Magnepan LRS Speaker Review

[Wes]

Do you even know what an ad hominem is? Where is the personal attack or even link with any person in this sentence?

ad hominem attacks are those directed at a person, which this one was

not restricted to a person who is present or making the post

 

[cathodeb]

not restricted to a person who is present or making the post

no, not restricted, but clearly intended to include, directly

 

[BDWoody]

There's always that one guy who has to say something snarky - almost always ad hominem attacks. You just have to let it go Dreite and stay on point, you'll waste a lot of time otherwise.

 

[cathodeb]

View attachment 87563

I find that it is very easy to tell who starts these kerfuffles. It's always the guy with the ad hominem who takes the shortcut. Not always, but almost always. Cats, however, that's a different ballgame.

 

[Deleted member 2944]

And a few more data points to illustrate my observation.
Do you see what I mean now??

Dave.

 

[q3cpma]

ad hominem attacks are those directed at a person, which this one was

not restricted to a person who is present or making the post

I don't see any attack, to be honest; the part about Magnepans being only good on light acoustic music, something a lot of owners will probably agree with? The only very far fetched way to see this as an attack is to read it as implying that Magnepan owners have very narrow and shallow taste, maybe evolved to get around the speaker's deficiencies.
Anyway, ad hominem doesn't refer to just any attack, it's about trying to replace logical argument with a rhetoric effect.

 

[MRC01]

... Since we are still going around about this and how Maggies perform in room and what larger Maggies do, I figured I would post a couple of response plots of my 3.5s that I took before selling them. ...
The 3.5 have good, solid bass response in room, but I always preferred them with subwoofers (as I did the 2.7s which were virtually the same speaker with a QR tweeter instead of ribbon) and high passed at 80hz. I never ran distortion sweeps on them, but can tell you that even with 600 watts per speaker, they run out output at about 100 db peaks at the listening position getting audible distortion and compression if pushed harder.

That's similar to the curve the 3.6/R produce in my listening room at the listener position, though they go a little lower in bass, down to about 30-35 Hz. As for distortion (THD), mine measure about -40 dB in the bass (at 60 Hz), -50 dB in the mids, and -60 dB in the treble. Some of that is the distortion inherent to the UMIK-1 because they measure slightly lower distortion with Rode NT1A mics.

Overall, the bigger Magnepans measure well enough, when set up right in the room. However, this design of speaker doesn't seem to scale down well. The panels need to be physically large.

 

[Justin Ayers]

I don't see any attack, to be honest; the part about Magnepans being only good on light acoustic music, something a lot of owners will probably agree with? The only very far fetched way to see this as an attack is to read it as implying that Magnepan owners have very narrow and shallow taste, maybe evolved to get around the speaker's deficiencies.
Anyway, ad hominem doesn't refer to just any attack, it's about trying to replace logical argument with a rhetoric effect.

I don't think it's logical to claim that panel speakers are an inferior technology based on solely evaluating extremely low-end models, particularly only those using the quasi-ribbon tech. That's a subset of a very specific subset.

It's an example of very strong hyperbole mainly. And, if it can't be supported by anything other than speculation it's misleading to people who need advice.

Overall, the bigger Magnepans measure well enough, when set up right in the room. However, this design of speaker doesn't seem to scale down well. The panels need to be physically large.

What about a small room and a panel being used only for one third of the audio? Many have praised the midrange of certain panels. Perhaps having one of the folded ribbon tweeters, a panel for midrange, and a dynamic for the bass could be a working design for relatively low-cost and smaller room scenarios. Has anyone made such a triple hybrid? Some have said they like the old Tympani bass panels used with a dynamic line array. While those panels would be large and somewhat expensive to produce these days, it would be less expensive than trying to cover the full range.

update: It turns out that MartinLogan has this sort of "triple hybrid" with the ESL C:

The ESL C takes the same Curvilinear Line Source (CLS) electrostatic transducer technology found in the ESL X and combines it with a 1 x 1.4-inch Folded Motion tweeter and dual 5.25-inch woofers. Unlike the company’s previous center speakers that incorporate CLS, the woofers are inside the cabinet in an opposing arrangement

For those unfamiliar with the Folded Motion tweeter that accompanies the electrostatic panel, it’s MartinLogan’s variation on a planar magnetic driver with an accordian-folded diaphragm, based on concepts originally developed by Oskar Heil in his Air Motion Transformer

In this case, the CLS panel handles the midrange duties from 600 to 3,400 hertz, and the tweeter handles the high frequencies above that point.

I don't know if anyone has done a floor-standing set with that "triple hybrid" strategy, though.

 

[12B4A]

I don't think it's logical to claim that panel speakers are an inferior technology based on solely evaluating extremely low-end models, particularly only those using the quasi-ribbon tech. That's a subset of a very specific subset.

It's an example of very strong hyperbole mainly. And, if it can't be supported by anything other than speculation it's misleading to people who need advice.

This is a fair comment. Since my comment was also made in the context of this subset of a subset, I don't think it can be binned as misleading nor hyperbole.

 

[Maiky76]

.. thanks the good inspiration have edited them with a cautious increasing smile, and when at it will ask member @Maiky76 if he happy and have time look at the rotated Magnespan LRS spindata attached in below zip-folders and related to post830 and 922, to check for if that bad smile and preference score of -0,25 is improved in the -30º horizontal rotated spindata with or without EQ, also would love see his optimizer run on the spindata set without EQ would be nice and educating..
View attachment 86022


Thanks think lookup post 830 for details, but in short the -30º rotation cleans up the cross over region as seen in directivity index so it begin look like have better alligment in horizontal plane so the crossover region lobe points strait forward and a okay much better +/-20º window than before where it had huge trouble lean the ear a hair to the left minus sector side, like a bookshelf systen have for its vertical plane, the second -30º rotation is added the EQ example from post 830 to tame crossover section magnitude boost for the first and when we were at it make it smoother including a known low end stopband to integrate to subs in a 4th order Linkwitz Riley slope @60Hz. For your own panels have fun, but maybe talk to Amir if he could be interested analyze it down the road or search the web for Klippel scanner sevices in your area, at least our good neighbor country Germany has some services and its that quality acoustic analyze that base predictions in CAD software, and hey maybe you interested investigate LRS in CAD yourself, its freeware and here is link to how to read the spindata that Amir share into post one for acoustic reviews, link is https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-vituixcad-using-amirs-shared-spindata.13136/.

Hi,

The Score as calculated by Olive may not be valid with a dipole speaker so the scores are really just reference.
Therefore the score optimized EQ might be rubbish...

Here is the processed data:
Score rotated -30deg No EQ: -0.11

Here is the Spinorama of the EQ version from @BYRTT
Score 3.27

I then designed an EQ for "flat" LW of my own,
Big LF and HF boost required so be very cautious if you try it as it may damage the speaker.
Score rotated -30deg with flat LW EQ: 4.36

Type    freq       Gain     Q
PEQ     200.0,     8.25,   0.63,...
PEQ     339.0,    -3.00,   4.00,...
PEQ    1018.0,    -3.00,   1.17,...
PEQ    2602.0,     2.00,   2.00,...
PEQ    5766.0,     1.50,   5.00,...
PEQ   11814.0,     6.00,   1.50,...

New Spinorama for Flat LW

Then I used this EQ as the initial seed for the Score optimization:
Optimized score: 5.71
Even more caution should be applied when using this EQ!!!

Type    freq       gain     Q
PEQ     163.0,    12.30,   0.54,...
PEQ     331.5,    -2.45,   2.70,...
PEQ    1022.0,    -2.76,   0.78,...
PEQ    2235.0,     1.38,   2.44,...
PEQ    5671.0,     2.25,   7.39,...
PEQ   16262.0,     8.51,   2.11,...

The corresponding Spinorama
Improving the score in this case is really about adding a slope to the response

Here are the regressions - tonal:
EQing to a flat LW does not seem to change the tonal balance

And the zoom for PIR-LW-ON without EQ, with the flat LW EQ and the Score optimized EQ:
Not bad once EQed.

 

[12B4A]

Hi,

The Score as calculated by Olive may not be valid with a dipole speaker so the scores are really just reference.
Therefore the score optimized EQ might be rubbish...

Here is the processed data:
Score rotated -30deg No EQ: -0.11
View attachment 87981
Here is the Spinorama of the EQ version from @BYRTT
Score 3.27
View attachment 87974
I then designed an EQ for "flat" LW of my own,
Big LF and HF boost required so be very cautious if you try it as it may damage the speaker.
Score rotated -30deg with flat LW EQ: 4.36
View attachment 87980

Type    freq       Gain     Q
PEQ     200.0,     8.25,   0.63,...
PEQ     339.0,    -3.00,   4.00,...
PEQ    1018.0,    -3.00,   1.17,...
PEQ    2602.0,     2.00,   2.00,...
PEQ    5766.0,     1.50,   5.00,...
PEQ   11814.0,     6.00,   1.50,...

New Spinorama for Flat LW
View attachment 87979
Then I used this EQ as the initial seed for the Score optimization:
Optimized score: 5.71
Even more caution should be applied when using this EQ!!!
View attachment 87978

Type    freq       gain     Q
PEQ     163.0,    12.30,   0.54,...
PEQ     331.5,    -2.45,   2.70,...
PEQ    1022.0,    -2.76,   0.78,...
PEQ    2235.0,     1.38,   2.44,...
PEQ    5671.0,     2.25,   7.39,...
PEQ   16262.0,     8.51,   2.11,...

The corresponding Spinorama
Improving the score in this case is really about adding a slope to the responseView attachment 87977Here are the regressions - tonal:
EQing to a flat LW does not seem to change the tonal balance
View attachment 87976
And the zoom for PIR-LW-ON without EQ, with the flat LW EQ and the Score optimized EQ:
Not bad once EQed.
View attachment 87975

It wouldn't be surprising if the eq is decent for whichever panel was measured (-1 or -2) but not optimal for the other panel in the pair since left/right have different tunings due to the asymetric placement of the panel attachment dots. I haven't read every sentence of every post but this doesn't seem to be mentioned nor accounted for in the measurements?

 

[Deleted member 2944]

This particular speaker is the "left" one, as can be seen in the photograph. Even without a photograph you could identify it as the single-button speaker (of the pair) by looking at Amirs measured impedance trace and noting the blips at 50Hz and 70Hz. The other speaker would have four blips owing to three buttons. Any possible EQ above those frequencies would not be different for left/right, nor would you want to change EQ at those frequencies. EQ should be general and applied to both speakers

I have tons of actual MMG(LRS) and 1.6/1.7 measurements, if anybody's interested. Here's a couple you might find interesting:

Dave.

 

[Newman]

Like everyone was quick to point out before Amir even got around to finishing his review, conventional SPL measurements of sorta-line-source speakers are best ignored, especially done DIY at home, but even in a lab setting is tricky and caveat-prone.

Amir’s measurement, however, is the real deal.

cheers

 

[Newman]

Oh I remember you. You are the one who probably got asked to take a holiday last time you got involved in dissing Klippel for Maggies. It’s the completely unnecessary, arrogant ‘dig’ in your post above that gave you away, tone-wise.

And just to wrap up this interchange, note that Toole has described, drawing on solid research, how the human listener is able to evaluate the direct sound separately from the summed sound, and if the direct sound of the Maggies (or any speaker) has an FR that varies much from flat, smooth, and extended, then it will not perform well in blind tests for that reason alone. It falls over at the first hurdle, and Amir’s measurement is the ‘real deal’ at telling us if it clears the first hurdle. A good speaker has to perform well at direct sound and reflected sound, both.

So, your excuses above are inconsistent with the science. ‘Nuff said.

cheers

 

[BYRTT]

No, it's not the "real deal" because it's not reflective of the way the system sounds in a typical domestic listening room environment.
I pointed out previously the issues with the interpretation of the results. If you find yourself in disagreement with me........you're wrong.
To consider the NFS the be-all-end-all solution in speaker testing is fantasy.

Dave.

Hi dave can we discuss this in civil manner why its not the real deal way the system sound sounds in a typical room enviroment and we all wrong if in disagreement your opinion for LRS panel performance, by the way my first name is Ricky.

Think will point out in it sounds you have experience with various panels lets omit other line sources and not draw generalizations to them but consentrate discuss for LRS panel because its that DUT Amir has spent three days document its anechoic acoustic pattern.

For LRS panel how does we explain the three live in-room measurement from Amir/sm5/fabrizzio miss low end as the CEA/CTA2034 spinorama standard suggest, notice the fourth one is MMG panel by Dick Olsher published pages back, it can be you like them live diy in-room measurements normalized to Amir's spinorama curves different than i did but think it wont help much in that LRS panel probably is too short a line to get get a good avarages as real floor to cieling lines can do and its so sensitive in dispersion having two lines lined up side by side, one thing we probably can agree is LRS panel have unique response and dispersion but where im sorry is it sounds like users think they have worlds best reference and thats not the case but agree they have their unique sound pattern..

Whats technical wrong for LRS to get dialed in as a reference is that directivity curve is very upset wobbeling up and dawn over wide bandwidth (added a smoother one into animation) and that low end roll off slope is not very friendly dial in to a subwoofers more normal slope without interference that there is tons of inside a real room down in that region and that ton interference will probably mask how LRS panel really integrate to its sub, that said myself have nothing against Magnespan LRS panel and actual think its very pretty system and of low cost, but miss on being smooth in dispersion and out of box response is too unique but not to the best side..

 

[Blumlein 88]

No, it's not the "real deal" because it's not reflective of the way the system sounds in a typical domestic listening room environment.
I pointed out previously the issues with the interpretation of the results. If you find yourself in disagreement with me........you're wrong.
To consider the NFS the be-all-end-all solution in speaker testing is fantasy.

Dave.

There has been enough evidence to show the Klippel does a very good stand in for a real anechoic chamber. In that sense it is the real deal.

Are anechoic measures the real deal? They aren't direct predictors of how something sounds in room. Is a spin-o-rama type of anechoic measurement the best way to predict in room results? It seems a step in the right direction. The Harman formula obviously has some utility and obviously has some problems. Even Amir's brief listens sometimes are thumbs up with a high scoring product and sometimes thumbs up with a low scoring product. Sometimes thumbs down on a high scoring test result.

Should dipole results be interpreted differently looking toward the subjectively experienced in room sound? Possibly though we lack data to decide. If we had a panel that exhibited quite flat anechoic on axis response from 50 hz to 15khz we have a better example to work with. I don't know if that is true with any of the panels. And if it is you'll likely find it among the larger panels. I think a Quad 2805 or ESL63 might get reasonably close among medium sized panels which is why I wish someone would get one to Amir.

 

[richard12511]

No, it's not the "real deal" because it's not reflective of the way the system sounds in a typical domestic listening room environment.


Dave.

That's kinda the point though. These measurements, unlike typical in room measurements, show you how the speakers themselves sound, before the room is taken into account. Also, science tells us that the speakers that measure the flattest anechoically are the ones that are most preferred by listeners in real rooms when they can't see what they're listening to. They had panel speakers in their blind tests, but they didn't do very well, which is inline with their anechoic measurements.

 

[richard12511]

There has been enough evidence to show the Klippel does a very good stand in for a real anechoic chamber. In that sense it is the real deal.

Are anechoic measures the real deal? They aren't direct predictors of how something sounds in room. Is a spin-o-rama type of anechoic measurement the best way to predict in room results? It seems a step in the right direction. The Harman formula obviously has some utility and obviously has some problems. Even Amir's brief listens sometimes are thumbs up with a high scoring product and sometimes thumbs up with a low scoring product. Sometimes thumbs down on a high scoring test result.

Should dipole results be interpreted differently looking toward the subjectively experienced in room sound? Possibly though we lack data to decide. If we had a panel that exhibited quite flat anechoic on axis response from 50 hz to 15khz we have a better example to work with. I don't know if that is true with any of the panels. And if it is you'll likely find it among the larger panels. I think a Quad 2805 or ESL63 might get reasonably close among medium sized panels which is why I wish someone would get one to Amir.

Agreed. This review really has me wanting to see more Panel speaker reviews, particularly larger ones that aren't so bass compromised. I do think there could be some "panel magic" that we're not seeing here, but more panel speakers under the NFS will help us see if that's true. If there's a panel that measures great and sounds great, then we know that these measurements really are useful, and this is just an issue with this particular speaker.

 

[Deleted member 2944]

Agreed. This review really has me wanting to see more Panel speaker reviews, particularly larger ones that aren't so bass compromised. I do think there could be some "panel magic" that we're not seeing here, but more panel speakers under the NFS will help us see if that's true. If there's a panel that measures great and sounds great, then we know that these measurements really are useful, and this is just an issue with this particular speaker.

Yes, more speakers (of this type) tested via the NFS will be the proof. I suspect a similar effect will be noticed in the lower region. One data point is hardly enough to extrapolate a conclusion.
This is not an anechoic versus in-room disparity the NFS system is measuring/depicting. I explained this back many pages in this intolerably long thread.

As it happens, I'm listening to my MMG system at this very moment while I type this. They don't sound like the depiction of the PIR from the NFS.
Sorry about that, but that's what I hear.

Dave.

 

[mlee]

Not sure if this link will show up.
https://audioxpress.com/files/attachment/2726

There is a difference in the measured response of a speaker and PIR. PIR is a nice to have but not totally useful when applied to a particular listening room. I view PIR like statistics, you can have stats, but its hard to apply stats to a unique singular entity/room.