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Mårten Design har alltså vunnit utmärkelsen Product of the Year 04 i kategorin DISCOVERY i den mycket fina engelska hifi+ och motiveringen till detta har chefredaktör Roy Gregory skrivit som följer:
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Product of the year 04 – DISCOVERY
Marten Design Coltrane Loudspeaker
by Roy Gregory
In the course of the year we see many new products and many new companies, more loudspeakers than anything else. The desire to stick readily available drivers into easily manufactured boxes seems too tempting to resist. Unfortunately the result seldom match the designer’s ambitions, leaving reviewers and magazine editors with a healthy dose of cynicism and highly developed defence mechanisms. However, seldom have I come across a debut product as thoroughly engineered and thought through as Marten Design’s Coltrane.
It’s not just a question of the price; there are plenty of far more expensive competitors out there. Nor the fancy drive units or cabinet materials. Loudspeaker sound is brutally Darwinian world which proves categorically that it’s not what you use but how you use it that counts. But what impresses about the Coltrane is how completely the design integrates the various elements together. There’s a rationale behind this speaker, not simply a selection of fashionable technologies and marketing bullet points. Each and every aspect has been considered and reconsidered before finalisation of the design, from the complex cabinet shape to the bespoke crossover components. Form follows function and in this case the quality is much more than simply skin deep. From the sumptuous high-gloss finish that covers the thick, critically damped cabinetwork, to the massive baffle, this speaker does a good job of appearing more compact and discrete than the list of ingredients suggests. Not that it’s hiding its light under much of a bushel. You only have to take one look at the outrigger feet and exposed drivers to see that this is no shrinking violet, a character that extends to its sound.
The Coltranes is as quick, agile and bold as its exterior is clean and uncluttered. The speed, coherence and its clarity available are genuine state-of–the-art, delivering phenomenal levels of detail, all integrated into an intelligible whole. It is a compelling and authoritative performance that is equally demanding of both the listener and the partnering electronics. If you want a speaker that is forgiving or relaxing, that will cover the all too obvious deficiencies in recordings and too many highly regarded amplifiers and front-ends, the look elsewhere. The Coltranes are all about the process that transports the music. Along the way they are also about the character and individuality of performers and performances, the precision and technique of the playing, the relationship and chemistry that binds them together. Unfettered resolution and dynamics bring the intimacy and power of music vividly to life in a manner that connects directly to the listener. Meet their demands for power, agility and finesse from the partnering equipment and they’ll deliver in kind. It’s a remarkably assured and capable performance from one so young. I look forward to hearing Marten’s more recent (and more affordable) designs. They’ve got a hard act to follow.
Price: £32000
UK Distributor Audiocraft, Tel (44)(0)1895 253340
Manufacturer Marten Design, www.martendesign.com
. AZ-kablarna låter otroligt illa, varför har jag svårt att förklara men så är det iallafall.
