Customer Ratings & Reviews

Sound is great for the price. However, when you shut down your system, the sub makes a loud pop anywhere from 5-30 minutes later. A little disconcerting at night when you think someone just thumped your door. Contacted Martin Logan and was told this is normal operation. I could probably have lived with it but it was starting to freak out my wife and 6 year old :/ Ended up exchanging it for a Supercube 2000 which seems to be of comparable sound quality.

I use primarily for movies in HT and for the most part it is great in a Bruckheimer/Bay flick. But when you get into a dialogue heavy movie it will turn off and on as needed. This will lose some of the bass at the onset of the notes, and then it comes in too abruptly. Everything else is good to great about it, but this one drawback can be very annoying.

bass is phenominal for its size, price is good, love the looks.

I got this sub for free when I bought the Motion 40's, so I won't complain too much. It sounds good when set at zero (on my receiver) but when turned up it doesn't give the long deep throws of bass I'm used too( I had an old MTX 12). I always leave the sub on for convenience and was watching TV with my receiver off and out of the blue it starts violently rumbling and hissing. Scared the heck out of the dog! Turned it off and it stopped. The next day I turned it back on and same thing. Called Martin Logan since it is under warranty and they want me to send the back plate in and they will replace it BUT it is going to take almost two months because they're backordered. That means no movies for two months. Best Buy reps warned me about the issues w/ this issue but it was free. I would not have wasted my money on this poor quality sub! Their Motion speakers rock. Best center channel I've tried and have tried many...

This is my first home sub, so I don't really have a baseline for comparison but so far it sounds great and seems well built. Time will tell though as I feel initial quality should not be the only judge of a product, it needs to last a long time as well. My local Magnolia location was a great help in selecting my system.

My Martin Logan system consists of the Motion 40, Motion 8, Motion 6 and the Dynamo 500. The Dynamo produces bass so deep and punchy you would never guess it comes from a 10" driver. It sounds much better then my 12" JBL or the Bose Acoustimass 16. This sub is great especially if you also listen to music because the driver is very fast giving you that punch from the bass drum.

Crystal clear, rich base. Looks good. Matched with Speaker Craft MTTWO in-wall front L and R, MartinLogan Motion 8 center and MartinLogan ML65 in-wall Rear R and L. The Magnolia Pros set us up with a GREAT system.

I just puchased the Martin Logan Motion 10 speakers and needed some bass so I purchased the MartinLogan Dynamo 500 10" 360-Watt Powered Subwoofer. They work perfect paired together.

I use it for my surround sound and I put it behind by couch. I can feel the rumbling just like the movies. Who needs to go out for movies anymore!

Did not realise what I was missing till they hooked up the Dynamo 500.

This review is the 500D as well as ML customer support After noticing a loud "pop" when the sub doesn't receive a signal for 30-45 mins, I decided to contact Martin Logan customer service to see what could be done. The pop has been noticeable from day one but we thought it was considered normal for a relatively cheaper subwoofer (we also own the 1000W and haven't had any issues with it). The "pop" is VERY noticeable and will actually catch you by surprise. We're not easily startled, but when you're fast asleep and you hear this thing, guarantee you'll get startled awake. It's a shame since it sounds pretty good - our remedy has been to turn the unit off once we are done using it - big hassle. On to the customer service, I sent an email request 11 Apr 2017 and got a reply the same day by Adam (who I communicated exclusively throughout) - great! We went back and forth to try to troubleshoot the issue, when it was determined that it needed to be RMAd, communication stopped. I've sent them 3 additional emails since I've last heard from Adam (to what I'm assuming is the main customer service box) and still no reply. All of my Martin Logan speakers are registered with the company directly. As it is now (20 Apr 2017), I would NOT recommend anything ML that requires a powered input, as the drivers/cabinets themselves are pretty good, but the electrical components will give you problems. Shame with it being an American company, expected better service. If you buy anything other than the subs, you MIGHT be safe, but it's still a gamble - good sound, but bad service.

I woke up my neighbors at 3:00am with this woffer one of the best woofers ever, I like it cuz makes the house shake

The Sub sounds better than I figured it would. Love it!!! the only down side is the price.

Rocks the house like a subwoofer should! Great paring with other ML

Great sounding sub with plenty of kick, however, the one I had pops when it turns off. The sub turns on and off automatically based on the input signal. If watching a movie at a low to moderate volume, the sub will turn off during periods of dialog and turn back on when needed. This sub does not have the ON/OFF/AUTO switch (only off or auto), so I couldn't set to ON to stop it from turning off during use. The pop that occurs each time it turns off was too annoying for me, so I returned this sub. I don't know if the pop was specific to the one I had or is common to the model.

Sounds great when it stays on seems to shut itself off a lot on a average movie but a action movie it seems to stay on and sounds great.

I've had this subwoofer for 3 years and it's been great...until now. It keeps popping and thumping. I never pushed it to it's limits so I was a little surprised to find out that, after a little research, it looks like it's toast. You'd think something this expensive would last longer than the warranty. Not impressed.

This sub was on sale and came free with the purchase of a set of ML ESLs. If it was not free I would have purchased the 700 instead. I wish they would have allowed the discount from the 500 on the upgrade but I was refused that.

I took back my Martin Logan Dynamo 500 on three separate occasions all for the same problem. I don't know if I kept getting a bad batch or what, but I picked up three different brand new subwoofers after having the amplifier go out on all three. I tried one last time to have Martin Logan fix the problem through their warranty service and it came back damaged. I'm not sure if they fixed the amplifier problem or not because I wasn't willing to stick around for yet ANOTHER Martin Logan repair. The sub sounded decent while cranked up but it seemed as though you had to have the sub volume turned up more than it should have been in order to get decent power behind it. This may have been the fail of the amplifier for all I know. At low volumes the sub was non-existant which also made it frustrating to own. I went with the name on this purchase and will not be purchasing any other Martin Logan product again.

Too bad such a great sounding sub was poorly designed in terms of circuitry. These have a very bad history of failing and I am one of those who now owns a giant door stop. You may get lucky and get a few years out of one so consider the price tag a rental because more than likely you'll have to replace this. Just google "dynamo 500 sub popping, failure". You have been warned. Good luck.