MartinLogan - Motion C10 2.5-Way Center-Channel with Dual 5.5” Midbass Drivers (Each) - Walnut

Yes yes yes! I love it! But as we all know sound and speakers are subjective. Give speakers a listen before deciding for yourself. I love my C10! I tried out the KEF Q6M and Q250 and decided with the Martin Logan C10. My space isn’t big enough to hold the Q6, so that was an easy scratch out but the Q250 was the right size. It sounded lackluster to me. Hollow and without some real umph so that helped to nudge away from KEF (mind you, my left and right channels are KEF Q11’s from the early 2000’s, no problems there) Now for the actual speaker review…It handles everything amazingly well and looks fantastic! Lower to higher pitched voices, the t-rex roar from Jurassic park, music (assorted genres)…basically everything. From talking shows like in ‘What we do in the shadows’ or ‘White Lotus’ to effect heavy action scenes in ’Oblivion’ or ‘Shoot’em Up’ to the music in ‘Amadeus’ or ‘Deathgasm’, the Martin Logan C10 reproduces the perfect sound. This is my first 2.5 way speaker and having now experienced it I think this is a great use of technology to better blend the crossovers. Crystal clear audio! For photo reference, that’s a Bravia A95L 65” above, OG PS5 on the right, Switch on the left, and a Sony STR1000 below the speaker

MartinLogan's latest series of Motion speakers are an absolute juggernaut, and C10 is the centerpiece of the 10 series lineup that provides a stellar mixture of sound quality mixed with a build quality I've not seen on a set of speakers. This is a true winner, and those willing to spend the money will be rewarded with speakers that feel truly upscale well beyond their price point. Upon unboxing the C10, two things immediately struck me; the heft of the speaker and the incredibly luxurious finish. Mine is adorned in a piano black, and it looks like nothing I've had previously. The seams are flawless, and for the most part, everything looks great. The one issue I do have is that there were a couple of scuff marks on the shiny black finish, which detracts from the overall appearance a bit, but overall, these looks absolutely amazing. Along with looking great, the speaker is is versatile; MartinLogan cleverly designed the top with a slight angle, allowing you to either place the speaker parallel to the ground, or flipped and angled slightly upwards. This is a big bonus for those of us that need to put the C10 below their screen. They've also made the logo reversible making inverted placement seem totally deliberate. My final note on the aesthetic is the grill covers. They've done something fairly unique here; whereas generally a speaker's entire façade is covered by speaker grill, they've designed these to have grill covers only over the drivers. This lends to a really unique look, and lets you show off just how great these things look. The sound quality of this speaker, along with the other 10 series speakers in the new Motion range, is simply put phenomenal. The C10 has an evenness to the response that's difficult to explain. After years of other brands of speakers, I've grown somewhat accustomed to the inaccurate and colored sound you get elsewhere, but hooking these up and taking them for a spin, it was immediately apparent just how great they are. This speaker covers a pretty wide range of frequencies, lending greatly to pulling center channel duties for both home theater listening. Dialog is unexpectedly precise and forward in a way that simply blows away nearly every other center channel speaker I've tried in the past 10 years. This is likely due to MartinLogan's "2.5-way" design, which cleverly uses two identical drivers but tuned with different crossovers, allowing one to handle more mid range while the other handles a bit lower registers. I say "a bit" because you're not getting a lot of bass here, but that's frankly not the point of a center channel. Combine this with the unbelievably great sounding folded tweeter design here and you have what I can only explain as a speaker that completely blows everything else in the price range away that I've tried (from most major brands). This is my first experience listening to a speaker with this folded design, but I'm a believer. The response, clarity, and dispersion completely blow away other tweeter designs I've heard. This speaker handles everything from aforementioned dialog heavy scenes through to action scenes without even a hint of struggle. Beyond that, it is great for music listening as well. I ran the gamut from classical to hip hop to progressive rock and metal, and not once did it feel like the C10 was out of its element. I threw on one of my favorite albums, Hand.Cannot.Erase by Steven Wilson to give this speaker a test drive with something I'm completely familiar with. The experience did not disappoint; this album has a lot of challenging passages and as mentioned already, the C10 knocked it out of the park, with instrumentation definition and balance that I frankly haven't heard in my home theater previously. This speaker gave new life to this album, along with virtually everything else I've heard through it. At this point, I feel like I've run out superlatives to describe how great this speaker is. As a center channel speaker, it fills the sonic space directly below my display better than any other speaker I've tried. The C10, along with the others in the range I've acquired, has frankly been a game changer for my home theater, both from a movie/TV show perspective, but also from a music perspective. It has a clarity and definition that I believe is likely in a league of its own in this price range. Add to that a build quality, and suddenly, this feels like an absolute bargain for what you're getting.

In reviewing this MartinLogan C10 center channel speaker, I was pleasantly surprised by the acoustics it was able to achieve. It outputs excellent vocals and bass, in a relatively compact package for the levels it is able to output, with it's centered tweeter and two midrange drivers. The aesthetic is pleasing, with a multitude of colorway options to help it blend and look more like art in any setting. When testing this by itself, it outputs highly accurate sound reproduction, especially with music and at high sustained levels. I found that when pairing it into a 5.1 setup of the same line of ML speakers, F10's and MP10's, movies were slightly off, with too much bass, and needed tweaking, as the dialogue was a bit underpowered, but once corrected, it was pristine and beyond impressive theater quality. This is all processing related, and this center channel will do all that you ask of it, and more. Able to accurately blend in even the most powerful of front left and right towers. If you want to find yourself completely immersed in the sound, whether it be in your living room, den, or especially a theater room, then look no further. The C10 is an excellent value and quality design, capable of filling even larger rooms.

While perhaps the argument could be made that the center channel is the most crucial home theatre component, it is sometimes overlooked. Ironically, it is here that the majority of what you hear requires a speaker that can keep up with the main channels, yet is strong enough to isolate the dialog. As such, I was excited to test the Martin Logan C10 center channel speaker. With its compact size and relatively small dimensions, I was excited to see how it would perform. The C10 was fairly straightforward to setup. In the box, you will note a set of four adhesive feet that you can install on the bottom of the speaker. In addition, there is also a grill that installs on the front of the speaker. As expected, the center channel only has one set of terminals on the back of the speaker. Physically, the C10 is much more compact than my other center channel at 19 inches wide. However, it is a bit taller at roughly 7 inches. The C10 also has a good amount of weight to it at 23 lbs. The C10 also sports a nice glossy black aesthetic and matches perfectly with my other speakers. Overall, the C10 has exceptional build quality and is quite attractive in person. Before I discuss my testing results, I first would like to mention that all the results here will more than likely differ from what your personal experience, especially given the wide range of common variables such as room size, layout, different receivers, cables, speaker placement, and your personal sound interpretation. For my testing, I used a Pioneer Elite receiver VSX-LX303. All speakers were connected via custom cut lengths of Audioquest X2 speaker wire. For playback, I used my Sony X800M2 4K bluray player; the player and my Sony A90J OLED TV were respectively connected to the receiver via two Audioquest Cinnamon 8-10K HDMI 5 FT cables (MODEL: HDM48CIN150). Additionally, I increased center channel to +5.0db in the receiver settings. Lastly, I made sure distance was set to 6 ft and impedance was set properly to 4 ohms. For my test, I tested two different movies. My first movie that I tested was The Mummy (1999), which features a 48 KHz / 24 Bit DTS: X 7.1 track that is really a treat to hear. The C10 does an excellent job of separating the dialog off the two front speakers. A good example is at the 11:29 mark where you can hear “whoa” directly from the C10. In addition, the C10 is able supplement the sounds heard from the main front channels. Another good example of the wonderful clarity of C10 is at the 23:49 mark where the horse cry is heard over the C10. The sound is clear and crisp. Lastly, a good portion of the dialogue starting from 25:08 was exceptional. You can hear everyone speaking clearly, but the piano in the background is sitting perfectly in the mix. The C10 certainly does not disappoint. Lastly, during the gunfight around 49:30, the gunshots are perfectly placed on the C10. Highs and middles are consistent throughout. Furthermore, I was pleasantly surprised as usually when things get hectic in a movie the dialogue tends to get bottled down by the action. The C10 did an excellent job. For my second test, I swapped to the recently released 4K disc of Training Day (2001). This would be a good test as the movie received a big audio upgrade to Dolby Atmos. The opening dialog at the start of the movie is fairly low in the mix but the C10 did a stellar job on clarity. I had to bump up my volume just a few notches but I was able to hear what was being said. Moving on to the coffee shop at around 6:00 mark, the dialog was crystal clear and was perfectly isolated on the center channel. Another good example is at around 27:03 where the honking horns are heard perfectly on the C10 as well as the main channels. Additionally, the bullets hitting the floor at 40:32 are extremely sharp. Lastly, C10 does an incredible job of separating every bullet from 46:42 – 47:05. The clarity is just off the charts during this section, as C10 and the mains are bouncing off each other. All in all, the C10 performed as expected. In conclusion, the C10 is an exceptional choice for a center channel speaker. Physically, it is small enough that it can fit in a more space restricted home theatre system, yet doesn’t seem to sacrifice sound quality. Highs and middle frequencies are excellent. Furthermore, while every speaker was firing, I could distinctly make out what was coming off the C10; clarity was top notch and dialog was perfectly centered and isolated. Overall, everyone should be pleased with the C10. Thus, the C10 comes recommended.

The review of the C10 is in conjunction with two others I placed for the MP10 and F10 (multi-purpose and floorstanding speakers, respectively) in the Motion line. This line is also the "entry-level" offering from MartlinLogan, if you could really call it that. Yes, everything is relative, but this is far from entry-level. Not just in price, but also performance. Taking just how amazing this line sounds I can only imagine how incredible their larger counterparts in the Motion XT range come across. So, with that out of the way - let's do a quick dive into the C10. It is smaller than I anticipated. That's what she said aside, given the weight of the box I was really expecting a larger footprint once I got all the protective material pulled away and the speaker out on its own. This was also the first speaker I unboxed, so this was still a surprise to me. After getting the MP10s out and finally the F10s, I quickly realized that these were definitley intended to be used in smaller rooms (a smaller office, dorm room, aux "fun" room, etc) as the entire line shares the exact same characteristic of having a small footprint, but their heft and build quality backup that MartinLogan pedigree and ooze quality. And this is before we even have them hooked up! The body for this particular example is gloss black. Not my favorite (dust, fingerprints, that sorta thing) but they come with covers which are a nice touch (no pun intended) and also there are two other offerings; white and black/walnut. Your mileage may vary, but I honestly don't know which way I would go if given the choice of the three as they all have pros/cons. The rear also tapers down slightly allowing you to flip the speaker over (you can reverse the logo so it still looks correct) if your setup is designed to have the speaker mounted low so that it will fire up in the optimal direction. Dialogue is something I have always had a hard time adjusting for, especially in movies made after 2015 or so. I'm not sure what this practice is, but I don't usually have to tinker much with older movies, especially those pre-1990. Subjective settings on my receiver aside, dialogue is crystal clear and at a superb placement in the mix via the C10. Not only that, but it picks up and drops off sounds very quickly, with extreme accuracy. If a sound is panning across from either direction, or if a shot/explosion is straight on you get the correct sound and then it is out of the way. Bottomline: the C10 replicates authentically and doesn't distract you with its presence. There is nothing worse than enjoying (or attempting to enjoy) some sort of entertainment only to be distracted by some *other* element/variable that has no business doing such. This could be a hum or a pop, a delay, or hearing a song for the 1000th time and it just doesn't sound right due to a speaker choice. The C10 does none of those bad things while doing all of the good. Reviewing the dimensions of the XT line (the actual footprint of them), I think they would be overkill for most buyers. Unless you have a decent sized dedicated theater room or adequately designed family room, the Motion range is a great sweet spot. I'm sure they (the XTs) are beautiful sounding, but after using the C10, MP10, and F10s in my home office for the last week (that is, when we have power/internet - thanks crazy atmospheric rivers we've been experiencing here on the west coast!!!) I think these are just about the perfect speakers for any avid music lover, film buff, or audio-enthusiast that is looking for amazing build quality without breaking the bank. Easy recommendation - if you love all things audio, you will be hard pressed to find a fault with the C10 and the other offerings from MartinLogan in their Motion series of speakers.