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| Type | Corporation |
|---|---|
| Industry | Consumer electronics |
| Founded | 1979 in Lawrence, Kansas, U.S. |
| Founders | Gayle Martin Sanders Ron Logan Sutherland |
| Headquarters | Lawrence, Kansas |
| Products | Audio |
Number of employees | 70+ |
| Website | www |
MartinLogan (ML) is a Canadian/US company producing conventional subwoofer speakers as well as floor-standing, wall-mounted, and in-wall hybrid speakers using electrostatic loudspeaker and planar magnetic thin film loudspeaker technology.
MartinLogan was founded by Gayle Martin Sanders and Ron Logan Sutherland who met in the late 1970s at a high-end audio store Sanders managed in Lawrence, Kansas. Despite different backgrounds (Sanders had trained in architecture and advertising, Sutherland in electrical engineering) they shared a passion for music and electrostatic loudspeakers.
Discussion of electrostatic speakers and the available technology led Sanders and Sutherland to design and build an electrostatic speaker. Sanders organized a research and development team to transform a design he had tinkered with for more than a decade into a marketable electrostatic transducer.
The first prototype was ready in 1980. The sound quality was adequate, but at high volume levels there was arcing within the electrostatic panels.
The team began experiments with aerospace materials that led to improved performance. The drivers were made with conductive coatings, insulation, and adhesives, and an ultra-light Mylar diaphragm between two perforated-steel stators.
Satisfied with the aesthetics, Sanders still struggled with achieving satisfactory high-frequency dispersion without compromising sound quality (physically wide transducers radiate high frequencies in a narrow beam rather than fanning them over a wide area.) The solution came in a midnight session when Sutherland sketched a theoretical sound wave to illustrate how sound disperses. Sanders envisioned a horizontally curved panel, the curvilinear line-source (or CLS), transducer central to the design of every MartinLogan electrostat since.
With only a mock-up and some photographs, Sanders and Sutherland exhibited their speaker concept at the 1982 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Chicago. The design was honored with a CES Design and Engineering Award. Excited by the response, they headed home to Kansas to translate their ideas into a working—and saleable—model.
Through a network of high-technology manufacturers, Sanders and Sutherland enlisted the help of other engineers with expertise and interest in the project. The company that fabricated the space shuttle's filtered windows and the people who had created Teflon-coated cookware joined the design team. The final driver panel was patented and used a vapor deposition process, an optically transparent diaphragm that could support a 5,000-volt charge, and a conformal coating that uniformly insulated each perforated stator to a charge of up to 10,000 volts.
By the time of the 1983 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), they had developed a full-range hybrid electrostatic loudspeaker they called the Monolith. A high-end audio company used a prototype pair in its room at the show to demonstrate its electronics. Dealers who heard them were impressed by the sound of the Monoliths and were eager to sell them. It was at this point that Sanders and Sutherland put their middle names to the venture and set about satisfying the demand they had created. MartinLogan was created.
Working with one full-time and one part-time employee, they built and shipped the first 10 pairs of Monoliths. Sales started to surge in 1985, and the company was finally on a firm footing. Sutherland departed to return to his first love, electronics. The next year MartinLogan moved to its current location. At the same time international distribution for the Monolith took off.
Steady growth followed. By 1988 sales had increased tenfold and the plant had expanded to include a large production space. In 1989, and again in 1990, Inc. magazine recognized MartinLogan as one of the 500 fastest-growing privately held companies in the United States.
In the early 1990s MartinLogan released the world's first electrostatic home cinema center-channel speaker and on-wall surround channel speakers, establishing the brand in the emerging home theater market. It was during this time in the early 1990s that some of MartinLogan's most popular electrostatic speakers were introduced, including the Aerius, SL3, Quest, and Cinema.
MartinLogan's next product began to take form in 1997 in the form of the 2000-pound Statement e2 loudspeaker. The design and engineering behind the Statement e2 fueled the next generation of MartinLogan electrostatic speakers (not to mention ML's first non-electrostatic product). Released in 1999, the Prodigy electrostatic loudspeaker incorporated much of the design and engineering knowledge gained during the Statement e2 project. Prodigy in turn inspired a new generation of electrostatic products including the Odyssey, Ascent, Aeon and Theater.
The next product was MartinLogan's first non-electrostatic product. In 2001 the original Descent subwoofer (featuring servo-control and BalancedForce technologies) established MartinLogan as a major player in the growing subwoofer market. Other subwoofer models by MartinLogan include the Descent i, Depth i, Grotto, Abyss and Dynamo.
In 2003 the MartinLogan Design Series was launched aimed at producing a smaller, more affordable line of speakers. Speakers in the Design Series include the Clarity, Mosaic, Montage, Fresco, Vignette, as well as the Abyss and Dynamo subwoofers.
Now established as a loudspeaker 'technology' company (not just an 'electrostatic' company) MartinLogan designed a first for high-performance speakers — inside a wall - the Voyage and Passage in-wall loudspeakers (released 2004).
In January 2005 MartinLogan released the Summit electrostat. A major departure from previous electrostatics, Summit combined dual independently powered woofers with MartinLogan's most advanced electrostatic transducer to date—the XStat. Later additions to the ESL Series include the Vista, Vantage, and Stage loudspeakers as well as the Descent i and Depth i subwoofers.
In October 2005 ML was acquired by a subsidiary of ShoreView Industries. ShoreView is a financial firm that makes investments in companies. ShoreView is a passive investor that is not from the loudspeaker or audio business and is not involved in day-to-day operations. Production of MartinLogan Electrostatic loudspeakers was moved to the Paradigm manufacturing facility in Mississauga Ontario, Canada post this acquisition. Conventional loudspeakers by MartinLogan, the Motion line, are manufactured in China.
On May 13, 2019, Paradigm Electronics in Mississauga, Ontario, issued a press release that stated "Scott Bagby and John Bagby announced the purchase of Paradigm Electronics, Anthem Electronics, and MartinLogan Loudspeakers, effective May 10, 2019."
Scott Bagby, one of the original founders of Paradigm Electronics, will continue as chairman and will assume the role of CEO. John Bagby, who has always been active in Paradigm daily business, takes on the role of managing director.
A subwoofer is a loudspeaker designed to reproduce low-pitched audio frequencies known as bass and sub-bass, lower in frequency than those which can be (optimally) generated by a woofer. The typical frequency range for a subwoofer is about 20–200 Hz for consumer products, below 100 Hz for professional live sound, and below 80 Hz in THX-certified systems. Thus one or more subwoofers are important for high quality sound reproduction as they are responsible for the lowest two to three octaves of the ten that are audible. This very low-frequency (VLF) range reproduces the natural fundamental tones of the bass drum, electric bass, double bass, grand piano, contrabassoon, tuba, in addition to thunder, gunshots, explosions, etc.
A loudspeaker is an electroacoustic transducer that converts an electrical audio signal into a corresponding sound. A speaker system, also often simply referred to as a "speaker" or "loudspeaker", comprises one or more such speaker drivers, an enclosure, and electrical connections possibly including a crossover network. The speaker driver can be viewed as a linear motor attached to a diaphragm which couples that motor's movement to motion of air, that is, sound. An audio signal, typically from a microphone, recording, or radio broadcast, is amplified electronically to a power level capable of driving that motor in order to reproduce the sound corresponding to the original unamplified electronic signal. This is thus the opposite function to the microphone; indeed the dynamic speaker driver, by far the most common type, is a linear motor in the same basic configuration as the dynamic microphone which uses such a motor in reverse, as a generator.
A tweeter or treble speaker is a special type of loudspeaker that is designed to produce high audio frequencies, typically deliver high frequencies up to 100 kHz. The name is derived from the high pitched sounds made by some birds (tweets), especially in contrast to the low woofs made by many dogs, after which low-frequency drivers are named (woofers).
An electrostatic loudspeaker (ESL) is a loudspeaker design in which sound is generated by the force exerted on a membrane suspended in an electrostatic field.
A horn loudspeaker is a loudspeaker or loudspeaker element which uses an acoustic horn to increase the overall efficiency of the driving element(s). A common form (right) consists of a compression driver which produces sound waves with a small metal diaphragm vibrated by an electromagnet, attached to a horn, a flaring duct to conduct the sound waves to the open air. Another type is a woofer driver mounted in a loudspeaker enclosure which is divided by internal partitions to form a zigzag flaring duct which functions as a horn; this type is called a folded horn speaker. The horn serves to improve the coupling efficiency between the speaker driver and the air. The horn can be thought of as an "acoustic transformer" that provides impedance matching between the relatively dense diaphragm material and the less-dense air. The result is greater acoustic output power from a given driver.
Infinity Systems is an American manufacturer of loudspeakers founded in Los Angeles in 1968 and headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut. Since 1983, Infinity has been part of Harman International Industries, which became a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics in 2017.
A loudspeaker enclosure or loudspeaker cabinet is an enclosure in which speaker drivers and associated electronic hardware, such as crossover circuits and, in some cases, power amplifiers, are mounted. Enclosures may range in design from simple, homemade DIY rectangular particleboard boxes to very complex, expensive computer-designed hi-fi cabinets that incorporate composite materials, internal baffles, horns, bass reflex ports and acoustic insulation. Loudspeaker enclosures range in size from small "bookshelf" speaker cabinets with 4-inch (10 cm) woofers and small tweeters designed for listening to music with a hi-fi system in a private home to huge, heavy subwoofer enclosures with multiple 18-inch (46 cm) or even 21-inch (53 cm) speakers in huge enclosures which are designed for use in stadium concert sound reinforcement systems for rock music concerts.
Monsoon is a brand of loudspeakers, originally automotive speaker systems and later computer speakers. Monsoon was originally associated with OEM-sourced automotive audio speaker systems, notably supplied on a number of General Motors products and then later expanded onto other manufacturers such as Volkswagen. The brand name was also licensed to Sonigistix, a Richmond, B.C., Canada company, and applied to their line of computer multimedia speakers.
Eminent Technology is American audio electronics company based in Florida, established in 1983 by Bruce Thigpen. Their first product was an air bearing straight-line tracking tonearm for phonograph playback, and was the first implementation of a captured air bearing for tonearm use. It was followed by a more advanced version of the tonearm.
The Air Motion Transformer (AMT) is a type of electroacoustic transducer. Invented by Oskar Heil (1908–1994), it operates on a different transduction principle from other loudspeaker designs, such as moving coil, planar magnetic or electrostatically-driven loudspeakers, and should not be confused with planar or true ribbon loudspeakers. In contrast to a planar ribbon loudspeaker, the diaphragm of the AMT is of pleated shape similar to a bellows. The AMT moves air laterally in a perpendicular motion using a metal-etched folded sheet made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film. The circuit path embossed on the PET membrane, acts as the voice coil unit. The diaphragm is then housed between 4 stacks of steel pole-plate pieces positioned at 45° within a high-intensity, quadratic, opposing magnetic field. The air motion transformer with its sheet film equally exposed at 180° behaves as a dipole speaker, exciting front and rear sonic waves simultaneously.
Meyer Sound Laboratories is an American company based in Berkeley, California that manufactures self-powered loudspeakers, multichannel audio show control systems, electroacoustic architecture, and audio analysis tools for the professional sound reinforcement, fixed installation, and sound recording industries.
Digital speakers or Digital Sound Reconstruction (DSR) system are a form of loudspeaker technology. Not to be confused with modern digital formats and processing, they are yet to be developed as a mature technology, having been experimented with extensively by Bell Labs as far back as the 1920s, but not realized as commercial products.
SpeakerCraft is an American manufacturer of custom-installed audio/video and home theater products based in Petaluma, California.
An electrodynamic speaker driver, often called simply a speaker driver when the type is implicit, is an individual transducer that converts an electrical audio signal to sound waves. While the term is sometimes used interchangeably with the term speaker (loudspeaker), it is usually applied to specialized transducers which reproduce only a portion of the audible frequency range. For high fidelity reproduction of sound, multiple loudspeakers are often mounted in the same enclosure, each reproducing a different part of the audible frequency range. In this case the individual speakers are referred to as drivers and the entire unit is called a loudspeaker. Drivers made for reproducing high audio frequencies are called tweeters, those for middle frequencies are called mid-range drivers, and those for low frequencies are called woofers, while those for very low bass range are subwoofers. Less common types of drivers are supertweeters and rotary woofers.
KEF is a British company specialising in the design and production of a range of high-end audio products, including HiFi speakers, subwoofers, architecture speakers, wireless speakers, and headphones. It was founded in Maidstone, Kent in 1961 by a BBC engineer Raymond Cooke OBE (1925–1995).
The ZiiSound, Inspire and Creative Wireless Speakers is a range of wireless speakers by Creative Technology, which utilizes Bluetooth technology and apt-X audio codec for high-quality wireless streaming of audio.
The Quad Electrostatic Loudspeaker (ESL) is the world's first production full-range electrostatic loudspeaker, launched in 1957 by Quad Electroacoustics, then known as the Acoustical Manufacturing Co. Ltd. The speaker is shaped somewhat like a home electric radiator curved slightly on the vertical axis. They are widely admired for their clarity and precision, but known to be difficult speakers to run and maintain.
Charles Emory Hughes II is an American inventor and audio engineer. He is known for his work on loudspeaker design, and the measurement of professional audio sound systems. Hughes first worked for Peavey Electronics designing loudspeakers and horns where he was granted a patent for the Quadratic-Throat Waveguide horn used in concert loudspeakers. He worked for Altec Lansing for two years as chief engineer for the pro audio division and was granted two more patents. In 2021, Hughes was hired by Biamp as principal engineer.
Monitor Audio is a British company that specialises in designing and manufacturing loudspeakers and sound systems.
Vifa is a Danish consumer electronics company that designs and manufactures audio products. The brand name stems from "Videbæk Højttalerfabrik", originally founded in 1933 by N.C.Madsen, which manufactured electrodynamic loudspeaker drive units in the town of Videbæk. From 1981, operating under the acronym Vifa, the company quickly grew to become a respected OEM supplier for many high-end loudspeaker brands, until production seized in 2009.