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Magnepan LRS Speaker Review

Newman

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Why are you doing this? It’s like a broken record. Your inability to let go of the speaker’s poor performance, to stop repeating yourself, and your continually repeating quotes from the company marketing director, make your denials about being a company mouthpiece look transparently false.
 

josh358

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He can't stop, won't stop.
I responded to Amir because I noticed something in my notifications (I long ago unsubscribed to this thread), and I've found Amir's remarks interesting and polite. Quite apart from any technical considerations, some remarks by others here seem better suited to an appointment with a psychiatrist than a discussion of loudspeaker design: they are almost cult-like, and in some cases -- yours of course excepted -- not a little bit obnoxious. The people who make such posts have been, or in one case soon will be, muted.

So, since the software has apparently re-subscribed me, I'll unsubscribe again. If something interesting comes along -- an informed discussion of the differences between the two in-room measurements and the other one, say -- perhaps someone will be good enough to let me know.

I'm not holding my breath.
 
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Vladimir Filevski

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Another measurement of in-room response:

Magnepan in room Josh.png


It's still bass deficient, but doesn't show the decline below 300 Hz that your measurements do....
I really don't know how you can't comprehend this...
As you can see (or don't want to see), there is undeniable deficiency in the bass range below 300Hz and overly pronounced peak in the midrange from 300Hz to 1000Hz. Compare it to Amir's measurement:

Magnepan LRS in-room.png

Yes, there is no decline slope below 300Hz, but bear in mind that radiating area of this speaker is very close to the floor - in contrast to all conventional speakers on which coefficients of the Klippel NFS in-room graph are based on. Just look what @BYRTT find out when you include floor boost:

BYRTT Magnepan.gif


As you can see (or don't want to see), this is almost exact clone of the measurement you have shown above.
May we put this to rest, finally?
 
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Hayabusa

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Here are the sound pressure curves in dB (relative to an arbitrary reference level) versus distance for several frequencies with the same source amplitudes for a 2 m long line source. Ear height is at the mid-point of the array.

You can easily see why you don't want to listen in the nearfield (not to be confused with direct field listening). You will only hear flat frequency response in the far-field (where the curves merge together).
index.php


Its clear the curves are normalized and say nothing about a flat frequency response at a given distance.
It could quite well be the actual response is (reasonably) flat at 4 meters for a given line source speaker design.
And indeed: if you would choose a different listening distance the response would not be flat anymore.
You should not listen to line source from a very different distance it was designed/equalized for.
For instance a variation of +/- 0.25 of the designed listening distance could give +/- 1.5dB response errors.
this would make a 4 m design usable between 3 and 5 meters.
 
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FunkeXMix

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How do they fare with Techno, Drum n Bass, House, Rock, Metal? Without a sub, and with a sub? I have a very broad music genre taste, would be dissapointed if they can't handle mentioned genres +chorus, ambient, strings/violins. Thanks.
 

Shazb0t

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How do they fare with Techno, Drum n Bass, House, Rock, Metal? Without a sub, and with a sub? I have a very broad music genre taste, would be dissapointed if they can't handle mentioned genres +chorus, ambient, strings/violins. Thanks.
If you're into bass heavy music I would skip these. Integrating subs is going to be interesting and they are very much needed.
 

FunkeXMix

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If you're into bass heavy music I would skip these. Integrating subs is going to be interesting and they are very much needed.
I guess I should rephrase my question in that case. Has anyone here successfully made them work with bass heavy genres using subs?
 

Dustyc

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Wow, this thread is still going.
Despite all the rocket science under discussion, prospective buyers should just listen to these, or preferably the larger 3 series and decide for themselves. They don't sound like 3 cones in a box. Even better? Make a trip to listen to a full range electrostatic ( another design that doesn't measure well with traditional techiques) and then decide If the concept is worth the bother.
 

restorer-john

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Despite all the rocket science under discussion, prospective buyers should just listen to these, or preferably the larger 3 series and decide for themselves. They don't sound like 3 cones in a box. Even better? Make a trip to listen to a full range electrostatic ( another design that doesn't measure well with traditional techiques) and then decide If the concept is worth the bother.

Amazing isn't it?

Set up properly, they (bigger Magnepans) sound amazing. I don't know if the LRS is anything other than the equivalent of a slider burger- something to give you a taste and make you want the full experience of a larger and more expensive Maggie.
 

shumi

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This thread is still going because it is the perfect example of how ASR's analytical process for review of products can go so wrong to disqualify the best speaker of the decade!
 

ahofer

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This thread is still going because it is the perfect example of how ASR's analytical process for review of products can go so wrong to disqualify the best speaker of the decade!
uh huh.
 

fpitas

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Maybe not the best speaker of this or any other decade lol. Yet I'm sure that given just the right track(s) they sound good. If I owned these, I'd cross to a "sub" around 200Hz. That would probably be a general improvement.
 

Shazb0t

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Make a trip to listen to a full range electrostatic ( another design that doesn't measure well with traditional techiques) and then decide If the concept is worth the bother.
This thread is still going because it is the perfect example of how ASR's analytical process for review of products can go so wrong to disqualify the best speaker of the decade!
You guys are silly. Do you intentionally feign ignorance on how a Kilppel NFS measures the sound field? What are you implying is not being captured by a 360° bubble??
 

thewas

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You guys are silly. Do you intentionally feign ignorance on how a Kilppel NFS measures the sound field? What are you implying is not being captured by a 360° bubble??
Several things, μ microdynamics, μs PRAT, ml/min emotional tears flow, cm Diana Krall voice distance to your lap and quite more...
NFS is just for geeks who only watch graphs and listen only to sine sweeps and miss the meaning of music.
:p
 

drewdawg999

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I guess I should rephrase my question in that case. Has anyone here successfully made them work with bass heavy genres using subs?
I have the MMGs with a sub and I got them to work with classic rock, namely Zeppelin. Also good for reggae. Believe the sub, a 10" sealed, is crossed over at around 100 Hz. Sub has to be quick to keep up with the Maggies, and thankfully mine is. I'm getting plenty of detail, speakers are fairly bright but I just got the Airborne Magna RIsers mentioned upthread and that helps tame the highs, although I don't hear above 14 kHz. Mid-bass is better with the new stands, more punch and drive. I love my Maggies, have enjoyed them for 20+ years. Huge soundstage being a dipole, and they image well too.
 
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I am also a Maggie fan. I have had many of them over the years. The 3.6 were probably the best I had in my listening room. I should have never got rid of them. Well I decided to get a new set of the LRS + with the mk7 Magnariser stands. I can’t wait for them to get delivered. The stands are currently being built and it will probably be several weeks. It seems like I am waiting for everything these days.
 

cabs84

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You guys are silly. Do you intentionally feign ignorance on how a Kilppel NFS measures the sound field? What are you implying is not being captured by a 360° bubble??
i am a fence sitter here. i don't discount anything amir's post may have revealed, yet i also own a pair of LRS as one of a few speakers in various systems in my home. I do notice a bit of timber shift as i move up and down, and much less left and right - but it doesn't affect the sound enough for me to notice or care unless i'm specifically looking for it. i still find them to be my favorite pair of speakers ever owned, the way they are able to reproduce acoustic instruments is the most lifelike i've heard as a classically trained pianist myself.

Warkwyn measurements showed that the Klippel system was struggling to characterize the sound field despite using over 2000 measurement points. I was going to use more measurement points only to realize it would take 5 hours just to do the 2000 point measurement! It was really strange to watch the system make a vertical set of measurements and move a millimeter and do that all over again! The tall speaker meant there was a lot of time lost moving up and down, lengthening measurements.
i do wonder why this was the case - perhaps just because of the length of the driver top to bottom? i wonder what may have come out of things if he did take the maximum number of samples/measurement points.
 

NTK

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i do wonder why this was the case - perhaps just because of the length of the driver top to bottom? i wonder what may have come out of things if he did take the maximum number of samples/measurement points.
The radiation pattern of a finite length line source, when the length of the source is much greater than the wavelength of the sound wave, becomes highly complicated (beaming with many side lobes). It will take a huge number of measurements to compute the fitting (interpolation) function to model such a source (which is what the Klippel NFS does). Having a complicated radiation patterns isn't usually something desirable for loudspeakers. (Picture source)

line_array.jpg
 
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