MartinLogan - Dynamo 600X 10" 240W Ported, Powered Subwoofer, with Sub Control App and Wireless Ready - Satin Black

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• Rated 5 out of 5 stars

  Great 10" sub with innovative software!

  • Tech Insider Network Member
  • Top 100 Contributor

  Setup: Setup of the subwoofer was very easy. The box does show simple to follow directions to unpack the subwoofer from the box. It is very important that you follow their directions so as not to damage your new subwoofer. The subwoofer is packed very well. The top and bottom of the sub is packed in Styrofoam. The sub is wrapped in a thin cloth bag that keeps Styrofoam bits from sticking to and helps prevents scratches during unpacking. Personally, I thought the added touch gave a bit of class to the whole process. All the controls and connections on the back of the sub are clearly marked. For my setup, all I needed was power and the LFE cable from my receiver’s sub pre-out to the LFE connection the sub. I set the gain to the middle of the dial, the power control to auto, and toggled the app control switch to app. The sub is light and small making it easy to move into whatever room position I wanted. I chose to place the sub at the front of my room a few feet away from the corner. The user’s guide does cover, in detail, how to find the best room placement for your sub. Unpacking, connections, and placement took about ten minutes. App: There are two apps that make up the control system for this sub. There is the MarinLogan Sub Control app and then there is the Anthem Room Correction, or ARC, app. The user’s manual does cover these applications in detail. The application allows control over Volume, Low Pass Filter, Phase control, Listening Modes, 20 – 30 Hz boost levels, Room Correction, and the ability to set a pass code so that you can restrict who can modify the sub-woofer settings. I have this subwoofer paired with a Pioneer Elite receiver supports minimal base management. These applications add the base management back into my listening space. First, I’m allowing the receiver to manage the crossover frequency to the subwoofer. I have it set to 80Hz. It is a very common crossover setting. I then loaded the MartinLogan Sub Control app to my iPhone. I spent some time playing with all the settings. I didn’t have to worry about screwing up the sub because there is a reset button that will return everything to factory defaults. So, have fun. Finally, I chose to give the Anthem Room Correction a try. I was prompted to download a separate application from the Apple Store. The directions were simple. The results were magical. I was instructed to hold my iPhone at my primary listening position and then four additional positions around my listening position. What a difference this made to how the sub sounded in my room. It was like night and day. The base was smoother at my listening position and sounded better than with any of the manual settings that I had tried. Bravo MartinLogan! I wish I had this capability for my main home theater system. The manual does state that any sub will sound boomy without proper room calibration. So, keep in mind that great bass does take some effort on your part. ARC does make this process much easier. Another cool innovative feature that I directly benefited from is the ability to play a range of test tones through the sub. The app will run through a range of tones from 20hz to 120hz. I noticed immediately that my room hit a resonance frequency that sounded like the room was rattling. I was able to pause the frequency sweep and isolate the rattling noise to a frequency of 39hz. With the tone playing, I was able to identify the source of the resonance. It turned out that one of the subwoofer feet was not completely touching my floor. The movement was so slight that to the touch everything felt fine. I move the sub slightly and the resonance stopped. Wow! I would have never found this without the app. Saved me months of trying to track down strange resonances. The MartinLogan apps definitely set the Dynamos apart from all other subwoofers at this price point. What a value! Finally, the application does have three sound modes to choose from: Movie, Music, and Night. Movie is an aggressive bass management preset that is great for filling in those power bass notes from our favorite movies. Music is less aggressive and does make a difference when listening to my favorite music. Night is a bit more interesting. It seems to be a combination of aggressive bass management but at a lower volume. I noticed the sub was not very loud but did have great detail at those levels. I found this great because I often listen to my stereo at night when others in the home are in bed. It is also a great feature for those of you who live in apartment buildings and don’t want to upset your neighbors but still want good low-end detail. Documentation: The included documentation is excellent! I have not seen another speaker manufacture be as clear and descriptive as MartinLogan. I have owned Klipsch, SVS, Bower and Wilkins, and Sony. None of them hold a candle to MartinLogan. The manual is written in multiple languages. The diagrams are clear. The explanations of each feature are also clear and concise. A printed copy is in the box. The PDF copy is available on MartinLogan’s website. Music Sound: MartinLogan recommends that you break in your sub for about 50 hours before putting any real stress on it. After setup, I left my stereo play the radio for two days before doing any serious listening. The sub sounded boomy before running the room correction software. After running ARC, the sound did even out to sound more natural in my listening space. The base is tight and not overwhelming. For music, I do not have the sub setup aggressively. I listened to pop, some rap, electronica, electro swing, and classical music selections. They all sounded great. The sub is capable of outputting good sound pressure, but it is not powerful enough to punch me in the chest. In my opinion, a larger sub would be required to give you that punch to the chest feeling while also maintaining good, tight sound. For my purposes, this is one of the best 10” subs I’ve listened too that does a great filling in the low end for my speakers. Movie Sound: One of the first challenges I put the sub through was the original Pacific Rim. As I mentioned before, the bass from this sub will not punch you in the chest. It did play this movie with excellent detail. Every Jaeger foot step, punch, and Kaiju roar was excellent. The sub was also very detailed and speedy between changes in frequency. I normally watch this movie in my home theater that includes an SVS 2000 PB 12” ported sub. The SVS shakes the entire house! The 600X is not big enough or powerful enough to shake my house. It did still give me an excellence experience when taken in context of the smaller listening space and the inclusion the bass management provided by ARC. The experience does make me wonder how the larger subs in MartinLogan’s range could compete with my SVS sub in a home theater solution. When I’m ready to upgrade, I will definitely give MartinLogan a serious evaluation. The 600X is doing an excellent job as an inexpensive second system solution in my smaller, secondary listening space. I did test the sub’s prowess with additional content from Netflix. Again, the bass was accurate for its size, speedy, detailed, and never overwhelmed my speakers. All I needed to do was swipe a few settings in the base control app and more base was instantly available. I will caution you though. This sub only reaches down to 27 Hz. A movie like Pacific Rim will deep down to 20Hz or lower. Even though the movie sound great, there are still details that the sub cannot reproduce. Most music, however, will never reach this low. If you want to go deeper, then you may want to check out the 800X instead. Night Sound: As I mentioned before, I was impressed with the level of detail available with night mode. I listened to music and watched a few movies on Netflix. The sound levels did not rock my world but it did give me a special respect for this subwoofer. Give it a try. Overall Impression: I purchased this sub to add a stereo system to a small basement room that is primarily used for office work and music listening. I didn’t want to place a super powerful sub in this space because I don’t have a need for chest punching bass. My goal was sound detail. I feel that I achieved this. The inclusion of the application controls using my iPhone really took this 10” sub to a level that I didn’t think I could achieve with the equipment I have in this space. Boy, was I wrong. MartinLogan is really spoiling it’s customers with this level of control at this price point. They raised the bar for what I will expect for my next home theater subwoofer purchase. I hope you found this review helpful. I would recommend this subwoofer to anyone who is looking to setup an inexpensive home theater or stereo system in a smal

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  Posted 7 years ago by ITJim

• Rated 5 out of 5 stars

  The Force is Strong

  • Tech Insider Network Member

  I opened the box in anticipation of testing this sub out with my new copy of The Last Jedi. Once I set it up (truly plug and play), I was off to download the Martin Logan app and tune the sub to my room. The app connects to the sub via Bluetooth and even updates the sub through Bluetooth connectivity. I was asked if I'd like to update the firmware once the app was running and it flawlessly updated the sub in only a few minutes. Easy, easy... love this feature, as no physical connections are needed. Another stellar feature of this line of subs is the ARC (Anthem Room Correction) which basically tunes your sub to your own unique room via an app with your cell phone speaker, or taking it a step further, with a special ARC microphone (available separately) that is specifically designed to give the most accurate result. Since my room is relatively small, I chose to try the cell phone speaker and it performed to my satisfaction. The ARC app is also available to help you with this process. There is also ARC functionality available through the easy to use Martin Logan app. The manual is very straight forward and easy to follow if you need extra help. Now to the sound which is easily the most important aspect. Let's just say I am super happy with the sound and cutoff frequencies that this sub provides. I had to replace another sub which had the same size woofer, only the old one was front facing and this one fires down towards the floor. After using it for a few weeks and many films laster, I can say that I now prefer the floor facing woofer. It's also more protected from little ones and animals which is a big bonus. I have this unit currently paired with JBL 4408A studio monitors and a JBL center channel and I am in high fi heaven. The immersion with my PS3 games is now off the charts. The size is just right for my room and after the easy tuning process, the projection is spot on. Overall, this is an excellent piece of equipment I am proud to own. Thank you, Martin Logan and to Best Buy for carrying such a great product!

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  Posted 7 years ago by MrShinyCadillackness

• Rated 5 out of 5 stars

  Incredible Subwoofer

  • Top 500 Contributor
  • Tech Insider Network Member

  I've only had one subwoofer in my life--a small, old one that I've had for at least 10 years--so I jumped at the chance to review a high-end subwoofer. This subwoofer does not disappoint in the slightest. First off--this thing is big and gorgeous. The casing on it is beautiful--rich and black. It's very large, but doesn't look out of place at all in a media room (see picture). Even with the size it's very easy to unpack out of the box. The instructions are right on top as soon as you open it, with a clear explanation to remove the cord packed on top, then turn the box over and lift it off of the subwoofer. It's packed very carefully and the box is very sturdy. It would take something very severe to damage one of these. The instruction manual is one of the thickest I've ever seen. It's neat that it even comes with one at all, but the detail in this is truly impressive. There are in-depth instructions on hooking up the sub, where to place it in the room, the best settings for what you're listening to, how different speakers and sound systems work together, and even how to use the app (more on the app in a minute). It's also in several different languages. Connections are simple or complicated depending on how you want to hook it up. I took the simple route and just used the sub pre-outs on my receiver. You can adjust the volume and db range manually on the back of the sub, or (a much better method) use the app on your phone to control it. The sound is fantastic. A truly immersive and rich bass that compliments every thing you'd want to listen to it with. Music and movies sound incredible--particularly action movies, of course. I tested it with Jurassic Park and was really blown away with the T-Rex intro, as well as the stampede scene. You will not be disappointed with the sound. The app for this device truly shines. It's a well-thought out app that doesn't take up a lot of room (took 2 seconds to download). The first thing it does when you open it is walk you through finding your sub. Once I turned the switch on the back of the sub to the correct position it found it right away. Next it does a quick firmware update (if necessary)--mine took about three minutes. After that the controls are amazingly simple--or complicated if you want to get really in-depth with every setting. The home screen has a nice, easy to understand db control switch on it that I was very impressed with (see picture). It's intuitive and the sub responds almost instantly. I genuinely wish all apps worked as well as this one does. If you're in the market for a new sub and want something truly impressive then this is the one for you. Highly recommended!

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  Posted 7 years ago by SgtRock