Why Do Martin Logan Speakers Lack Dynamic Energy?

I have used the original Quad, Acoustat 2+2, and Martin Logan CLS as midrange reference transducers over the past 27 years. I like their lack of cabinet resonance and single-driver coherence; however, they all exhibit tremendous dynamic compression from a mechanical standpoint. At Cal Tech, we used a laser interferometry setup to measure the dynamic range as referenced to excursion potential vs. voltage. As the electrostatic diaphragms are stretched very tightly and have no elastic edge surround, they have a finite limitation on excursion potential, no matter how much more voltage you input. Initially, the diaphragm will move on a 1:1 scale, but rapidly, the excursion does not follow the input voltage, resulting in a very high degree of compression of the signal. This is the source of "lack" of dynamic range that most listeners pick up on. Most cone systems do not compress until very high volume levels are reached.
Albert Von Schweikert

Albertvonn, thanks for the very informative post. At what volume levels did the compression start to set occur?

Get serious and buy yourself an active crossover and perhaps another pair of amps. Believe me, you haven't heard your Martin Logans if you haven't tried this set-up. You wil definitely get more air/volume/sound. Please be open-minded, try it out,you got nothing to loose except maybe a few hundreds there or another electronic paper weight. And besides, you can tweak the esl panel and bass woofer at the same time. And just perhaps reach your sonic nirvana!

I've also owned M-L, ribbons etc. But you cannot break the laws of physics. To get deep uncompressed bass you must move air. Stats just cannot give the excursion required to do this unless they are huge.