Marten Speakers

You can’t really go wrong with NACA5. You are more likely to get strong recommendations to change the Nova than you are the speaker cable!

What, no Marten!? :wink:

I’m happy with that :smile:

The Martens are still my fave, but the wife doesn’t see their beauty for some reason …She might change her mind when she sees the kudos :wink:

Don’t forget that there are new Marten Oscar speakers that may pass the WAF. If they sound anything like the Duke, they’ll definitely be worth a listen.

Another nice Duke review on Stereonet UK…

You seem to be thinking about spending an awful lot of money on the speakers to go with the Nova and entering serious mullet territory. I’d suggest trying an NDX2/SN3 with the existing speakers as a comparator. Or maybe NDX2/282/250DR.

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Mullet? (Haircut or a HiFi term?) … Thanks for the suggestion.

Dynaudio Confidence 20s sound amazing with Nova, but they are huge…

Basically it means that the source isn’t up to the speakers.

I have to disagree… I have a Nova and whilst I plan to upgrade at some point, it is a very capable unit and produces an excellent sound one that if I had to live with, would be very, very acceptable. The speakers show all the Nova has offer and it’s clear to me what I would like to improve when it comes to upgrading, nothing is masked by lesser speakers. I’ve chosen the speakers as potentially my last pair (we’ve all heard that before) as the stars aligned when I was searching earlier in the year and have no regrets. Just can’t wait to get even an better source/amplifier.

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That’s the point really - you can’t wait to get better electronics in order to feed the speakers. It’s fine if you can afford that, but a Nova and £8,000 speakers doesn’t make long term sense. You can do a lot better for £12,000 with something properly balanced. It all depends on whether the OP intends a big electronics upgrade in the future.

It’s an interesting debate. If I’d looked at it differently I’d be here now saying ‘I can’t wait to get new speakers to get more out of my front end’. If different kit had been available at the right price at a different time, I may have followed a more conventional approach. I think key is that nothing in Hi-Fi is black and white and what might appear a mismatch on paper, may not be in reality. Only way to tell is to listen and decide for yourself.

Maybe the OP has a very strong WAF factor…and has a choice of upgrading electronics or not leaving his wife.

It is an interesting debate. I actually felt that these speakers, the Dynaudio particularly, really showed how capable the Nova is.

It isn’t lost on me that buying 9k speakers for a 4K source/amp may be a little unbalanced, but I want to change the speakers, and I don’t want to change them for something that I’ll want to change again in the near future. Changing them loses you money, I’d rather take one hit than two. I do also have it in the back of my mind that there could be a future source/amp upgrade on the cards too.

So I guess my approach is, get speakers that will sound awesome with the Nova, and if they provide an upgrade path for the future then that’s great! But I’ll be very happy listening to it for now :grinning:

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I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. I’m using a Nova to power Magico A3s to very good effect.

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Definitely not - I’ve actually decided on a pair of TAD ME-1s.

I’m sure the Nova will drive them well, but have dropped a hint to the wife that I might need to introduce more power, just in case :slight_smile:

Marten’s safely tucked away to free up the spare room…

Wow, quite the opposite here, NAP300DR added to elevate the Xmas playlist!!

Have a great Christmas!

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@Carlstone How’s everything settled down?