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Magnepan LRS Speaker Review

Frank Dernie

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That said, the larger-than-life soundstage of the Magnepans is not something I've heard from Genelec's.
You won't, it is artificial and caused by adding a far more than normal amount of listening room acoustic overlaid on the recording.
It is typical of omni speakers and well positioned panels but is a euphonic colouration as far as I am concerned.
 

mac

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Juhazi

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If the speaker is too tall to manage, yes you need the multiplexing. You changed the word “can” to “needs”. That is not a reasonable thing to do. It totally changes the meaning. No it does not need one. It can use one if needed. Thinking the Klippel system cannot measure a 3 way system is totally misunderstanding how it works.

Can or needs, that's the question - where is the limit exactly, Klippel doesn't tell that. Do you/we have published details of conditions and variation in calculated soundfields? Is the limit a stonewall or a pile of sand? My guesstimate is that a speaker like LRS is on the limit. How about a MartinLogan panel? Panels are different from line arrays, it's just one tall unit so you can't measure "each unit". But near the bottom and top of the line radiation pattern is different from the middlepoint.

LRS is two-way crossed at 1000Hz and tweeter on the side. Obviously the tweeter is as tall as the woofer because beaming vertically is so huge. Horizontal dispersion symmetry is actually surprisingly good.

Actually I think that NFS did quite well, when we look at extrapolation at 2-3m. Difference to Stereophile's nearfield bass measurement is however too big and many users have published nice inroom measurements. Spl capacity and distortion below 300Hz is the biggest flaw and makes a good subwoofer necessary, with very tricky crossover setup, preferably with dsp eq for both the sub and LRS.

I have never seen or heard any Magnepans or other panels, except a pair of Soundlabs. They sounded really good!
 
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Francis Vaughan

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Can or needs, that's the question - where is the limit exactly, Klippel doesn't tell that.
Well they do really. The multiplexer is what the name says. It is a glorified switch under computer control. It’s job is to allow you to test speakers with more than one set of terminals. Basically any stack of speakers, which includes pro line arrays and multiple way active speakers. So if you have a stack, you can measure it with the Klippel system without multiple amplifiers and connections to the Klippel system to those amplifiers. You measure one speaker box at a time, with the computer switching which box is energised whilst the robot buzzes around. The Klippel magic is in its ability to stitch together the propagating sound fields. If your speakers have only one input (any speaker with a crossover really) there is no role for the multiplexer. Don’t confuse a line array for a line source. The entire use case is for line array systems or old school multiple way stacks. It isn’t relevant to domestic audio.
 

Burning Sounds

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You won't, it is artificial and caused by adding a far more than normal amount of listening room acoustic overlaid on the recording.
It is typical of omni speakers and well positioned panels but is a euphonic colouration as far as I am concerned.

You are partially correct Frank - but it is only euphony if the reflected sound is tonally different from the direct sound. If it has the same tonality it is not euphonic.
 

Frank Dernie

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I don't follow the comments re. magnets and efficiency. Front or rear, the panel rests a set distance from the magnets, and for all models but the 20's and 30's there is only one set of magnets. The panel when driven by a signal moves back and forth, e.g. closer and further from the magnets, relative to its resting position. Yes the magnetic field increases as the panel moves closer to the magnets, but then it should ideally move an equal distance away as the signal changes polarity, so whether the magnets are mounted front or rear the efficiency/sensitivity/distortion/etc. is the same given the panel moves to and fro in response to an AC signal.
Quite so but the magnetic force will be non-linear whether the magnets are front or back won't it? The only way to have a linear field at the conductors is magnets front and back.
Since panel displacement is small this may well be a small effect.
On my Apogees the tweeter and mid had the pole pieces either side but the bass panel only had magnets on the back.
 

Francis Vaughan

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You are partially correct Frank - but it is only euphony if the reflected sound is tonally different from the direct sound. If it has the same tonality it is not euphonic.
I would nitpick this bit. It is euphoric if it changes the perceived sound in a way that makes the overall experience more pleasing.

This can and does include delayed sound adding to a sense of space. In a domestic setting this isn’t a simple thing as we get inside the Haas limit. But there is little doubt this is a real and worthy goal.
 

Purité Audio

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Fantastic work A as always,
Keith
 

edechamps

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What is maybe missing from an understanding of dipole speakers is how much effort the Klippel modelling does when asked to predict in room response. This is a potentially huge computational task, even once the actual measurements are done and processed. It isn’t just calculating floor wall and ceiling bounce. The information is there in the measured model. It would be very useful to know the available parameters to the room model and how Klippel uses them in calculating the predicted in room response.
I would suggest further that people not conflate predicted (i.e., computed) in-room response with actual room measurement in a discussion to keep context clear, however close they may believe it to be. To add to the sufficiency of modeling, there is the issue of measurement in different context than the scenario in which the speakers are used (for example, raised off the floor for measurement). Whether the model compensates for this to predict in-room response when the speakers are on the floor and if it does for what kind of speakers, I don't have a clue. Experts in this area might know.

You're overthinking this. This has been discussed before. Klippel doesn't do any kind of fancy modelling to predict the in-room response. All it does is follow the definition of estimated in-room response described in CEA/CTA-2034-A. Which is basically a weighted power mean of the response at various angles. That's it. The weights themselves have been determined in this study and are always the same from speaker to speaker.

If you don't believe me, you can look at the data zipfile Amir publishes, redo the calculation yourself following CTA-2034 (which is free), and observe that you will arrive at the same result. (With the one twist that Klippel uses slightly wrong weights but that's besides the point.)

Can or needs, that's the question - where is the limit exactly, Klippel doesn't tell that. Do you/we have published details of conditions and variation in calculated soundfields? Is the limit a stonewall or a pile of sand?

My understanding is that these questions are addressed at the beginning of @amirm's review - see the first two graphs in particular, which shows the sound field error from the NFS.
 

FrantzM

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That is just one review and measurements for one speaker.
A few things that have crossed my mind:

Direct radiator speakers are good and have surpassed the few areas where esoteric drivers and speakers used to dominate.
There are now much better speakers able to provide that piece of High Fidelity at the price points where Magnepan used to be the , almost-automatic go to.
There are remaining unresolved issues in the way our hearing apparatus integrate what come out of a speaker. That last point flies a bit against what many, including this poster, have come to think: That we know all that needs to be know about how sound should be reproduced. The ongoing debate of wide versus narrow directivity is one of those issues that doesn't seem to have a clear winner... The notion of "spaciousness" for example is often cited by eminent researchers ( Earl Geddes, Siegfried Linkwitz, etc ...), yet , spaciousness, this "impression", seems hard to pin out by a single set of measurements. Dipole and wide directivity speakers seem to provide it each in their own way and the results are much different from narrow directivity speakers...

I used to love Magnepan., my last pair of speakers were Maggies A bit indifferent about them right today. I have heard better, IMO, direct radiators the past few years.
 

tomtoo

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That is just one review and measurements for one speaker.
A few things that have crossed my mind:

Direct radiator speakers are good and have surpassed the few areas where esoteric drivers and speakers used to dominate.
There are now much better speakers able to provide that piece of High Fidelity at the price points where Magnepan used to be the , almost-automatic go to.
There are remaining unresolved issues in the way our hearing apparatus integrate what come out of a speaker. That last point flies a bit against what many, including this poster, have come to think: That we know all that needs to be know about how sound should be reproduced. The ongoing debate of wide versus narrow directivity is one of those issues that doesn't seem to have a clear winner... The notion of "spaciousness" for example is often cited by eminent researchers ( Earl Geddes, Siegfried Linkwitz, etc ...), yet , spaciousness, this "impression", seems hard to pin out by a single set of measurements. Dipole and wide directivity speakers seem to provide it each in their own way and the results are much different from narrow directivity speakers...

I used to love Magnepan., my last pair of speakers were Maggies A bit indifferent about them right today. I have heard better, IMO, direct radiators the past few years.

I think people can listen more specific to some sound they enjoy. Than this part gets more importend for them. Nothing is perfect so we tend to pick the raisins of the sound we enjoy. I not think we can get all this tastes into one boat. And i not think we have to. A different kinde of fun. And what you personaly enjoy more, can even change over time.
 

Burning Sounds

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I would nitpick this bit. It is euphoric if it changes the perceived sound in a way that makes the overall experience more pleasing.

This can and does include delayed sound adding to a sense of space. In a domestic setting this isn’t a simple thing as we get inside the Haas limit. But there is little doubt this is a real and worthy goal.

Well, yes, I can nitpick, too - The sound itself is not euphoric - that would be the state I'd be in after hearing some euphonic (pleasant) sounds. :)

But nitpicking aside, how would you characterise this "perceived sound" before it was changed by the reflections? To me most box speakers sound, well, boxy. But after 40 years of listening almost exclusively to dipoles that's not surprising - those reflections seem normal to me and are part of what I expect to hear. When they are not there something seems missing.

Amir measured a specific panel type dipole speaker and it wasn't pretty - I didn't expect it to be pretty either, but the lack of bass was far worse than I expected. When it comes to his listening review that's his opinion. I've not heard the LRS, so can't comment. He mentioned that he spent little time setting them up and anyone who has had Maggies knows that they can be a right PITA and may not work well at all in some rooms. I don't think what has been found here can be extrapolated to the bigger models, although they all suffer from the same flaws to some extent.

As the BBC would say - other dipoles are available.
 

Frank Dernie

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I read that many, many years ago. I am a big fan.
OTOH it is very obvious to me, playing recordings I made myself, that dipoles and omnis do NOT sound like the recording venue but narrow directivity speakers get much closer.
I have done this comparison a lot over the decades, and in fact was slightly bemused by the statement you linked to because it does not match my experience with recordings I know, which pre-dates it by decades.
I obviously would not be able to make this assertion if listening to a purchased recording since I would not be aware of the actual venue acoustics.
The difference in spatiality (rather than timbre which was a little different only) between ATC monitors and Apogee panels is absolutely humungous, and whilst the panel makes a lovely sound it is adding a lot to the recording which I have always thought was room contribution but only because I can't think of any other plausible explanation.
 

Joppe Peelen

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"Right" according to what? Here is how CTA-2034 dictates the measurements:

View attachment 84130

By default NFS uses the above formula. I can override it but it is not necessary as you saw in those series of measurements and convergence which NTK showed you above.

hmm im trying to understand the measurement system.l (so i might ask stupid things, like i already did some assumptions yesterday (sorry about that))
Am i correct if i say it is measured at 2 meters and it then lowers the result by 6 db to show a SPL at one meter?
And was this the same case with the LRS (or did you overwrite that formula).
Should that not be 3 dB for at least the tweeter since it is acting like a line source more then a point source that drops 6 db every doubling? and might acount for the lack of top end in the measurement?

like this, when i measured a fullrange fountek at 1 meter and at 2 meter vs a 140cm long planar magnetic. where the fountek was louder at 1 meter and almost as loud when both where measured @ 2 meters distance. (response of the planar changed as well)
1600780945893.png


Maybe it was corrected or the system does that on its own, it was a thing i was wondering about yesterday. but ill rather ask now before i make a fool of myself assuming (or thinking) it did this or that :) haha
 
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DonH56

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Quite so but the magnetic force will be non-linear whether the magnets are front or back won't it? The only way to have a linear field at the conductors is magnets front and back.
Since panel displacement is small this may well be a small effect.
On my Apogees the tweeter and mid had the pole pieces either side but the bass panel only had magnets on the back.

Yes, and that is why I think the distortion due to excursion and Em field modulation is essentially the same if magnets are on the front or the back. You don't gain excursion or reduce distortion no matter which side they are on. Only the 20.x (and now 30.x) have magnets front and back (not sure about the last Tymp model -- been too long since I saw one).

There was a lot of debate if the magnets on front affected the sound since they added HF diffraction to the front wave vs. the back. I have a very vague memory of aesthetics also being at play -- customers (with light sox anyway) liked seeing the panel without the magnets in front. DOn't quote me -- that is a memory of a memory of a random comment Jim made ages ago, before I owned a pair (I think the first pair I saw was 1972/1973, a few years after they started, and I did not own a pair until 1979 when I had started college and worked at a stereo store).

IIRC Apogee was actually a hybrid with ribbon mid/tweeter panels and planar magnetic bass panel. Again, been a while...
 

DonH56

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hmm im trying to understand the measurement system.l (so i might ask stupid things, like i already did some assumptions yesterday (sorry about that))
Am i correct if i say it is measured at 2 meters and it then lowers the result by 6 db to show a SPL at one meter?
And was this the same case with the LRS (or did you overwrite that formula).
Should that not be 3 dB for at least the tweeter since it is acting like a line source more then a point source that drops 6 db every doubling? and might acount for the lack of top end in the measurement?

like this, when i measured a fullrange fountek at 1 meter and at 2 meter vs a 140cm long planar magnetic. where the fountek was louder at 1 meter and almost as loud when both where measured @ 2 meters distance. (response of the planar changed as well)

Maybe it was corrected or the system does that on its own, it was a thing i was wondering about yesterday. but ill rather ask now before i make a foiol of myself assuming (or thinking) it did this or that :) haha

The system takes directivity/dispersion pattern into account AFAIK. You would do better posting in the Klippel thread and tagging @amirm or just contacting him or them directly. This thread has already wandered pretty far off-track...

Planer speakers are more like a point source a bass frequencies as wavelengths exceed panel dimensions, moving to a planar or line source as frequency increases. Amir's measurements show that quite well.

The big debate seems to be about the influence of the room since dipoles have a significant back wave. I usually damp the back wave but most do not so must optimize placement to enhance "ambience" (reflected energy) without (or to reduce) comb filter effects. The measurements will not show that room interaction since it depends upon the room, though clearly show there will be such interaction. The room is a big factor for conventional speakers, too, due to sidewall and floor/ceiling interactions, natch.

I've known Maggies measured poorly in the bass for decades, were infamous for their mid-bass peaking and "Maggie slam", and have their other quirks good and bad. So do I, so does my wife, we get along anyway. :) Mine are not in my main system at the moment but I couldn't bear to get rid of them (a 7-speaker setup with MG-IIIa's, MC-1's, and CC3) so they're boxed in the basement.
 

David Harper

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I believe that amirm's excellent measurements and expert criticisms of the LRS are all correct. So why do they sound so good to me in my room?
I've owned lots of dynamic box speakers in my 50 years as an audiophile. Some of them very good. But I've never heard anything like these Maggies.
When I reconnected my previous B&W box speakers and listened all I could hear was a box. Surprising to me since I never heard the box before. Clearly, for me,in my room, there's something going on with the LRS that the measurements aren't ,or can't, measure. I do have the lows going to a powered sub. But my subjective experience of these maggies is that their absolute sound quality, within their limitations, is superior to any dynamic speaker I've ever heard. I even gave away a pair of much more expensive floorstander box speakers to my daughter and son in law. They love them.
 

Francis Vaughan

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Well, yes, I can nitpick, too - The sound itself is not euphoric - that would be the state I'd be in after hearing some euphonic (pleasant) sounds. :)

But nitpicking aside, how would you characterise this "perceived sound" before it was changed by the reflections? To me most box speakers sound, well, boxy.

That will teach me to keep posting from my phone. :mad: Autocorrect is very annoying. I actually corrected it back at least once, and it still kept doing it. Humph.

The boxy thing is something I have thought about a lot over the years. I know a couple of dyed in the wool dipole enthusiasts, and the whole boxy sound comes up a lot. So, my personal take on it is that indeed, some boxes have enough internal resonant modes that are not well managed that they colour the sound. (I have read some clearly wrong attempts to explain that boxy modes can't affect the sound, even from some eminent sources.) Vented speakers have a worse time, partly because sound can exit the vent, but also because their nature requires a minimum of damping inside for the vented alignment to work at its best. Two way vented is the worst. However it need not be the case. Three way or more systems don't have frequencies in the main box that may be so affected, sealed alignments can be much more damped, and line systems (aka transmission lines - or quarter wave systems to be more correct) can have a long line of damping to kill off the resonances. They are also inherently highly braced. In my own speaker designs I have spent a lot of time experimenting with damping regimes and measuring the results, and I am convinced that for one - boxiness is very real, and that two - it need not be so.
Whether panel resonances can add to a boxy sound, or are just another nuisance, I don't know. It may depend upon what sonic colour you identify as "boxy", and given that that isn't well defined, it may be part of the problem in communicating the question in the first place. Again, my own speaker designs are silly dead. Constrained layer walls with constrained layer damping braces. Stupidly over engineered, heavy and not suitable for any sort of commercial design. Easy to do however. (And laminating the constrained layers a very messy business.)

In terms of justifying dipoles or panels, IMHO avoiding the "boxy" sound of boxes isn't a particularly good reason. Not all boxes need (or should) sound like a box. That some do isn't a reason to go without a box. The traditional speaker design has quite a few shortconings, and there are lots of attempts to address these flaws with other configurations or technologies, all with differing success, new flaws, and usually quite dubious price performance. There are quite a few reasons the vast majority of speakers are boxes.

The question of how a dipole operates in the room is however IMHO an interesting and open question. I keep citing Linkwitz, and I thing with good reason. He spent a lifetime researching the question, and his work was well respected by his peers. Including Olive. He held some specific ideas about the reasons why his speaker designs worked so well for him, ideas that there is probably some merit in forming the basis of proper research.
It is a pity the first dipole to be measured here is an entry level panel. I think the poor performance of this speaker is clouding the wider question of the value of people like Linkwitz's ideas. If someone could get an Orion or LX to Amir for measuring I think we could have a vastly more productive discussion.
 

RayDunzl

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I believe that amirm's excellent measurements and expert criticisms of the LRS are all correct. So why do they sound so good to me in my room?

That's easy!

They don't.

You just think they do.
 
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