Marten FormFloor: Cutting-edge speaker married to advanced tech design
Few audiophile speakers qualify as elegant, but then there's the Marten FormFloor.
I'm usually a sound-first guy, but this time I have to talk about the way these Marten FormFloor speakers look. The stunning, three-sided cabinets looked spectacular at the Wes Bender Studio in Brooklyn. The sleek, apartment-friendly towers are works of art.
Luckily enough, the sound is no less brilliant; their astonishing purity really enhances the experience of listening to music. Bass definition and "speed" are exceptional, and vocals sound present, like the singer is in the room with me. With jazz CDs the spontaneity of the band's improvisations was captured with unusual fidelity. The 43-inch-tall towers utterly disappear as sources and "float" the sound in the room. The FormFloors get out of the way and let the music speak for itself.
Closer inspection to the details of the design reveal why the FloorForms are so special: the 7-inch woofer is ceramic, not a plastic, paper, or metal component. Ceramic midrange/woofer drivers are shockingly expensive, so they're rarely used in speakers in the FormFloor's price range. The 2.2-inch ribbon tweeter has resolution that's superior to standard dome tweeters. I selected pictures of the FormFloors that display the drivers, but grilles are provided to cover them. Even the things you don't see, like the internal crossover network, is a cut above average and uses air-core conductors, polypropylene capacitors, and metal film resistors. The exquisitely finished cabinets are furniture grade -- even the outrigger metal "feet" feature high quality parts. The FormFloor speakers are designed and made in Sweden, and they sell for $6,500 per pair in the U.S.. I listened to them with E.A.R. Yoshino electronics at the Wes Bender Studio.