Audio Federation: Exclusive U.S. Dealer for Marten Coltrane Supreme Loudspeaker

The Marten Design Coltrane Supreme loudspeaker with the Boulder/Denver city lights in the background

Audio Federation is raising the bar once again.

We are excited to announce our partnership with Marten Design and Sound Advice in bringing this technological tour-de-force to the Americas. We are now and will be the exclusive U.S. dealer and showroom for Marten’s statement speaker: the Coltrane Supreme. We are also the Coltrane Supreme dealer for our friends up in Canada for the forseeable future.

Marten products have always had industry-leading price/performance, and it is just mind-boggling contemplating the performance of these cost-no-object loudspeakers.

Ladies and Gentlemen, you all know how picky we are.

Picky, picky, picky.

So it was with great pleasure, and a little surprise, that after extensive consideration and evaluation of any and all speakers worldwide, we found that the next giant step forward, the state-of-the-art both technologically and musically, in the ongoing evolution of high-fidelity speakers was right here with one of the product lines we already carry.

The Coltrane Supremes list for $250,000.00 and should be here, ready for auditions in the July-August time-frame and we plan on exhibiting with them at RMAF, the 2006 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, this October in Denver.

Perhaps it was best chanted by John Coltrane, and later Santana / McLaughlin (my personal favorite), the Dead, and many, many others…

“…
A Love Supreme
A Love Supreme
A Love Supreme
A Love Supreme
A Love Supreme
A Love Supreme
…”

Picture Medley

Just some fun pictures we had laying around on the hard disk…

Closeup of Marten Coltrane
Closeup of the diamond tweeter and ceramic midrange of the Marten Coltrane speaker. This is the walnut version of these speakers and the wood is starting to take on a nice rich patina as it ages.

Edge NL Reference
The Edge NL Reference 800 watt ‘pyramid’ amplifier. This picture really captures the sleek metalic look of the amplifiers.

Closeup of Edge NL Reference
Closeup of the top of the Edge NL Reference 800 watt ‘pyramid’ amplifier. Here you can almost see how nice it is to touch these amplifiers, the powder coating feeling very nice, almost soft, to the touch. The cap on top and the way the sides are fastened makes the amplifiers water tight (and maybe even dust tight, which would be nice… see below).

The EMM Labs Meitner DCC2 at dark
The EMM Labs Meitner DCC2 at dark on an HRS M3 Isolation Base. This picture captures the color-coding of the buttons nicely, as well as showing a how the volume knob is so much fun to turn by hand.

The Lyra Titan cartridge
The Lyra Titan cartridge on a Brinkmann tonearm. This picture does not show it perfectly, but there is this feeling of the loooong tonearm snaking out fron the depths at the back of the turntable, the head ready to strike with it diamond tooth into the platter.

Closeup of the Brinkmann tonearm
Closeup of the Brinkmann tonearm. Ah, engineering. Lovin’ it.

Closeup of the Lyra Titan cartridge
Closeup of the Lyra Titan cartridge. Dust. There are lots of little dust particles, perhaps hairs from the wool carpet. They do not look serious enough toimpact the sound. But they are everywhere…

The Blue Magic Diamond cartridge on the Walker tonearm
The Blue Magic Diamond cartridge on the Walker tonearm

The Blue Magic Diamond cartridge on the Walker tonearm
Closeup of the Blue Magic Diamond cartridge on the Walker tonearm. More dust particles.

The Brinkmann Balance turntable control buttons
The Brinkmann Balance turntable control buttons. Left is 33 rpm, right is 45 rpm, center is OFF.Sometimes we turn it on and off just for the fun of touching the buttons.

The Nordost Vidar cable burn in device
The Nordost Vidar cable burn in device. More pictures from the post a few days ago.

The Nordost Valhalla cables on the back of the Marten Coltrane loudspeakers
The Nordost Valhalla cables on the back of the Marten Coltrane loudspeakers. I like the reflections of the cables and binding posts in the shiny carbon fiber on back of the Coltrane.

The Nordost Valhalla cables on the back of the Marten Coltrane loudspeakers
The Nordost Valhalla cables on the back of the Marten Coltrane loudspeakers. More reflection. These are the EU-safe WBT binding posts.

The Nordost Valhalla cables in sunlight
The Nordost Valhalla cables in sunlight. I like the pattern of shdows the various layers of conductors make. When this picture is blown up large, this looks like a work of abstract art. Or maybe industrial art.

Closeup of the Nordost Valhalla cables in sunlight
Closeup of the Nordost Valhalla cables in sunlight held against the blue sky. You can really see how the cable is constructed. As desribed on the Nordost website:

“Each conductor is made from optimized diameter solid 99.999999% oxygen free copper that has 78 microns of extruded silver on the surface. The surface of each conductor is highly polished before a high precision Micro Mono-Filament wrap is applied.

The Micro Mono-Filament is helically wound over the conductor. A precision FEP jacket is then extruded over the conductor. A number of proprietary methods are used in this difficult and extremely precise manufacturing technique that reduces dielectric contact by a factor of more than 80%. Extremely mechanically stable, the conductors are effectively suspended in inert air, preventing oxidation. ”

Well, hope this all was as fun for you as it was for me!

Where No Low Powered Amps Have Gone Before

I really like the low-powered Lamm ML2.1 18 watt SET amps on the Marten Design Coltrane 89dB sensitive full-range speakers.

The Lamm ML2.1 on the Marten Coltrane speakers
Coltrane speakers, ML2.1 amps, Lamm L2 preamp, Audio Note CDT2 and DAC 4.1x Balanced, Nordost Thor and Valhalla cables, Shunyata power cords

I really liked the Audio Aero Prestige 40 watt amps and the Audio Note Kegon 22 watt amps on the Coltranes before that.

No, they don’t generate that adrenaline rush of a really loud presentation with chest thumping bass.

The Coltranes can do this with the right amplification. And it is really fun. In a Homeresque Whoo Hoo! kind of way.

But the little tube amps on these speakers can hold me…..

SPELLBOUNDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

The little amps are able to grip the speakers pretty darn well. They also show off immense amounts of harmonic detail. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

But it is not about all this analytical crap at all.

It is all, everything, completely, about the fact that the …Sound… Grips… Me.

The Lamm ML2.1 on the Marten Coltrane speakers

Yeah, It helps that the speaker has a very high resolution, a speaker with all ceramic drivers and diamond tweeters has a tendency to do this. It helps that the speakers are full range, so that whatever bass the amps put out, the listener gets to hear. And they put out a lot of bass – make no mistake – but it is analog bass, like bass in the real world, and not electronic bass (which some ever larger percentage of our music these days likes to use and here is where the little tube amps on hard to drive speakers really do take a back seat to solidstate amps).

But this is not about how the speaker or system sounds.

It is not.

This is about how the sounds affects the listener.

In the end why should I care about the sound, beyond a certain minimum standard, any more than I care about the minute contruction details of the chair I sit in, or the the type of weaving and glue the carpet underneath my feat uses? What we CARE about REALLY is how comfortable the chair is; about how pleasant the carpet is to look at and feel underneath our feet.

What if all reviews and all show reports paid attention to nothing except how the sounds …made …them …feel.

I bet the Stereophile list of Class A components would look a lot different than they do now.