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Magnepan LRS Speaker Review

No. 5

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You mean to tell us that expert reviewer Herb Reichert who highly recommends these speakers for ' their levels of microscopic detail, accurate timbre, and pure-water transparency which are unprecedented at anywhere near $650/pair.' is being fooled by something NOT SONIC? Like a check from MAGNEPAN?
Nonsense.
Everyone who is serious about audio needs to have an experience that makes them question their ears.

The reality is that anyone can be fooled by things that have noting to do with sound, hence the need to have controls in place a laboratory environment. A home stereo isn't a laboratory, and we're listening for fun and not for data to put into a research paper, but the reality is still that anyone can be fooled. That reality need not detract any from the enjoyment one receives from ones own listening experience, but it's information worth keeping in mind when reading reviews.
 
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Another boost to the antagonistic and belligerent reputation of this forum. NICE!
You probably haven't read this thread from the start so didn't recognize my sarcasm.

Amir trashes this speaker and then numerous anonymous trolls show up and turn this thread into a 51 page long cesspool. And no moderation except when I lose it with one of the trolls.
That's the belligerence problem with ASR. :)

Dave.
 
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Everyone who is serious about audio needs to have an experience that makes them question their ears.

The reality is that anyone can be fooled by things that have noting to do with sound, hence the need to have controls in place a laboratory environment. A home stereo isn't a laboratory, and we're listening for fun and not for data to put into a research paper, but the reality is still that anyone can be fooled. That reality need not detract any from the enjoyment one receives from ones own listening experience, but it's information worth keeping in mind when reading reviews.
Who is it that's being fooled here exactly??

Dave.
 

No. 5

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Who is it that's being fooled here exactly??

Dave.
Shumi asked if "expert reviewer Herb Reichert... is being fooled by something NOT SONIC?" I have personally had 'huge sonic improvements' evaporate when I listened again with trivial experimental controls in place, I have seen it happen to others, and qualitative research requires experimental controls for reliable data. Herb Reichert says the LRS have 'unprecedented performance', fantastic. But why is his assessment unimpeachable?

I'll repeat myself from my only other post in this thread: I don't think the measurements of the LRS are that bad. It's not shocking to me that a person could like them. No ones audiophile credentials need be revoked if someone wants or has a pair. But that doesn't change the fact that in an uncontrolled listening test, anyone can be "fooled".
 
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amirm

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You probably haven't read this thread from the start so didn't recognize my sarcasm.

Amir trashes this speaker and then numerous anonymous trolls show up and turn this thread into a 51 page long cesspool. And no moderation except when I lose it with one of the trolls.
That's the belligerence problem with ASR. :)

Dave.
No Dave. I didn't trash anything. I produced objective measurements for a piece of technology for which I have no emotional attachment to. You need to learn why you think sacrificing good relationship with other members is a good price to pay to defend some speaker.

2 week ban issued.
 

shumi

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Guys, I do not mean to troll here....I am a recent Magnepan owner and I am just blown away on how good these speakers are. I used to own Dunlavy SCV speakers for 10 years prior to the maggies. Some of you know how well the Dunlavys measured. I never heard the LRS speakers...but the reviews I read all pointed to similar features which make my 3.6s shine. Clearly they need sub augmentation, and yes I agree, do not measure well at all...but my point is that sometimes, for some speakers, given a certain technology and design, measurements may not (as in this case) correlate to sound quality perfectly. The Magnepan speaker are extremely difficult to set up and optimize. It took me months to progressively tune them to maximum performance. Key parameters are distance from front wall, acoustic properties of front wall, distance from side walls, speaker to speaker distance, toe in, and tilting, so in order to truly judge them on sound quality, it takes a lot of work and patience. That may make these speakers not recommendable for some of us who prefer a much user friendly speaker for the money. That I would certainly agree to.
 

Dennis Murphy

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Guys, I do not mean to troll here....I am a recent Magnepan owner and I am just blown away on how good these speakers are. I used to own Dunlavy SCV speakers for 10 years prior to the maggies. Some of you know how well the Dunlavys measured. I never heard the LRS speakers...but the reviews I read all pointed to similar features which make my 3.6s shine. Clearly they need sub augmentation, and yes I agree, do not measure well at all...but my point is that sometimes, for some speakers, given a certain technology and design, measurements may not (as in this case) correlate to sound quality perfectly. The Magnepan speaker are extremely difficult to set up and optimize. It took me months to progressively tune them to maximum performance. Key parameters are distance from front wall, acoustic properties of front wall, distance from side walls, speaker to speaker distance, toe in, and tilting, so in order to truly judge them on sound quality, it takes a lot of work and patience. That may make these speakers not recommendable for some of us who prefer a much user friendly speaker for the money. That I would certainly agree to.
Just out of curiosity, what type of music do you listen to? I've only heard the LRS at audio shows, but my reaction ranged from enthusiasm to disappointment depending on the complexity of the music being played. But then again, they were audio shows, so who knows.
 

Newman

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He wasn’t talking about the LRS, actually.
 

Newman

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??

Of course you were.

I said he wasn’t.

So your point, about the LRS impressing you more with certain types of music and less with others, is interesting. But what sort of music he listens to doesn’t affect anything, since he hasn’t heard the LRS. His comment, about being blown away, was with his 3.6s. Very different animal.
 

Dennis Murphy

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??

Of course you were.

I said he wasn’t.

So your point, about the LRS impressing you more with certain types of music and less with others, is interesting. But what sort of music he listens to doesn’t affect anything, since he hasn’t heard the LRS. His comment, about being blown away, was with his 3.6s. Very different animal.

I was kidding. Perhaps that would have been more obvious if Trump's perfect phone call were in more recent memory. Next time i'll remember to use a smiley.
 
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Newman

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LOL, silly me. :)
 

Justin Ayers

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Then why do some bad-measuring speakers get glowing listener reviews? Because it is human nature to pre-condition incoming raw sense data (the sound waves) with a suite of unconscious personal cognitive biases, which we are wired to mistake for the raw sense data. That's why some bad speakers still get so much praise. Something non-sonic about them (or their back story) is so well aligned with widespread biases or values that many of us hear their sound as good anyway.
I'm certainly no expert, but I am currently under the impression, based on the reading I've done, that there are some other factors in play. Psychological biases are commonly cited when explaining why measurement and subjective preference don't jive. I think some of the other factors are probably under-examined, such as hearing degradation.

There is a sociological explanation for this. It's called the "fundamental attribution error" or "correspondence bias". The idea is that "individualist" societies' people are biased to explain things by focusing on individual difference (like the placebo effect) while people in "collectivist" societies are biased toward looking to external factors ("environmental" factors). The frequency with which the "few bad apples" fallacy is used to explain/justify/rationalize bad behavior from people in power (and those under their authority) is explained by correspondence bias. If the public is conditioned to think that most things are explained by individual psychology then it's easier to ignore the other factors.

Some possible non-psychological factors:

• differences in the shape of the ear and ear canal. I have heard that wearing earplugs when sleeping could cause a reshaping which could degrade one's hearing quality but I don't know if that's accurate. My father smoked a great deal in the home when I was born and small and I had to have tubes put in due to frequent ear infections. Those are directly linked to exposure to second-hand smoke. I don't know to what degree my hearing response characteristics are influenced by a possible widening. I can say that the tubes were quite painful, probably, at least in part, due to the pressure from their width. I also was "overly" sensitive to loud noises as a kid and thought that that extra sensitivity might be linked to a wider passage for sound to get through.

• differences in the size of the outer ear? (e.g. dinner-plate ears on old men at church)

• presbycusis (according to Wikipedia it can start at around the age of 18). It is the decline of hearing quality due to aging. High frequency loss due to aging has been parodied in pop culture, such as on the lousy comedy 'Thirty Rock' ('Black Light Attack' episode). Although there is some awareness of the issue in general culture (the song 'Buzzin', a harassment device called The Mosquito, and the 'Teen Buzz' ringtone), it doesn't seem to have affected the audiophile world since I've never seen the word presbycusis anywhere (not on audio companies' pages, not in audio forum posts, etc.). Audiologists' tests for hearing apparently don't go into the particularly high frequencies so a lot of people rely on web-based tools. Older people can also have issues with hearing low bass, not just high frequencies.

wiki said:
Age affects high frequencies more than low, and men more than women. One early consequence is that even young adults may lose the ability to hear very high frequency tones above 15 or 16 kHz. Despite this, age-related hearing loss may only become noticeable later in life. The effects of age can be exacerbated by exposure to environmental noise. Secondary symptoms can include tinnitus and hyperacusis — heightened sensitivity to certain volumes and frequencies of sound.

• Presbycusis alone is not responsible for hearing degradation in a person. There are the effects of sociocusis (external noise) and nosocusis (health factors, like diabetes and aspirin use) also. A huge portion of people will have their hearing degraded even when young due to things like using portable music players in noisy areas. The WHO estimates that 50% of young adults will develop significant hearing damage from noise exposure. There is other research that shows that even people in the young kid to 19-years-old range will suffer hearing damage (around 15% I think, globally). The rise of "crowd control" devices like the LRAD also is linked to hearing degradation in young people.

• the following, if the image is accurate:

Untitled 13.png


The pervasiveness of physical factors puts more weight on the importance of objective measurements but also casts more doubt on how applicable they are, as individual difference (particularly in terms of hearing damage from living their life — some combination of sociocusis, nosocusis, and presbycusis) is, from my amateur's estimation, mostly very ignored in audiophile circles. I have heard complaints in audio forums about tinnitus and a few comments about not being able to hear past a certain frequency but not much more. I also, though, have only been looking much into the audio world for a short time.

Still, it seems that the overwhelmingly typical thought process is to present the "typical human" in terms of their hearing and how audio devices interact with that. How many of us are typical, particularly given the pervasive influence of sociocusis? If we were in pre-industrial society then the typical human would be much more useful as a model for expected audio experience performance. This is because presbycusis isn't as powerful an influence as sociocusis (and probably also nosocusis — since drugs like NSAIDs and diabetes are both common), on its own. I bet that it happens more rapidly due to the weakening of the auditory system from the influence of sociocusis and nosocusis.

Lead exposure, which wasn't a factor in some pre-industrial societies, is also relevant as it is linked to tinnitus. Lead is not just found in the environment from things like building demolition dust, paint chip dust, and tetraethyl lead fuel additive; it is also present in cocoa. Other pollution factors are ototoxic, too, like styrene. Many things that are dismissed as symptoms of aging are actually symptoms of physical decline from exposure to organic and inorganic pollutants, most of which are the result of industrial activity.

Put simply... different people hear differently, mainly due to noise exposure and also due to age and/or health factors like NSAID use and diabetes. Noise exposure influence seems to be the biggest problem. Not only is it affecting the very young, it not only removes or reduces the ability to hear some frequencies, it also can heighten the awareness toward some. All of this can warp a person's experience of an audio presentation equipment system past the "typical human — without genetic presbycusis inclination and the influence of sociocusis and nosocusis". If we look at the typical human as being the average, with the effects of sociocusis in particular taken into account then people who have good hearing could be quite disappointed, at least theoretically, with the recommendations.

From my extremely cursory research it seems that the audiology world is focused almost exclusively on the frequency range involving the ability to understand speech. So, it could be that the influence of sociocusis (and/or nosocusis and/or presbycusis) is greatly downplayed by the extant research picture.

All of this suggests that people should have their hearing thoroughly tested and advice models should be able to match what their hearing performance is.

It also suggests that subjectivity-heavy audio reviewers should post the results of a recent hearing test that covers the full frequency range. For more trust in that, the test should be conducted by an uninvolved party. A good number of influential people in audio have silver hair. They may have had golden ears in the past but may not today. Of course, their 20-year-old employee might have worse hearing from a diet of MP3 portable audio and subway commutes. (Research found that NYC subway commuting has a serious degradation effect over time.)

It also suggests that there may need to be multiple models for closer-to-ideal performance equipment matching. This is particularly the case if hyperacusis (and/or notch-dip type loss points within the range a person can hear) plays a significant-enough role. If that's true, though, it may be too difficult to make such a model on anything but an individual level, where a thorough hearing test would model the person's response profile.

At bare minimum, it strikes me as reasonable to assume that people who have lost the ability to hear past a certain frequency don't need to worry about their equipment's ability to produce those frequencies (with the exception of irritating others in the vicinity if the frequencies are quite strongly produced). The situation may be more complex than that, though, such as due to an influence of hyperacusis and/or other distortions (like tinnitus). Tinnitus, for instance, could make concern over things like THD and noise floor less relevant. If one's ears always have a rather significant base level of hiss then it could change the baseline for acceptable equipment noise.

Another thing I've noticed from my subjective experience is that if my hearing is stressed (such as from using the riding lawnmower which, despite the use of both earplugs and headphones at the same time, causes a great deal of stress to my hearing) I notice what is probably upper midrange more, later — after having finished with the mowing and before my hearing has recovered some. It seems that my high frequency hearing is suppressed and the higher frequency range that I can hear is both more prominent and more compressed. It reminds me of things coming more from a telephone speaker than how things sound normally. So, my subjective experience suggests to me that not only can hyperacusis be a potentially very significant issue, there is also the issue of recovery changing a person's hearing quite a bit. All of the reading I've done always seems to downplay the ability of a person's hearing to recover but I know it can. I attended, for instance, one rock concert in my life and it was at an extreme level because (as I found out later) the musicians involved were practically deaf. The opening act was at a comfortable level and then the main act came up. They kept motioning to the sound man to raise the level and my ears rang for a year and a half. I should have left but I drove to Chicago to attend the concert. Although my hearing did recover quite a bit (the ringing stopped) it was also clearly permanently degraded, due to my tendency toward tinnitus which I am certain was greatly increased due to that concert.

If a person's hearing response changes quite a bit, due to noise exposure and subsequent recovery, that also could greatly complicate things when it comes to finding some kind of ideal response to model audio equipment by. I suppose easily-adjustable equalizers are the most practical work-around.
 
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Newman

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@Justin Ayers very thoughtful post there, thanks.

The issues you raise have, in general, been subject to experimental testing over the last 20-30 years. I suggest to you Sound Reproduction, 1st Ed, by Floyd Toole. It has a lot of coverage of these issues. The 3rd edition I can’t vouch for: it has a lot of new material yet is shorter, so I am not sure what has been omitted from the 1st edition.

IMO it confirms that certain types of relatively severe hearing damage render one useless for evaluation of hifi gear, even to the point of being unable to be consistent with one’s own prior preferences from test to test. Pretty much useless.

OTOH I think the finding is that, for minor degradation and for typical age-related decline, one’s preferences for speakers remains unchanged, and consistent with people with excellent hearing. So, good news there.

In summary, the very popular claim that we all hear differently and so all prefer different ‘audio playback qualities’, remains a myth. A myth born of sighted listening tests being dominated by non-sonic perceptual mechanisms, and the general populace thinking “I hear it, so it must be in the sound waves.” But, when those non-sonic factors are removed and we can only judge the sound waves, eg DBT, the different preferences merge to similar preferences, after all.

cheers
 

thewas

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We should also keep in mind that different ears and slow hearing degradation shouldn't be a reason for different loudspeaker preferences as humans hear with their individual ear responses also the real life references so ideally they should also prefer a linear FR which sounds the same to the real thing.
 

Justin Ayers

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Severe and we all are two points of possible uncertainty. Is the we all only the people with 'minor' degradation?

Also, if the 'useless' folk have preferences in speakers that change from test to test is that not evidence that hearing degradation can change a person's speaker preference from the norm? Is that only the case for those with 'severe' damage or can someone have some level of moderate degradation and, for instance, be satisfied with a speaker that can't produce anything over 15K or so — in contrast with someone with better hearing who can still hear those higher frequencies?

If we all means those with only minor degradation that could be the minority of people these days, due to the pervasiveness of environmental noise such as portable audio in loud environments and loud prolonged ambient noise (e.g. NYC subway commuting). Gun use is also quite common with a pretty large portion of the public (and riding lawnmowers). My ears would ring with both earplugs and headphones in use after just one shot with any gun. That was as a kid prior to hearing damage from other sources. Now, I can't even mow, with headphones and earplugs, for two hours — without my ears ringing mildly, my tinnitus aggravated, and my high frequency sensitivity seemingly reduced (and/or perceived sensitivity for mids increased).

Given the state of my hearing, I would not be surprised if a speaker the rolls the high end off would be fine with me. The web hearing test I tried gave me around 15.8–16K max. Since I have hiss noise from tinnitus and don't listen at high volumes I'd probably be fine with cheap tube amps, too. o_O

At least I know I can still appreciate bass. So, the LRS wouldn't cut it, at least not without a sub. I am more interested in better speakers that reportedly have attenuated highs, though, like the Acoustat 2+2 (to name just one example). I really don't think I'm in the running for a beryllium tweeter.
We should also keep in mind that different ears and slow hearing degradation shouldn't be a reason for different loudspeaker preferences as humans hear with their individual ear responses also the real life references so ideally they should also prefer a linear FR which sounds the same to the real thing.
I would think hyperacusis causes people to dislike the typical response by definition, as it is exaggerated sensitivity/perception. Unstable hyperacusis could account for the "test to test" instability aforementioned but I also wonder about more stable varieties (such as those only in place due to strong temporary noise exposure, such as a riding lawnmower for many hours). However, I suppose it's possible that, despite the heightened perceptual sensitivity to certain frequencies due to hyperacusis, that people would still basically prefer the standard model, perhaps only with reduced volume.

In any case... I don't see how people who can only hear to 15K are going to have the ability to find pleasure in speakers due to those speakers' capability of reproducing the 15.5K–20K range well, versus speakers that roll off that range quite a bit or a lot. My understanding is that the hairs that are used for specific frequencies die or are deformed from the damages, depending on the type of damage, the damage level, etc.. If the hairs are dead then it's not possible to hear those frequencies. If they can't be heard they can't be appreciated and thus used as a way to differentiate.
 
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pozz

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Also, if the 'useless' folk have preferences in speakers that change from test to test is that not evidence that hearing degradation can change a person's speaker preference from the norm? Is that only the case for those with 'severe' damage or can someone have some level of moderate degradation and, for instance, be satisfied with a speaker that can't produce anything over 15K or so — in contrast with someone with better hearing who can still hear those higher frequencies?
What's been shown is that as hearing damage increases, listeners become increasingly unreliable in their reports. I.e., less able to form a preference.

With hearing damage loudness perception across many levels changes, not just sensitivity to the quietest sounds or those with the most HF content.

The area most likely to be damaged is also much lower: around 3kHz. At 15kHz changes will be due to aging or chronic health issues. The results for any given person are likely more hereditary than environmental, at least that high in the spectrum.

Main conclusion I reached is that speaker design should be consistent, and that any adjustments I need to make because of my hearing should be done at the source only. The speaker is a reproducer, not a loudness control or EQ.
 

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Guys, I do not mean to troll here....I am a recent Magnepan owner and I am just blown away on how good these speakers are. I used to own Dunlavy SCV speakers for 10 years prior to the maggies. Some of you know how well the Dunlavys measured. I never heard the LRS speakers...but the reviews I read all pointed to similar features which make my 3.6s shine. Clearly they need sub augmentation, and yes I agree, do not measure well at all...but my point is that sometimes, for some speakers, given a certain technology and design, measurements may not (as in this case) correlate to sound quality perfectly. The Magnepan speaker are extremely difficult to set up and optimize. It took me months to progressively tune them to maximum performance. Key parameters are distance from front wall, acoustic properties of front wall, distance from side walls, speaker to speaker distance, toe in, and tilting, so in order to truly judge them on sound quality, it takes a lot of work and patience. That may make these speakers not recommendable for some of us who prefer a much user friendly speaker for the money. That I would certainly agree to.
Right. As it's been said before, Magnepans and other panel speakers are very much "room sound" devices. It's not the case that they will always measure "badly", but that their design fundamentally requires specific room conditions and setup. They are not "bad speakers" overall, speaking generally across their various designs, just less versatile than monopole direct radiators.

Separate thought: I don't own omnis or open baffle speakers, but I would be interested in how those perform in cramped spaces.
 

Wes

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lots of detail, accurate timbre, and a high degree of transparency fits these and other Maggies
 
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