What makes a masterpiece? Is the “Mona Lisa” just a picture of a woman smiling, or is there more to it?

We consider something a masterpiece when uncommon skill and artistry shapes familiar elements in an unexpected way, revealing an essential truth.

For MartinLogan, the essential truth revealed by their skill and artistry is audio realism. Fittingly, their next generation of electrostatic loudspeakers debuts with the new Renaissance ESL 15A. Three decades of audio design and engineering innovation, distilled into a startling fresh loudspeaker ideal.

A Masterpiece of Design & Engineering
Befitting a loudspeaker of this name, MartinLogan has combined decades of innovations, and more, to reinterpret the uniquely detailed electrostatic loudspeaker. This is a flagship audio achievement for the 21st Century.

The pièce de résistance is the integration of MartinLogan’s award-winning 15-inch wide Curvilinear Line Source (CLS™) XStat™ electrostatic (ESL) transducer with its robust woofer section, the revolutionary melding of design and engineering.

Look at the familiar elements of the classic MartinLogan electrostatic loudspeaker:
Advanced MicroPerf stator technology, which allows for almost twice the exposed electrostatic diaphragm surface as a traditional electrostatic panel of the same size. The panel is reinforced with rigid ClearSpar™ spacers, keeping an exact level of tension on the vacuum-bonded diaphragm without obscuring the beautiful see-through design. Add the slender, pointed-arrow design of the new AirFrame™ Blade construction; a powerfully evocative composition creating a harmonious connection between the panel and its woofer cabinet.

Now notice some radical refinements:
Inspired by MartinLogan’s own breakthrough design, they have reinvented the Renaissance ESL 15A woofer section, powered by new dual 500-watt Class-D amplifiers, and controlled by a 24-Bit Vojtko™ DSP Engine and ARC™ (Anthem Room Correction).

Using two 12-inch laser-engineered low-distortion aluminum cone woofers in independently enclosed compact chambers, exclusive PoweredForce Forward™ bass alignment technology controls the interaction between the rear-firing woofer and the wall behind that woofer. With smart phase-shifting logic, they minimize the effect that wall has on bass information that might bounce back into the listening room. This uniform frequency response results in realistic bass effects you can feel. It’s one more way MartinLogan innovation improves your listening experience in any room.

Achieving the Laboratory Standard in Your Own Room
In the lab, MartinLogan engineers strive for transparency. Outside the lab, there’s one wildcard their engineers can never account for: Your listening room. The unique size and shape of your listening space (and the size and shape of its contents) can make bass waves do unpredictable things, greatly affecting a speaker’s overall performance.

For the first time in an electrostatic speaker MartinLogan is introducing the integration of exclusive Anthem Room Correction (ARC) technology. By engaging ARC to control the low-frequency curve in relation to the output of the ESL panel (as seen in this graph), you will experience performance on par with MartinLogan’s audio test lab.

ARC measures low-frequency sound output in your room and compares it to optimal response curves that account for spatial anomalies. The advanced algorithms of ARC then effectively remove the anomalies, leaving only the ideal standard: realistically blended, natural-sounding bass performance in your listening space.

By minimizing room interactions with PoweredForce Forward bass technology and the advanced room correction capabilities of ARC, along with its unique synthesis of the ESL and bass sections, the Renaissance ESL 15A produces perfectly-etched imaging and focus; optimum natural reproduction of sound at lifelike listening levels; and agile, full-range operation in open air.

Clearly, it is this level of ultimate performance that separates the merely excellent from a true masterpiece.