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Martin Logan CLS II - Experimental Speakers

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Hey all, I have a pair of Martin Logan CLS II Speakers. I obtained the panels from a local guy a few years back. I opened them up and cleaned the 20+ years of crud off them, and used Hand Soap (Sodium Laurate) as coating.

Mylar is in very good condition with no arc holes.

The Frames were made from Oak and stained a dark cherry, for a very nice color.

The Interfaces are from Acoustat (MK-121) and have higher bias and better components that the ML CLS II interface ever had. There are quite a few here that would agree.

Anyway, These speakers sound very nice and definitly go lower than the originals. I did not reseal them, so they can be re-opened to try other coatings (like licron, etc)

Anyway, I cannot ship, so pick up in west sub of Chicago. I will audition them to show they are working properly.

I built these a while back and have another pair of original CLS (with mylar removed) that I spend most of my time experimenting, so up these go...

Pics coming...

How about $750?
 
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Finally some pics
 

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A little more history behind these...The original CLSII panels were acquired in very poor condition. Sound output was very low and distorted. A washing and another layer of coating only helped a little. I built a charge indicator and it showed massive charge leaks, so they could never hold a high enough charge to play correctly.They were clearly spent.

I eventually gave up and opened them, removed mylar, double sided tape and bias ring and restored panels with new 6 micron mylar, new double sided tape, a permanent layer of Licron Crystal coating and a full encirclement Aluminum Bias Ring (not the original copper Bias "U"). The mylar was only mechanically tensioned longitudinally like ML does it, and the only way to do it for curved panels. Another cool thing is that I did not reglue the stators back together, so they can be reopened and wiped clean and recoated if needed, but should be good to go as they stand for years to come.

These sound clear and clean and have no buzz or odd noises, and still have that clear, distortion-less and fast sound that CLS is famous for ...

New CLS Panels from ML are $2900, and used/poor condition panels still fetch up to $1500 (see martinloganowners.com, and ebay.)

The frames are exact dimensioned copies of the real ML frames, and are stained Oak.

Now the Interfaces are Acoustat MK-121-2. These HF and LF step up trannies dwarf the original ML transformers is size and weight and sound fuller and go deeper than the original ML Interfaces. In all, you get all the great benefits in sound of the ML CLS, but with much better bass with the Acoustat interface. I also had to reduce the bias voltage from 5k to 3k (which is about where the bias was originally on ML interfaces).

The light circles seen on the left speaker are where the Coating was not properly cured - too humid the day I sprayed...does not affect sound...

Strongly advise an audition so you can hear them. West sub of Chicago.

Again, selling because I am building another pair (CLS Original panels) that I will keep with frames made of Cherry.
 

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