I Dream of Maggies

[TerrestrialCephalopod]

And yes, very few people buying Maggies or any panel are at their destination lifetime speaker. It happens, but maybe like 1 out of 1000 people do this. My guess just reading your post is you've wanted these Maggies and nothing else will scratch that itch. So do listen to some quality alternatives, but if nothing much shakes your sense of the Maggie dreams, you'll probably have to have some Maggies for awhile. Just manage leaving your self some wiggle room for later on. If nothing else for getting some better Maggies somewhere down the line. Its about the music, but you have to be honest...............its a little bit about the gear too. Nothing wrong with that. You'll have fun.

I can't deny that there's some gear lust related to the mystique of magneplanar speakers, but I can also recognize that it's illogical. It is a little magical that those gossamer panels can fill the room with music.
On the practical side, buying Magnaplanar's would mean I also have a power amp that'll handle just about any other speaker I could ever think of buying. It's also dedicating myself to passive speakers when, inevitably an upgrade is required. The design target is "the last stereo", meaning something I could be happy with for as long as possible. Truthfully the room dependency has me pretty nervous. It is a critical failure w.r.t the design goal if I get them and am not able to make them work in my living room due to positioning constraints.

And on that note:

I think you'll find you need much more space between the Maggies and walls than you are planning. They demand space period. Mine are several times the distance you cite (look at my picture above). You'll do some experimenting to suit your tastes (e.g. ribbons outboard or inboard, angle of speakers towards listening position, distances from rear and side walls, etc.). So not finicky really, just need some invested time to experiment with best placement. Follow both Magnepan (toe in) and Cardas (triangle) guidance for placement to start with and then fine tune things.

I've put a "rough sketch" of the layout below. There really isn't a lot of room to move things forward before you start obstructing the room, mainly the bay windows along the bottom wall.

In considering the world of active monitors, I'm seeing most listed as nearfield. So they're generally going to be wide dispersion. Which, if I understand correctly, is a "feature" of maggies. The key difference is then true dipole vs. pseudo-monopole. And if there's stuck in the corner biasing the signal strength to the forward direction is advantageous. That's just my understanding so far, as I said, I'm often wrong.

Might need to pick up a copy of Toole's book to sort this all out a bit more holistically.

T_C

 

[Bald1]

I've put a "rough sketch" of the layout below. There really isn't a lot of room to move things forward before you start obstructing the room, mainly the bay windows along the bottom wall.

As cited in my post a few minutes ago, my right speaker also had to contend with a bay window. Still I'd press you to at least try placing your speakers a bit further out from the back wall. Maggies are NOT wife friendly (the old WAF or wife approval factor) and can dominate a room. Again just look at my set up. But the intrusion may serve to really open things up. The only way to know is to experiment.

And again for amplification, pay attention to current delivery (amperes) as opposed to watts RMS.


Dipoles in the Maggies for my stereo setup and bipolar speakers for my home theater... Definitive Technology.

 

[TerrestrialCephalopod]

Alternate to the SHD: NAD C658. There's one on Agon at an attractive price. You get XLR outs for your mains, Dirac, sub outs, BluOS for streaming (which I really like, great user friendly app).
That said, your room/space is a little tight. 1.5' to the walls made me think yikes. Plenty of people make that work for them, but proper placement with more room can hugely improve performance.
How loud do you listen? What kind of stuff do you listen to? For mostly acoustic stuff the bass extension will feel fine, but you're definitely missing the low stuff. You'll hear a pounding bass line or beat, but you won't really feel it in the room. Maggies are hideously insensitive so you're probably going to run out of juice on the PA-1 when you crank it. Subs will help; my go to recommendation is Rythmik.

Almost missed responding to your questions.
Right now all I really have are headphones (O2+ODAC --> HD650's) and I don't typically go crazy with those volume-wise. I do want to go loud with the stereo though. It's going to frequently be used for background music while we're in the next room over. As well as TV speakers and for dedicated listening.
Music wise I listen to a lot of metal, classic rock, jazz/fusion, experimental, progressive and EDM on occasion. Wife likes soundtracks, vocalists. To a lesser extent we listen to "everything else" except probably modern country.

 

[TerrestrialCephalopod]

And again for amplification, pay attention to current delivery (amperes) as opposed to watts RMS.

With 1.7i's I could do a used or new XPA-2 and not break the budget. I'd hope 490W into 4ohms would be enough for some future proofing.

T_C

 

[MRC01]

You will always find people who like or dislike any particular speaker system. It's good to read these different opinions especially here where we have more experienced and educated listeners than most other forums.

Regarding measurements, dipoles are harder to measure than box speakers because the near field isn't what you hear, and the far field (listener position) is measuring the room & setup as much as it is the speakers. That said, the 3.6 may not have the best measurements, but there's nothing particularly bad about them when they're set up properly. At the listener position, my 3.6 measure within 2-3 dB of "flat" (my house curve which drops about 1 dB / octave from 30 Hz to 20 kHz), with THD around -40 dB in bass, -50 dB in mids, -60 dB in treble, and smooth flat group delay, under 5 ms from 150 Hz - 5 kHz and under 10 ms from 80 Hz to 20 kHz. There is no question they do sound different from conventional speakers, yet these measurements leave no obvious smoking gun or explanation why person A says Magnepans are the best and person B says they are so bad. Unless it's room setup, since dipoles are so sensitive to this and they do not sound right (nor will they measure well at the listener position) unless they're set up right.

The bigger the driver, the less it moves for a given SPL, and driver displacement correlates to distortion. Those panels can't move much, but they're big enough, they don't have to; in the midrange and up, they're barely moving which means low distortion. Yet this also leads to their biggest limitation: rising distortion in the low bass, and at high SPLs. Total distortion measures 1% / -40 dB at 60 Hz which is not bad, but it rises to 10% / -20 dB at 40 Hz and 30% / -10 dB at 30 Hz. Distortion is harder to hear in the low bass, but you can find conventional speakers with lower distortion below 60 Hz. Their other important limitation is total SPL. In my room, the 3.6 are clean up to about 85-90 dB SPL where distortion starts to rise, and distortion becomes obvious at around 105 dB SPL where the panels start to rattle. I don't listen that loud, but some people do.

In short, good conventional speakers of comparable price to Magnepans will probably have: (A) lower bass extension, (B) lower distortion in the bottom bass octave, and (C) play louder than Magnepans. And they will be less sensitive to room setup, not taking over the entire room and giving you more flexibility. But, they won't have that open, transparently voiced natural midrange and treble. This latter observation is just my opinion, of course!

 

[Hipper]

Do dipole users apply room treatment to absorb the rear dispersion? I've read some do and some don't.

 

[MRC01]

Getting flat FR from a Magnepan requires a hard reflective front (behind the speaker) wall. Magnepans have a rise in bass frequency response that is intended to be countered by destructive out-of-phase interference from the reflected wave. Typically this means placing the speaker 3-5' out from the front wall (the distance depends on the speaker model, its frequency, the shape of the room, and angle of the speakers).
If you don't do this, you'll hear and measure a bump in the bass response.

 

[Sancus]

My opinion on Maggie bass is that the whole thing is more trouble than it's worth, and even Magnepan seems to sort of agree since they made those independent DWM modules and tend to encourage their use. In general I think you're better off with separate bass modules(subwoofers, whatever) covering the area below 100hz or even 200hz. And as little as possible output from your main speakers in that area.

 

[Wes]

The key difference is not true dipole, etc. it is the ribbon tweeter and the panel mid/bass ...

smaller Maggies will give you ~~ same as the larger ones above a certain freq.

 

[Bald1]

T_C,

While unquestionably measurements have significance and Magneplanars don't "measure well," they provide a magical experience that, if it resonates with your soul, can't be matched.

I'm a septuagenarian and have heard numerous systems, including some I'd have to win a lottery to own, over the years. Speakers are the one component that is the most subjective in a system. And tastes vary widely among individuals. Personally I never found speakers tweaked in a room to provide flat responses all that endearing. (Now don't flame me folks! )

It has been too many years for me so I don't know if dealers still have home auditioning programs or not. If you're stuck with their listening rooms weigh heavily how well or poorly they're setup and try, as difficult as it is, to extrapolate from there. Network too and you may find audiophiles in your area who would let you listen to their home systems. Granted with all this Covid19 panic, this isn't the best time for that.

As for your concerns about being unable to extract the full measure from Maggies in your room, I sincerely think it is misplaced. Like I said before, some experimenting will provide you with an optimal solution. That said I will again indicate I think your rear wall distance is too short and perhaps your listening position is too far out... but time will tell for your ears with Maggies or anything else you might end up selecting.

I continue to enjoy my tweaked MGIIIa's and have no thoughts of making any changes.

I wish you the best of luck on your journey for audible bliss!



BTW I run a Topping D10 USB DAC and a Garage 1217 amp with HD600, modded HD580/650, and Philips SHP9500 cans in my desktop computer foobar2000 system.

 

[oldsysop]

listen to a lot of metal

Disposable Heroes with Magnepans = bad idea.

 

[TerrestrialCephalopod]

Funny enough the Magnepan demo that made this lasting impression started with ”Enter Sandman”.

After reading a bit more about optimal placement, I’m approaching a solution where there’s a “daily use” position that doesn’t disrupt the usability of the living room and a ”correct” position for when I really want to listen. If Cardas is to be believed, 5’ off the front wall and 3’ off the sides is ”correct” for any speaker in that room, Manepan or not.

 

[MRC01]

My opinion on Maggie bass is that the whole thing is more trouble than it's worth, and even Magnepan seems to sort of agree since they made those independent DWM modules and tend to encourage their use. In general I think you're better off with separate bass modules(subwoofers, whatever) covering the area below 100hz or even 200hz. And as little as possible output from your main speakers in that area.

This depends on the model. None of the Maggies produce that bottom octave 20-40 Hz well, so all of them can benefit from a subwoofer. But not all of them need one.

The larger Maggies (3.6/3.7 and up) have fantastic bass down to 50-60 Hz, which covers acoustic music and most rock quite well. Bass (whether electric or acoustic) and drums are clean, tight, low distortion, and smoothly voiced into into the midrange. Whether listening to the Bach Cello Suites, Fonnesbaek or Glen Moore on jazzy acoustic bass, or blasting Van Halen or Led Zeppelin, it sounds awesome. The "Drums and Bells" album by Tonian labs is a must-hear on these larger Maggies, incredibly lifelike especially as the wide range of percussion instruments emphasizes seamless voicing transitions from bass to mids to treble. They'll produce even lower bass, but it's not as clean or tight. I have a harp recording where the harpist strums the lower strings and I heard that "air moving in the room" super deep undertone bass like distant rumble of thunder. Did an FFT of the recording and it was 25-30 Hz. They have a similar effect on organ, like listening to Saint Seans 3rd Symphony it does pick up those super low tones, but it's attenuated. So with the larger Maggies, a subwoofer is helpful but not required. All this is with the critical proviso: as long as you have the right room, and they're set up right.

I haven't listened to the smaller Maggies, but from what I read, the critical bass frequency is perhaps an octave higher, depending on the model. So the subwoofer becomes more important, depending on what you listen to, and how loud you play it.

 

[DrSensible]

Over the past 25 years I've owned the SMGc, MG10, MG2.5, MG1.6 and now I have a pair of MMGs that mostly stay in the box. I love what Maggies do, but the room, room setup and amplification are critical. When things are right they're great. When they aren't they're mediocre. Although I've mostly moved on to high efficiency speakers, I've still never heard a box speaker have the imaging and soundstage depth capabilities that Maggies have. Including some systems that cost as much as a luxury automobile.

I did miss the extreme deep bass and SPL that some box speakers will do. But it's a fair trade off if they do what you like. I have yet to hear a pair of Maggies with a sub (or a pair of subs) that could convince me I wasn't listening to a subwoofer.

 

[Wes]

BTW, a big SQ increment happened with the x.7 versions (maybe with x.6 - not sure as never owned those).

If you have or have listened to the older ones, I urge you to hear the x.7 versions

 

[RayDunzl]

the Magnepan LRS's were too good to pass up so I bought them

https://www.stereophile.com/content/magnepan-lrs-loudspeaker-0

 

[Puska]

Forget maggies! I owned 1.7, 3.7 and now goldenear tritone reference. Sub with any maggie wil not result in good. Try to go to goldenear dealer and listen triton 5 or 7 for your budget. Buy ncore nc400 topping d90 and this will be your endgame guaranteed. Streamer sotm sms 200 ultra neo with sbooster and qobuz on audirvana.

 

[Bald1]

Tthe Magnepan LRS were too good to pass up so I bought them

I keep wondering how those LRS would sound compared to my old MGIIIa's. No local dealers to audition any of the new Maggies either.

While I have no plans to retire my 1986 vintage MGIIIa's I acquired in 1999, were they to become delaminated or my two decade old capacitor crossover upgrades puke, I wonder if the LRS would be a good replacement for this septuagenarian as I'm no longer up to the challenge of any DIY repair stuff. Plus sending them off to Bear Lake for a total refurb would be a royal PITA for me. Mmmmmm......

 

[TerrestrialCephalopod]

Okay. Sorry for the relative silence from my end. Been a hectic couple days. Lots to cover...

Here are my thoughts as it stands now:

1. Almost certainly going to go with the miniDSP SHD for a main streamer/source. I like the expand-ability that the 4 output channels provide, makes it easy to integrate stereo subs if I desire.
Thanks to iGufi for the suggestion!

2. I really need to audition the maggies and play with positioning during the audition. I need to understand firsthand what the difference between good and bad positioning sounds like. I'll be calling my local dealer in the next couple weeks to confirm they have some LRS, .7's or 1.7i's on the floor for testing. The LRS are an interesting proposition because of the trial program and the trade-up feature, I could test them in my own home at a relatively low risk. Also LRS are affordable enough that I could possibly squeeze in stereo subs as well. This, of course, requires getting setup with a good power amplifier (or 2), which kind of locks me into the passive speaker paradigm. but...

3. I'm cool with that. I looked at active speakers, and I understand that they measure well and are engineered to be as technically perfect as possible. Despite that, I just can't really get excited about them conceptually. I would only just barely have to stretch the budget for the SHD and 2 Neumann 310's or pick up a couple JBLs and a couple subs for well under budget. But then I'm kinda locked into the active speaker world. I think, and I'm none too proud to admit, it is a bit about the gear. This system is going to be large feature of my living room for years to come. Actives just don't scratch that part of the itch.

4. Power amp will either be NC400 based or the XPA-2 depending on the rest of the system. Looks like the hypex equipment is better designed, but I think either is sufficiently capable.

5. I'm not leaving room in the budget for acoustic treatment anymore. That can come later if I really feel the need.

6. Other good-value passive speakers if I find that poorly positioned magnepan's are too much of a compromise in quality?

Try to go to goldenear dealer and listen triton 5 or 7 for your budget.

That's the first I've seen for Goldenears. Honestly, their website is not inspiring confidence. There is an utter vacuum of technical information there. Like... are they internally crossed over or do they need bi-amping? How can passive radiators not add immensely to THD? Why does the manual advise 60hrs break-in when that's generally regarded as BS? Is that all just marketing to suck in the Audiophile crowd, are they really actually good under all that marketing?

7. Sub recommendations? I know SVS has a great reputation. Then again, those Rythmik subs are servo based and well implemented servo control is a VERY powerful tool. And they're cheaper. The sealed 12" model comfortably fits 2 into a couple system budgets I've put together so far. So I'm leaning that way more and more. Thanks to OdysseusG for that suggestion!

I really appreciate the enthusiasm you've all shown so far. I still have magnepan's at the top of my list, but there's a real chance that the living room setup and related WAF will push that goal further into the future. At least with passive speakers I'll have all the other equipment I need in place for when that day comes.

T_C

 

[Bald1]

I still have magnepan's at the top of my list, but there's a real chance that the living room setup and related WAF will push that goal further into the future. At least with passive speakers I'll have all the other equipment I need in place for when that day comes.

T_C,

Personally I'd hate to see you not embrace some Maggies. But you have to make choices...and then live with them.