Martin Logan Balanced Force 212

THE BEST SUBWOFER IN THE WORD

Let me just say straight out that I’m a believer in subs - actually a pair of subs. I know not all will agree. There are good reasons in the past to not incorporate subs but I think now those reasons are moot unless just the thought of having a sub is troublesome which some claim. There has been forever the mystique about full range speakers but very few can really get the job done and besides the ones that do most of us can’t afford anyway. Volumes of air needs to be moved and small cones or multiple thereof just come up short. Also that low end load can put a lot more strain on your amp to drive to the lower frequencies. Having a sub removes a great deal of that load so it can concentrate on 90% of the total sound much much better. Good bass to me is so essential and even though subs only handle the low end they seem to impact the whole sound way beyond its rather narrow frequency range. Good non-boomy bass is essential to the listening experience – period! In comparison bad bass can do the exact opposite probably even make the listening experience much worse than great bass improves. However as good as subs are today the troublesome issues as the ‘no sub for me crowd will tell you’ – better integration with the main speakers and room interactions are big problems left unresolved satisfactorly and they are right. This is exactly what the 212 does so well and so much more! I’ve had my 212’s for a few years now and they continue to amaze me in performance, looks and integration. I’m using these with a pair of CLX Art speakers and am very happy with how they round out the very bottom octave or so. I previously had a pair of Descent i’s with Summit X’s that I liked very much. However room placement was limited and I could never quite get comfortable with the bass produced in that room. There were plenty of adjustments on the Descent and Summit X’s but those adjustments came up short in my opinion. I blame it all on my room as since then I have moved them to a larger multi-channel room and they are performing very nice indeed. Since my choices for placement are very limited in the music room I needed a sub that could produce good bass where I put them. I can’t say enough about the PBK kit and the software that does exactly that and more. It’s quite easy to perform and you get to see on a graph just how a room is beforehand and the near perfect correction the software calculates – it’s just amazing! Combine this with the custom crossover that is available for most if not all ML speakers there now is some serious sonic improvements happening indeed! I’m familiar with the Descent i design with 3 cones and was a little troubled with the new 2 cone design. It seemed to me the design of the 3 cone was very well thought out so I was concerned with the change and why. Let me say that now that I have experienced the new design it is definitely an improvement at a very basic level. One thing that they did keep from the older design were the controls on top – smart and very convenient. So when you add it all up the much better integration of the sub to your room using the PBK kit, the custom crossover for the main speakers and the basic design improvements this is a real big step up on sub technology! Sub doubters beware you may have met your match!

Essential addition for large spaces, build quality is first rate
I have a pair of 212s teamed with Martin Logan Summit Xs to fill an open concept house with sound and the 212s are a key component to creating a unbeatable audio experience. After much research I concluded that my subwoofers needed to be precisely matched to my electrostatics, and the 212s were the answer. I have the 212s placed on the other side of the house from the Summit Xs but you would never know it as the lower frequencies appear to be coming from the Summit Xs. The 212s are not inexpensive, but the build quality and audio rewards are top notch, and it is a product that will last you for a few decades.