MartinLogan user manual Full Range Operation, Conventional Loudspeaker, MartinLogan Odyssey

Full Range Operation

The most significant advantage of MartinLogan’s exclusive transducer technology reveals itself when you look at examples of other loudspeaker products on the market today.

The Odyssey uses no crossover networks above 250 Hz because they are not needed. The Odyssey consists of a single, seamless electrostatic membrane reproducing fre- quencies above 250Hz simultaneously. How’s this possible?

First we must understand that music is not composed of separate high, mid and low frequency pieces. In fact, music is comprised of a single complex waveform with all frequencies interacting simultaneously.

The electrostatic transducer of the Odyssey essentially acts as an exact opposite of the microphones used to record the original event. A microphone, which is a single working element, transforms acoustic energy into an electrical signal that can be amplified or preserved by some type of storage media. The Odyssey’s electrostatic transducer transforms electrical energy from your amplifier into acoustical energy.

Due to the limitations of electromagnetic drivers, no single unit can reproduce the full range of frequencies. Instead, these drivers must be designed to operate within

narrow, fixed bandwidth of the frequency range, and then combined electrically so that the sum of the parts equals the total signal. While nice in theory, we must deal with real-world conditions.

In order to use multiple drivers, a crossover network is enlisted to attempt a division of the complex musical signal into the separate pieces (usually highs, mids, and lows) that each specific driver was designed to handle. Unfortunately, due to the phase relationships that occur within all crossover networks and during the acoustical recombination process, nonlinearities and severe degradation of the music signal take place in the ear’s most critical zone (See Figure 17).

The Odyssey’s electrostatic transducer can single-handedly reproduce all frequencies above 250 Hz simultaneously. You have in one transducer the ability to handle in elegant simplicity the critical frequencies above 250 Hz.

The crossover phase aberrations that are associated with traditional tweeter, midrange, and woofer systems are eliminated. The result is a dramatic improvement in imaging and staging performance, due to the minutely accurate phase relationship of the full-range panel wave launch.

Tweeter

Midrange

Woofer

Conventional Loudspeaker MartinLogan Odyssey

crossover point (2–5kHz)

Critical Zone: 250Hz–20kHz

crossover point (100–400Hz)

crossover point (250Hz)

Figure 17. This diagram illustrates how a conventional speaker system must use multiple crossover networks that have negative effects on the musical performance.

ESL

Panel

Woofer

16 Electrostatic Advantages