Tak czy inaczej, aby się przebić na rynku, trzeba zaproponować coś więcej niż wspomnianą high-endową solidność. Okazuje się, że dla tych, którzy będą bardziej wytrwali w odsłuchach, Marten przygotował dużą nagrodę. Coś z początku ulotnego, ale z każdym kolejnym dniem coraz bardziej przekonującego i uwodzącego. Ukrytą perłę. Głównym walorem i najmocniejszym atutem Oscarów Duo jest górna średnica. Wcale nie dlatego, że miałaby zostać wyeksponowana – jak wspominałem, szwedzkie monitory prezentują liniowe i zrównoważone pasmo. Tutaj chodzi wyłącznie o jakość. Brzmienie górnej średnicy oznacza dużo więcej niż tylko wycinek pasma w okolicach umownej granicy z sopranami. W tym przypadku mam na myśli całą górną połowę zakresu tonów średnich. To chyba najbogatszy w informacje fragment spektrum akustycznego. Trzeba więc umiejętnie go opracować, aby przekaz oddawał intencje zarówno kompozytora, jak i realizatora dźwięku. Niemal odczuwało się radość, z jaką Marteny pokazywały słuchaczowi wszystkie tajemnice tych dźwięków.

Myślę że zadowoleni będą miłośnicy wielu rodzajów muzyki, pod warunkiem, że nagrania zrealizowano na przyzwoitym poziomie. Jazz, kameralistyka, fortepian, orkiestra – Marteny zawsze z takim samym zaangażowaniem malują barwy i szczegóły budujące emocje. Dla mnie największym beneficjentem wirtuozerii górnej średnicy okazała się symfonika. Oscary Duo nie traciły kontroli nad wydarzeniami, nawet w dużych składach. Nic się w nich nie zlewało, nic nie umykało uwadze. Górna średnica sprawia, że brzmienie jest klarowne i przejrzyste. Pomimo niezbyt restrykcyjnej kontroli basu i ogólnej skłonności do zaokrąglania konturów otrzymujemy dźwięk wyrazisty, a jednocześnie spójny i płynny. Największy atut Marteny skrywają pod powierzchnią czasu. Dopiero około trzeciego wieczornego słuchania zacząłem doceniać wartość górnej średnicy. Nie twierdzę, że nie można się o niej przekonać wcześniej – wiele zapewne będzie zależało od repertuaru i elektroniki. Po tym, jak już to właściwe przesłanie brzmieniowe wchłoniemy, będziemy się mogli po prostu zatopić w muzyce, a o to przecież w tym wszystkim chodzi.

Brzmienie szwedzkich monitorów łączy dosadność z powabem, wdziękiem i klarownością. Marten Oscar Duo to klasa sama w sobie, ukryta za zasłoną dyskrecji. Akustyczna perła północnych mórz.

Link do recenzji: Marten Oscar Duo – Hi-Fi i Muzyka

The amount of bass the Oscar Duo created in my room was laws of physics defying, it like listening to floor standing speakers, obviously not big ones but still that amount of bass. This is really surprising about them and interesting for two reasons, firstly Marten say that the Oscar Duo crossover is designed to maximise dynamics and bass is we all know is a big part of that and boy these speakers really deliver dynamics for bass. Regulars to my YouTube channel will know I appreciate a lot of bass and normally with smaller stand mount speakers I am trying to squeeze as much bass out of them as possible but with the Oscar Duo I was toning them down in the Dirac Calibration to try and get the bass as tight as possible. I think they would have liked more space around them than I was giving them and I also now feel this is because of the amplifier.

They have just got a very full and full bodied sound and easily do room filling bass like you would expect from much bigger speakers. I think the only other stand mount speaker to give me this amount of bass output was the Monitor Audio Platinum PL100 MK2 but I don’t remember them being anything like the Oscar Duo in terms of producing bass grandiose presence and scale. Some of this was amplifier dependent, using the Gryphon Diablo 120 gave me a much grander scale of sound from the Oscar Duo than when I used the Arcam SA30 and there is huge difference in price between those amplifiers and the Oscar Duo made me aware of it and took advantage of it. In saying this I am not 100% sure the Gryphon Diablo 120 was the ideal amplifier for the Oscar Duo in terms of bass. Later I tried the Leema Acoustics Tucana II Anniversary and it has a lighter but tighter bass than the Gryphon which is a better match for the Oscar and Parker Duo in my room.

The next thing that impressed me with them is their soundstage creation and their imaging, they have the ability to fill the room with sound but its organised and with precise stereo imaging. Back to that dip in the frequency response in the presence region, I think that helps the speaker hold back its mid range and vocal delivery which meant in my room there was a nice ark of sound created, music depending of course, but with the main event vocal held back from you in the middle of the sound stage creates a nice amount of space and openness.

The Oscar Duo deliver music with a nice combination of a you go to the music at times and then other times the music comes out to you and that makes me think back to what Marten say these speakers are designed to do dynamic range well because they really can transition from quiet to loud or from front to back left to right etc, all very impressive.

Link do recenzji: Marten Oscar Duo – Pursuit Perfect System

To test the Duo's abilities on large orchestral works, I played the Eroica—Symphony No.3—from the outstanding box-set reissue of Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic's Beethoven symphony cycle (DG 479 8721), produced from live recordings and released in 1980.

I shouldn't have been surprised by the midband's airy transparency or the speaker's ability to freely float the first movement's sweeping strings and effortlessly project the woodwinds within the forest of instruments—but surprised I was. Yes, the double basses and timpani lacked full weight, but there was enough weight to provide a satisfying foundation. The hall's reverberant field and decay were also presented well, adding up to an enjoyable presentation that should satisfy any classical music lover, on a well-under-$10,000 speaker budget.

Marten's Oscar Duo is a smooth-sounding speaker. Its timbral balance is on the warmer, sweeter side of the musical street but not too warm or sweet. You have to listen for quite some time, and to a great deal of music, before the speaker 'fesses up its timbral personality, so well-crafted is the design.

As expected from any small speaker, the Oscar Duo's biggest shortcoming was its macrodynamic performance. It can't scale the dynamic heights, but its microdynamic performance—its ability to present small, low-level dynamic shifts—was very good, surprisingly so for a speaker box that isn't made from some heroic, exotic material. Given its size, its ability to produce large-scale dynamic contrasts without strain or stress and without sounding boxy, at moderately high SPLs, was impressive. The Duo's spatial presentation also impressed. The pair produced a generously sized stage—wide, tall, and deep—within which were presented solid images, proportionately sized and well-focused. Lights out, the Duos disappeared, producing a space-filling picture that I wouldn't have thought possible from such small boxes. The picture remained stable regardless of SPLs.

The speaker's two most impressive qualities were its confounding bass performance—its ability to present the illusion of genuine low-frequency extension (I'm looking forward to the measurements) without clogging up the lower midrange and doing damage to acoustic guitars and voices.

Speaking of which, the Electric Recording Company's mono-fold-down reissue of Love's Forever Changes (ERC 057M) arrived yesterday, and while I'm not sure why ERC chose to take the stereo tape and produce a mono folddown—there never was a dedicated mono mix—I played the record last night, and it was the first time in decades of playing it that I really felt I was hearing Arthur Lee's voice in the studio. The all-tube mastering is mostly responsible for that, but a boxy-sounding small speaker could easily destroy the illusion. The Oscar Duo isn't a boxy-sounding speaker. It delivered the goods.

I wasn't looking forward to mothballing my big speakers for more than a month to listen to these or any small, two-way speakers, but I enjoyed every listen and never felt shortchanged. Designer Leif Olofsson has threaded the needle, producing a small speaker that can produce prodigious bass (or at least bass that sounds prodigious) with composure at relatively high SPLs, without muddying up the midrange.

Link do recenzji: Marten Oscar Duo – Stereophile

I haven’t really examined imaging in a long time, because I feel like most speakers can do it quite well. When’s the last time I heard a two-way speaker and thought, “Wow, I wish the imaging was a little better”? There’s only one issue—I listened to the Marten Oscar Duos for several weeks, and suddenly I was thinking about how well they imaged. Like, much better than usual. Why? I think it has to do with the idea of a transducer disappearing in a room completely, something I do discuss on a regular basis. Thanks to the Duos, I now think they’re connected, both imaging and disappearing, but in a mighty triumvirate that includes that big soundstage.

It’s been a long time since a loudspeaker design made me think of the importance of imaging and soundstaging and low frequency performance, especially the way they impact each other. The Marten Oscar Duos might just possess the best imaging I’ve heard in a long time, no joke.

On the incredible new album from pianist-composer Satoko Fujii and “mallet virtuoso” Taiko Saito, Beyond (which is performed under the duo name Futari), the interplay between the piano and the vibraphone is exquisite because you can instantly compare the differences in timbre, decay and dynamics of each instrument. That huge soundstage and ultra-precise imaging really enhanced and refined the idea of two performers performing in a large space, awash in a sea of constantly varying sound.

Speaking of performers in large spaces, the Marten Oscar Duos were superb with all of my 2L Recordings - in many ways these Swedish monitors conjured up an insane amount of synergy with those Norwegian recordings, so much so that I had an all-day 2L marathon more than once while the Martens were in the system.

Based on sound alone, these are incredible values—you’re definitely getting a small monitor that sounds much larger than it is, but the world-class imaging and soundstaging takes the Duos to another level.

On the other hand, the Marten Oscar Duos are intriguing because they don’t sound like the other premium two-way monitors I’ve championed lately, although I do think they have a lot in common with the Stenheims in terms of clarity and presence. Instead of me saying that the Duos aren’t like those other speakers, which suggests a “not my cup of tea but you may love it” pseudo-recommendation, I’m going to come out and say these speakers made me reconsider what I deem a priority in bookshelf speaker designs. The more time I spent with the Marten Oscar Duos, the more I realized that I could definitely make this new, faster approach “my” sound.

Link do recenzji: Marten Oscar Duo – Part-Time Audiophile

In the final analysis and in my apartment the Swedish Oscar Duo two driver monitors get 90% of the source just as it is. Ask yourself what should speakers sound like. The only sensible answer must be, absolutely nothing. As I began, I asked myself if the Marten Duo speakers were true to their sources. By that I mean that they let everything upfront come through without alteration, then the answer is yes. Everything I have described so far could not exist without a very accurate transducer. The Marten Duo does not have a company trademark sound or any definable music inflection. In no small measure, they represent a breakthrough in transparent speaker design. If you do try them, I know you will buy them. 

I could give you very good reasons to power these Oscar Duo speakers with any one of these three amplifiers. But for me, the choice comes down to my 30 Wpc four-tube KT88 Prima Luna amplifier. Yes granted it cannot bang out deep bass but anyone who buys a stand mount two-driver speaker is not likely to be into big bomb blasting bass. If asked why, it's a vacuum tube conclusion that evolved over many years. Digital reproduction sounds fast and detailed but it's on the backside as the fading chords decay. There is a surrounding modulating timber in the air rides that fading shifting modulation into silence, that is what we sense as real. A complicated way to describe a simple concept I call sustain. 

Most music-loving audiophiles simply settle on their favorite set of tradeoffs. Marten's slogan tells us "everything is done to serve the music". Once in awhile something comes along that can deliver 90% of the music for which it was designed. The caveat is that this Duo speaker should be set up and positioned away from room boundaries in known space. Initially, my set up of the Duo was just an approximation and later on, I experimented until the placement was optimized. With the Duos toed in I could appreciate a heightened sense of sound field depth. This expansive imaging is defiantly one of the Marten Duo loudspeaker's great strengths. 

Link do recenzji: Marten Oscar Duo – Enjoy the Music

豐潤飽滿的低頻，讓人驚艷 既然是 Oscar，那就從 Oscar 聽起。不過，我雖然有好些 Oscar Peterson 的 CD，偏偏就是就是沒有他的二重奏錄音，只好以三重奏演出的 We Get Requests 這張最具代表性的名盤代替上陣。第一軌 Corcovado 的音樂一出來，就讓我驚訝不已：這 Oscar Duo 小小一支書架喇叭，竟然有這樣飽滿豐潤的低頻。開頭是一聲鋼琴的刷弦，然後節奏組便即發動，左邊的鼓組和右側的貝斯以節奏來鋪路，讓 Peterson 鋼琴可以踩著舞步前進。Ray Brown 的貝斯真是豐厚飽滿，左邊 Ed Thigpen 腳踩大鼓的振動直傳過來，我在座位上都能感受到。恐怕好些小型落地喇叭還發不出這樣的低音。鋼琴琴音圓潤溫暖，音粒清楚分明，還帶著幾許彈性，完滿的說出了那個年代類比錄音的美好。

不一樣的低音提琴出現在 You Look Good to Me，開頭貝斯以拉奏方式演奏，而不是一般爵士樂裡常見的撥彈。前面我說過 Oscar Duo 的低音飽滿豐厚，說的是撥奏；這裡的拉奏則把低音琴弦的振動都說得清清楚楚，尤其是在旋律第二次反覆時，鋼琴往上走，貝斯卻往下走，這探得更低的貝斯，在低音域解析良好的喇叭上，可是會讓人聽了渾身酥麻的。此外，這裡開頭那幾聲輕敲銅鈸帶來清脆響亮的鈸聲，不僅敲擊的質感扎實具體，尾韻盪出的泛音更是漂亮。唉啊，我低音說了，高音也說了，喇叭差不多講完了，可以下班了！

還有更熱力四射的。我換上 Marcus Miller 的 Tutu Revisited，第一軌的 Tomaas，聽那個以鍵盤合成器構築起來迷霧一般的黑洞，然後是加了弱音器的小號，鼓聲像是隕石般襲來，力道充沛。小號聽起來嘹亮，因為加了弱音器，細細尖尖的，卻不刺耳。一旁的中音薩克斯風與之對話著，好生精彩的銅管樂器。Marcus Miller 的電貝斯撥著強悍飽滿的音符，與薩克斯風、小號形成三雄鼎立。我可以再次誇一下 Oscar Duo 的低音嗎？這種乾淨、有速度，還有厚度和下潛力的低音，真是太難得了。有道是「千金難買好低音」。如果你家空間不太大，想要一對喇叭，可以發出高質感的低音，那麼，請試試看 Oscar Duo。你非得自己聽過不可，而且，請準備好這張 Tutu Revisited。

我很少這樣，一連聽下來都是爵士樂。我試聽時通常都是以古典音樂為主，但是，遇到了 Marten 喇叭，我就想多聽一點爵士。希望透過聆聽，可以想像著逼近 Leif Mårten Olofsson 的世界。但我還是得說一點爵士以外的東西，因為一對好喇叭不該只受限於播放某些類型的音樂，反該是能夠廣泛適應於各類音樂才行。

Oscar Duo 可以這樣精彩地表現爵士和搖滾，回到我最熟悉的古典音樂，它也同樣顯出本事來。以柴可夫斯基第四號交響曲為例，這是一首情感濃烈的樂曲，第一樂章開頭法國號帶頭揭示出來的命運主題，提出了貫穿全曲的悲觀的暗示。在這個樂章裡我聽見了 Oscar Duo 細膩翔實地描述著樂團各個聲部，畫面真是透明。小提琴部輕聲拉奏時帶出的絲滑質感，木管吹出溫暖又圓潤的旋律，與弦樂相輝映。柴可夫斯基真是擅長把悲傷藏在華麗之下，當他譜出最優美的旋律時，後面要說的就是最深沈的哀愁。

這是 Maris Jansons 年輕時指揮奧斯陸愛樂的版本，他把柴可夫斯基那充滿感官刺激的音樂以一種暢言卻又節制的尺度表達出來，每一次逐起的高潮，催逼出樂團的能量，都在挑戰你的耳朵和內心的承受力。Oscar Duo 在銅管樂器質感方面的表現，聽 Tomaas 時我已經體會過了；這裡更是狂暴。當再現部末了銅管部拔起時，真是了不起，這樣的小喇叭也有有震撼的表現。再聽尾聲部裡恬靜優雅的樂段，定音鼓在後輕輕敲著，Oscar Duo 把這些有層次的細節都說得明明白白。如果你聽音樂不想錯失重要訊息，Oscar Duo 應該可以符合你的要求。

Link do recenzji: Marten Oscar Duo – u-Audio

Link: Marten Oscar Duo – Part-Time Audiophile – Reviewers Choice

Link: Marten Oscar Duo – Pursuit Perfect System – Essential Audition

Link: Marten Oscar Duo – Stereophile – Recommended Components 2024

Link: Marten Oscar Duo – Stereophile – Recommended Components 2023

Link: Marten Oscar Duo – Stereophile – Recommended Components 2023

Link: Marten Oscar Duo – Stereophile – Recommended Components 2022

Link: Marten Oscar Duo – Stereophile – Recommended Components 2022

Link: Marten Oscar Duo – Stereophile – Recommended Components 2021

Link: Marten Oscar Duo – Stereophile – Recommended Components 2021