Marten Parker Trio Floorstanding Speakers

Construction

Marten Parker Trios weigh 40 kg each and are certainly not insignificant in size (22-28 x 117 x 36 cm (WxHxD)). Nevertheless, their appearance is quite graceful. The merit of this result lies, in my opinion, in the trapezoidal shape in plan (observe the double value stated for the cabinet width that is referred to the front and the rear) and the fact that the entire speaker is visibly tilted backward. These are details whose origin is undoubtedly functional, but they contribute greatly to the visual lightening of the speakers, which are firmly anchored to the ground by means of a stand consisting of two mirror-polished metal crossbeams, at the ends of which are large insulating elements made in collaboration with the Canadian company IsoAcoustic. These isolators reduce resonance and distortion by completely decoupling the speaker from the support surface in order to reduce the transmission of some frequencies, shifting them to others that are less perceptible to listening. Unlike other “generic” solutions, the isolators under consideration are constructed in such a way that they are optimized for the weight of the cabinet of this specific loudspeaker.

Finally, great praise must go to the magnificent cabinet making that gives these speakers a timeless aura of elegance. In particular, in the Piano Walnut version that was kindly made available to us for testing, we appreciated the masterful execution of the lacquering that highlights the wood grain that is moreover symmetrical between the two speakers. But the detail of the rounded connections between the front and back panels with the top and bottom panels also constitutes a masterpiece of cabinetmaking.

The non-parallel walls of the cabinets of the Marten Parker Trio contribute to the reduction of standing waves, while rigidity, in addition to the presence of thick internal stiffening baffles, is ensured by the use of a proprietary material called M-Bond of no less than 35 mm thickness, characterized by its high density and by the fact that each layer of the sandwich of which it is composed takes on the burden of attenuating a different frequency range. These speakers are not bi-wiring ready, so on the rear panel we find a single pair of WBT NextGen connectors for power wiring, mounted on a mirror-polished metal plate bearing the model name and serial number. Each pair consists of the same serial number followed by the letter A or B.

The system used

We listened to the Parker Trios by connecting them to the various mid- and high-level integrated amplifiers that alternated in our Room 2 over the course of our two-month stay. The “spark,” however, came the moment we drove them with an old acquaintance of ours, namely the Vitus Audio Ri 101 MKII that was kindly lent to us by our friend Maestro Stefano Greco. Knowing this amplifier well and having in mind the technical specifications we expected an excellent result, however the outcome went far beyond the most optimistic expectations. The source mainly used was the Linn Selekt DSM DAC/streamer receiving files via UPnP from our NAS with Minimserver or directly from Qobuz. Alternatively, from the Antipodes Audio K30 in Roon server + HQPlayer mode. Further testing was done with the Aqua La Scala MKII DAC. As usual, the cabling used, both signal and power, was Neutral Cable Reference Series.

The speakers that were delivered to us for testing were new and had only played for about ten hours. This necessitated the performance of a break-in in forced stages, which I did by running a special track provided by Marten along with the speakers to accomplish this task. It is, forgive the approximation, a Sweep superimposed on a pink noise (or white noise, who knows…). Since, for obvious reasons, break-in cannot be done at an excessively low level, on pain of failing to mechanically stress the drivers, and since the aforementioned test tone is not particularly pleasant to listen to (dreadful to be honest), it was necessary to stay away from Room 2 for quite some time trusting in the tolerance of the neighbors. The Parker Trio manual recommends a minimum of 200 hours (a little more than eight days) of Burn In, we actually continued with the “torture” for almost two weeks, alternating occasional listening sessions to check the evolution the speakers were having.