MartinLogan Motion 60XT Speakers

The MartinLogan Motion 60XT speakers just hit the market this week, and they look to be pretty amazing. MartinLogan dubs their XT speakers “Extreme”—an overused word that’s about a decade too late, but nevertheless, these 48″ tall floorstanding speakers dip down to 35 Hz and look like they will pack a lot of punch. The bottom end is created via the use of two 8″ aluminum woofers and dual rear-firing bass ports. A dedicated 6.5” mid woofer takes care of the midrange and should provide a ton of accuracy for vocals and instruments like sax and acoustic guitar that often get left behind when the central frequencies aren’t given enough attention. Topping off the high end is the popular MartinLogan Folded Motion XT tweeter. I’m a huge fan of this tweeter and have heard it up close and personal many times. It’s both accurate and smooth and should be a great addition to this tower speaker.

The speaker dispersion looks to be 80º x 30º, giving it a nice, wide throw that will allow you to reduce toe-in and still fill a fairly large room adequately. The FoldedMotion tweeter takes up just 1.25″ x 2.4″, but includes over 4.5″ x 2.75″ of surface area that resonates those high frequencies into the room. Another interesting feature of the MartinLogan Motion 60XT speakers is that they use aluminum drivers for the midrange and bass, but pair the mid with a cast polymer basket and the larger, more aggressive bass drivers with cast aluminum baskets. Both resist resonance and vibration well. The midrange driver also exists within a sealed chamber, allowing the volume of the tower to be utilized specifically for the reproduction of lower frequency bass (without muddying up the midrange response in the process).

This speaker plays very loud, and at 94 dB SPL (1W/m) sensitivity, it doesn’t take a ton of amplifier power to drive this 4-ohm tower. The recommended amplifier power is anything from 20 to 400 watts per channel, but we suspect you’ll want to pair it with a good quality separates system (I’d recommend the Yamaha A-S2100 amplifier). The crossovers include custom air coil and low DCR steel laminate inductors along with polypropylene film capacitors in series with low DF electrolytic caps in parallel. They cross over the Folded Motion tweeter at 2.2 kHz and the bass drivers at 400 Hz. The custom 5-way bi-wirable tool-less binding posts are beautiful and, along with the outriggers, make this a beautiful speaker with a very powerful-looking stance.

The speakers are available in either a Piano Black, White, and Cherrywood finish and they retail for $2,999.95 per pair.

MartinLogan Motion 60XT Speakers Specifications

Frequency Response: 35–25,000 Hz ± 3 dB
Dispersion: 80° x 30°
High Frequency Driver: 1.25” x 2.4” (3.2cm x 6.1cm) Folded Motion XT Transducer with 4.5” x 2.75” (11.4cm x 7cm) diaphragm
Mid Frequency Transducer: 6-1/2” (16.5cm) aluminum cone with cast polymer basket. Sealed chamber format. Rigid structured dust cap to reduce cone break-up modes.
Low Frequency Transducer: Two 8” (20.3cm) aluminum cone with cast aluminum basket. Non-resonant asymmetrical chamber format. Rigid structured dust cap to reduce cone break-up modes.
Sensitivity: 94 dB @ 2.83 volts/meter
Impedance: 4 Ohms. Compatible with 4, 6, or 8 Ohm rated amplifiers.
Recommended Amplifier Power: 20 – 400 watts
Crossover Frequency: 400 & 2,200 Hz
Cabinet: Ported
Inputs: Custom 5-way bi-wire tool-less binding posts
Weight: 66 lbs. (30 kg)
Dimensions: 48” x 11.4” x 14.4” (121.8cm x 29cm x 36.6cm)

Buy the MartinLogan Motion 60XT