MartinLogan Motion XT F100 Tower Speaker Review

MartinLogan originated in 1983 out of Lawrence, Kansas. I was fresh out of college at the time and remember hearing a pair of their electrostatic speakers at the local Hi-Fi shop in South Carolina and being amazed at their transparent and detailed sound. Today, they are well known in audio circles for their electrostatic speaker designs, however, they also make more conventional “box” speakers. In this review, I will be taking their newly designed Motion XT F100 towers for a test drive. Will they live up to the MartinLogan heritage?

I’ll not go into detail about MartinLogan’s electrostatic speakers, but their design is quite distinctive. Usually tall, the panels have a clear, curved membrane that is tightly stretched across a frame which is often attached to a box base that contains a woofer. They radiate sound from the front and back, giving them an amazingly open and un-colored sound quality. There are some trade-offs with this concept, though. Placement in a room can be tricky. They tend to not play loudly (you can’t get them to 11 on the volume dial) and they can’t play deep without a conventional woofer getting involved.

The Motion XT series tries to achieve a middle ground with the electrostatic and acoustic suspension designs. The Motion and Motion XT series have both received a fresh redesign with updated cabinets, crossovers, and drivers. Within minutes after firing the XT F100s up, I knew I was going to be treated to some amazing stuff. I was immediately struck by their dynamic capabilities and their razor-sharp imaging and expansive sound staging.

Both the Motion and Motion XT series have been given a complete ground-up redesign. The Motion XT gets a larger tweeter and Nomex-reinforced Kevlar midrange/bass drivers while the Motion uses woven fiberglass. The Folded Motion Obsidian Tweeter has substantial improvements in its motor structure to reduce distortion and achieve a more linear response. It has a lower crossover point and has the surface area equivalence of eight one-inch dome tweeters. It produces sound waves by squeezing sound from the folds, like an accordion. With the help of the newly designed waveguide, its dispersion pattern is about 90 degrees horizontal, so the higher frequencies have far less side wall reflection than a typical dome.

The midrange and woofers have an almost 180-degree horizontal spread. They can handle higher output with greater efficiency and less distortion. The sweet spot is wide, so all the people on the couch can benefit from the increased clarity wherever they sit. Imaging was also some of the very best I have heard from any speaker from any manufacturer I have listened to over the years. The soundstage was wide and deep with excellent front-to-back layering. More about this later.

The 6.5-inch midrange cone is made from a Nomex-reinforced Kevlar composite that provides stiffness and reduced mass. The sensitivity of the towers is about the same as the bookshelf version. MartinLogan decided that 92dB was a high enough number that they would leave it alone and use the added headroom to work on flattening out the frequency response curve. They succeeded in making the F100 very neutral in its sound signature. The speakers can play loud while staying super clean. I could not get them to clip even at painfully loud levels. At very low volumes, they maintained detail and the same razor-sharp imaging.

The three 6.5-inch woofers are made from aluminum and as you can see, they sit closer to the floor than most other tower speakers (my Sonus faber Sonetto Vs, for example). This allows them to use some floor bounce to reinforce the low end. Underneath the cabinet are two tuned ports that utilize the full vertical interior space to add an extended bass response.

Because of this, the XT F100s are not as particular about placement from the front wall as a rear-ported design would be. My review set came in walnut, which includes gold outer rings on the mid/woofer drivers. Each cone has a snap-on grille and the MartinLogan logo adds a very stylish flair to the front. These really are handsome speakers. On the back are bi-amp capable binding posts that have a wingnut design that is easy to use.

The F.A.S.T (Fully Adjustable Spiked Toolless) feet are some of the nicest I have ever used. You can easily adjust them by hand and the tip is interchangeable with a metal point or a hardwood floor safe rubber tip. Sorry, don’t try to order these feet for your other brand speakers, as they are designed only for the MartinLogan XT speakers. The towers weigh 76 pounds each, but the rubber feet still slid well on my rug for easy placement.

I set them up in my usual space about eight feet apart, nine feet from my seated sweet spot and a foot and a half off the front wall with over six feet to the nearest side wall. I avoided using room correction and my dual subwoofers for the first few weeks of my listening (adding them in later tightened the bass, but I could have been happy with them unassisted). These speakers have amazing impact and punch. If you don’t use subs with your music, you will not miss out on much.

My initial impressions of the MartinLogan XT F100s were sweet treble (Folded Motion tweeters are my personal fav), clear and full midrange, and excellent bass (pipe organ deep). The imaging was so good, I initially had to place my ears to my surround speakers to make sure I had not inadvertently left them on. I have only had a few other speakers create this kind of effect before and it took a few days of serious listening to get used to this 3D sound. Stereo should sound this way, but in reality, speaker placement, room acoustics, furniture, etc. all work against this effect. I was able to achieve excellent imaging with minimal setup fuss.

This music just ascends to a higher plain in surround and the mixes are a sonic tour-de-force. The F100s could play this music at concert levels and never sounded strained, compressed, or strident. From top to bottom, the F100s conveyed the music without coloration or and sonic degradation that I could hear. They were well-balanced and maintained their poise even through the most complex musical passages.

The MartinLogan Motion XT F100 Tower Speakers deliver fantastic performance for far less than the competition. They punch far above their price class.

With their high style and wonderful sonic performance, I was very impressed with the MartinLogan XT F100 towers and highly recommend them to anyone that is ready to take their music experience to the next level without sacrificing their kid’s college tuition.

It is not hyperbole to say that companies that make speakers that cost more than an automobile should be concerned that MartinLogan had designed a speaker that is sonically excellent yet costs thousands of dollars less. I know a few $10K pairs of speakers that don’t perform as well as the XT F100s. These speakers are an amazing bargain from a cost/performance ratio. I loved them. Highly recommended.