Marten Oscar Duo

LOUDSPEAKER

- MICHAEL FREMER

At High-End Mässan 2015—Stockholm, Sweden’s big audio show—Marten planned to show off its finest loudspeaker to the hometown crowd. Marten took the hotel’s largest demo room, located at the prime location at the top of the stairs, at the entry point to the 2nd-floor exhibition space. There, Marten set up a super system (see photo p.5) featuring the Coltrane Supreme 2 loudspeaker, a towering monolith probably intended more for Asian consumption than for Swedes to bring home to their modest digs. In preshow demos, the Coltranes filled the large room with impressively transparent and effortless sound that was sure to impress show attendees.

But before that could happen—just before doors opened to the public—someone who shall not be named, who worked for another company participating in the room, decided it was a good time to play the Telarc CD Tchaikovsky: 1812, with Erich Kunzel conducting the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

Margaret Graham’s review of the LP and J. Gordon Holt’s later CD coverage both warn of possible woofer damage. 1 “If your power amp is capable of ripping your woofers apart, the cannon shots will give it the opportunity to do so,” Holt warned. Telarc issues a similar warning in its notes.

Apparently, the individual who played this 1812 Overture at superhigh SPLs hadn’t read the booklet. When the cannons shot, they took out a few Coltrane 2 drivers—and not to dinner and a movie.

The catastrophe forced Marten to substitute one of its small, two-way standmounted speakers—I think it was the original “Duke”—which had been intended as a static display. They placed the standmounts adjacent to the Coltrane towers. That’s what show attendees heard until, as I recall it, late Sunday when new SB Acoustics drivers arrived and were installed.