequencies but still, it didn’t sound good to me. Bottomline I preferred the Duke 2s in my room to the Oscar Trio in the dealers’ room. If your room is small or medium-sized, there is huge potential that the Marten floorstanders may not work in there.
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Now that you have mentioned it, I too noticed the Duke2 has been removed from Marten’s website. Looks like it’s finally official, the Duke2s have been discontinued by the manufacturer. The reasons which you mentioned are perfectly valid. It can also be a process of evolution whereby products are continually updated and refreshed. In most cases the new product will be an improvement, but in some cases it’s just a different sound, not better. 
When the Duke 2s are still available for sale alongside the Oscar and Parker versions, I suspect there are some old stocks to clear. I’m not sure if production has ceased when the Oscar and Parker were introduced to the market.
Good point re the room matching, my listening room is quite small so a floorstander would probably be overwhelming. I am thinking of trying a subwoofer though, one of the small ones from SVS or KEF, at least they are tunable. I’d quite like to see what extra bass below 50ish Hz adds to the party.
Flachead,why do you say that Duke2 sounding too laidback with the Luxman L-509 ?
In my case, Duke2, amplified with Luxman L- 590 AXII, did not sound at all laidback .
It’s been a while since I’ve had my humble Nytech CPA402 power amp in my office, on occasional duty only, instead of the Nait 2 when I’ve felt like a bit more grunt from my Spendor D1s. These 2 amps have something rather common in overall character.
But how is this relevant to this particular thread?
Although I’ve once briefly tried connecting the little Nytech to my Marten Oscar Duos in the past, mostly out of curiosity, I’ve never really sat down to listen to this combination properly. After all, on paper the Nytech is only rated at 40WPC, a mere shoe box power amp, and what chance does it have against the “big bold” SN3 + SCDR in my main system?
Recently, while testing the new NSC222 for a second audition (decided to give it a better chance directly to the Nytech power amp in my main setup to avoid a 2nd preamp as with SN3+SCDR) I did not nearly predict what the outcome of the whole exercise would be as a result of inadvertently also comparing the SN3 to the Nytech in the process! I shared my impressions of the NSC222 separately but having just the Atom HE - Nytech CPA402 - Marten Oscar Duo I just could not believe the extra transparency this amp allowed from the speakers and, for all its modestly rated power, the abundance of lower frequency energy that I’ve not really heard with the SN3 with the Oscar Duos … so much so that I had to resort and try foam plugs for the speakers rear ports. OK, some of the richer tones with the SCDR were somewhat less pronounced may be but the realism and transparency with the Nytech was nearly breathtaking in comparison. I could not stop foot tapping too, excellent pace.
I wanted to post this here as it once more confirms for me how flexible and “easy” the Oscar Duos appear to be with good quality (not necessarily high rated power) amplification, quite amazing. Not many higher end speakers can do this.
Sincere thanks to @Wilfried who actually also prompted me while sharing his impressions from auditioning the Oscar Duos with just the Atom and Nova (so no extra power amp).
As a result, I now I have the simplest main system in years and just sounding superb.
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I think that this is a relative consideration compared to the Kula and the Gryphon which swing towards the punchy, dynamic end of the scale and in comparison, I felt the Luxman sounded more relaxed. This is in no way a criticism and of course, in other systems/rooms etc, I can easily imagine the Luxman sounding awesome.
In the end I went with the Norma IPA140 which, to me, seemed to offer the best of both worlds.
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I was very close to buying the IPA 140. From what I’ve read about it, it seems to be an amazing amplifier. But because I had nowhere to listen to it and because it didn’t have tone controls…I gave up.
And now I regret that I could not listen to this amplifier…
It’s about the synergy between speakers and amplifier…that’s why you should always listen to what you buy…pleasant surprises can appear…
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Yes, listen, never assume:)
Hi All. It’s been quite some time since my last post. Just to share that I have moved from Parker Duo to Parker Trio, while I also did extensive auditions to the Parker Quintet together with a friend for his system. The higher you move in the line the more open and fuller the sound becomes. The Quintet is a different league indeed, but requires caution in terms of room matching. More caution that the Trio. I also confirm the very good match of the line with pure class A amps, which is relatively recent experience for me.
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Nice! I expect they match well with Class A amps.
Which amp have you paired them with? Did you go for the Diamond edition?
I didn’t go for the Diamond version, the ceramic one. I am currently testing the Pass Labs INT-25.
Could be a great match. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the INT-25.
I’m thinking of demoing the INT-25 or INT-60 myself with my Duke 2s
In my room to my opinion the Trio matches better with the INT-25 vs the Duo with the INT-60. In the volume levels I listen (70-85 dba) the INT-25 sounds very nice. It has a very pleasant warmth. I would like to test also the XA30.8 to be honest.
By the way, another upgrade I have done in my system the last few months is that I changed the Furutech loom with Jorma Unity loom. This had also a positive impact in the overall experience.
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I’ve actually retired for good with regards to amplification but every time I read something like this, it fuels my upgraditis syndrome since I can actually get a used Norma IPA 140 at less than half price off MSRP over here. I need to restrain myself as I still have several unused amps which are untouched for more than a year (282/250DR and Sonneteer Orton).
I may be a victim of my own preaching as I’ve said many times that there is no end to this hobby. Although I am happy with my current system, I sometimes still look around. The Gryphon Diablo 300 and Pass Labs INT-250 still interest me sometimes but it’s more to fantisising something that is unlikely to happen.
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