Octave V70SE to drive Martin Logan Summits?

I second the concerns indicated by Stan and Dob about the impedance characteristics of the Summit. I've seen specs indicating that its nominal 4 ohm impedance drops to 0.7 ohms at 20kHz. That variation will make its tonal balance very sensitive to the output impedance of the amplifier, even assuming the amp can handle the load. I would not extrapolate from its performance with Dynaudio's, which have completely different (and much more benign) impedance characteristics.

I couldn't find specs on the Octave's output impedance, or damping factor (which equals output impedance divided into 8 ohms). That might be useful information if it can be obtained. Beyond that, I second the recommendation of trying to arrange in in-home trial.

Regards,
-- Al

Audioquest4life, yes I recall that discussion, in this thread. Thanks again for providing the information and the links.

That's certainly a good sign that people are happy using the amp with the Aeon, although the Aeon is a slightly less difficult load (1.3 ohms at 20kHz, instead of 0.7 ohms).

There are two concerns, as I see it:

1)Will the amp be able to handle the load?

While your B&W N800's are a somewhat difficult load, they are difficult in a different way. I found a statement in a review indicating that their minimum impedance is 2.8 ohms, and that occurs in "the power band," which I assume means the bass or mid-bass. The ML, like many electrostatics, reaches its minimum impedance at 20kHz, and that impedance is highly capacitive. On the one hand, obviously much less energy is required at upper treble frequencies than in the bass region, but on the other hand the highly capacitive nature of the load increases its severity.

2)Achieving proper tonal balance. The lower the (unspecified) output impedance of the amp, the more prominent upper treble frequencies will be. The higher the output impedance of the amp, the more upper treble frequencies will be de-emphasized. The degree to which the speaker's tonal balance will vary as a function of amplifier output impedance will be much greater than for most dynamic speakers.

So I'm not sure what the bottom line answers are, but those are some thoughts.

Best regards,
-- Al

What can you decipher from the following specs?

Nothing particularly conclusive.

The statement about damping factor would seem to imply that its damping factor is not particularly high, and therefore its output impedance is not particularly low. Which with the ML speaker would lessen the likelihood that the upper treble will be over-emphasized, as it might be with a solid state amp.

The reference to being able to handle speakers with impedance dips as low as 2 ohms is not particularly comforting with respect to a speaker that dips to a highly capacitive 0.7 ohms, but on the other hand the amp doesn't have to supply much energy at the upper treble frequencies where that dip occurs.

Best regards,
-- Al