A New Classic
ASK A CAR GUY to identify any classic American car from the 1950s or 60s, and most would be able to pin it down to the exact year of production. Back then, the auto companies would change up styling every year, even if the mechanical stuff under the sheet metal remained essentially unchanged. The problem with that approach is that tooling up to build new models every year gets really expensive, so these days most cars have a life cycle of a few years before an all-new generation is introduced. To keep these longer-lasting designs looking fresh, at some point in the life cycle they’ll give the car what’s known as a facelift, replacing a few key parts like the grille, taillights, and trim to lend it a new look.
The new “XTi” versions of MartinLogan’s Motion series speakers follow the pattern described above, with freshened-up styling wrapped around the same essential guts of the Motion 60XT system I reviewed back in 2015. In fact, when laying out the specifications box for this review, I found that the only specs that needed revision were the model names and prices; everything else was the same. Comparing prices with the older models revealed an increase of about 19 percent for the new
