[Jack Gilvey]

Hi all planar fans - new MMG setup for me.  I owned pair around 2004 and just picked up another a few weeks ago as the bug never left. This little "sitting room" room really isn't conducive to setting up a stereo system, as you see, but it's the best-sounding spot in the house and far better than the downstairs office where I have my HT/surround setup. Conventional monitors sound great here but are truly in the way - especially with 4 and 8 year-olds running around.  The main reason I took the plunge this time is that this is that, while MMG's tend to need more space than most other speakers, it's possible to have them take up none at all when not being used by hanging them. The only two spots I could really use for this happened to measure equidistant from the listening position, and form an almost-equilateral triangle with it, so I gave it a go. Used door hinges from Home Depot, and had to hang one from the back and one from the front so they fold away properly. They're now vertical with ear level in the middle of each panel, and these positions also give them loads of space to the back wall. The sound is wonderful.

 Here they are open (had to take panorama shots with a phone to capture them both, so the stitching makes it look a little uneven):



And closed:



  Here's the rest of the setup.  KAB SL-1200 with various mods (bought like that from him in '08 as a b-stock)/Denon DL-103r/Bob's Devices Cinemag "red" SUT/modded Cambridge 640p/Shiit SYS passive volume control/switcher.  Digital source is a Logitech Squeezebox Touch using its own DAC.  Signal goes from the Shiit to a JBL LSR310S subwoofer ( bottom in pic, quite the overachiever) which performs an active 80Hz high-pass/low-pass at 24dB/oct and then onto a Crown XLS 2000 (650 wpc @ 4Ω - dynamics are not wanting when MMGs are fed like that). The JBL really adds great depth and punch, and the nearfield location (not localizable at all due to the steep low-pass) cuts down on room interaction and potential modal issues.  That old Target VW2 double shelf keep everything out of the way and the table well isolated. Speaker wire is Monoprice 12AWG and I/C's are Redco Mogami 36 Series.




 Thanks so much for reading!   

[Tomy2Tone]

That's pretty creative there! Took me a few seconds to realize what I was looking at...

Nice job!

[NIGHTFALL1970]

Very cool setup!

[SteveFord]

They look good in white. 

[Jack Gilvey]

Thanks guys!  Yeah, I like the way the off-white works. Install would have been a bit easier if they still had the ~1" wood accent panel on the sides like my previous pair instead of the thin dowels they use now, but still worked out fine.

 These really are amazing speakers. Aside from the very bottom end (which I've got covered), I'm hard-pressed to think of things they're doing wrong while listening.

[Jack Gilvey]

I added an Emotiva Stealth DC-1 balanced DAC/Pre recently.  Sounds great, built like a tank, and the Crown seems to like the "pro-level" balanced output. The single analog input (the presence of which sealed the deal for me) is very handy for my phono stage.  The Squeezebox Touch is connected to the DAC via USB, and is running the "Enhanced Digital Output" app which allows streaming of all rates up to 192k via USB. I only have a couple free 192k files to test and, while they actually work pretty well wirelessly, the occasional buffering makes it not really feasible. I can't really hear the difference between that and 96k anyway, the latter of which streams flawlessly.

[mcgsxr]

Like the look of that Emotiva piece for sure.

I ended up putting black electricians tape over the Crown display on my 1500.  It faces me and was too bright. 

[brooklyn]

That’s a great setup, I never would have thought to hang the Maggies like you did..
The audio system next to the chair is a nice touch..

[Jack Gilvey]

Thanks guys. That display sure is bright.

 Brooklyn - I found a few examples when searching on wall-mounted MMG's for guidance, but they all seemed to be using the older style MMG with the wide side panels and not the newer one with the thin strip and curved sides - which made it a bigger PITA. That spot was the only place in the room I could put stuff and it just fit between the piano and my chair. I had that wall-mount turntable shelf in storage for years and it came in very handy. I guess having the Crown sitting on the sub is the antithesis of what the vibration-isolation crowd shoots for, but c'est la vie.

[SteveFord]

Yeah, I saw that with the sub. 
I'd move it somewhere else if it was my call.  Maybe get another board, paint it black and put a few risers underneath it?

[Jack Gilvey]

Yeah, that's a good idea. Been planning on moving it since I do have some room vertically on the lower shelf.  Figure I'd sit the amp on the shelf and place the other stuff on a riser above it. The design of the XLS makes it feasible as there are no vents on top, minimal clearance needed.

[sfdoddsy]

Hey Jack.

Did you just use normal door hinges for the mounting?

[SteveFord]

I'm not Jack but if you look in Lynda's Corner in My Systems you'll see that's what I used.

[Jack Gilvey]

Hey Jack.

Did you just use normal door hinges for the mounting?

 Yes - here's a shot of one:



 

[sfdoddsy]

Thanks. I have a set of MC1s hung between walls at the moment but they just don't have enough bass to get down to a sub, so I'm pondering MMGs instead. Did you guys experiment with the tweeters against the wall, or away from the wall?

[Jack Gilvey]

The MMGs will certainly get down to a sub, 80Hz is no problem at all.  And I really didn't play around with tweeters in/out. The speakers are already as far apart as I'd want to go and I didn't want to add any more width to the stage so chose to mount tweeters inside.

[SteveFord]

I went tweeters out but didn't experiment either way.  The center channel is doing the lion's share of the work in Lynda's set up.

[terry parr]

congratulations on the look that you got on this, jack.  very nice and neat-looking. 

as an mmg owner (still researching the best way to implement a sub, and which type.  got some good advice from fellow a/c'ers that i'm following up on).  i know that these mmg's would probably sound better up off the floor, but aesthetics come into play, here too.  i've really resisted the idea of putting my mmg's on stands, because i think that this ruins "the look" of the speakers as they sit on the floor.

your solution here allows you to enjoy a set-up that looks good, while at the same time gives you the benefit of improved sonics by having these speakers elevated. did you go to the trouble of propping the speakers up at different heights first, before deciding exactly how far off the floor the speakers are now?   

anyway, very well done! 

[Jack Gilvey]

Thanks Terry! 

  I really didn't experiment much there either, in terms of listening to various heights.  Most seemed to prefer them vertical (which was a given in my case) and with ear height about mid-panel, so that's what I shot for. Only thing I knew for sure is that I had to clear that chair on the left.   When I lower or raise my head height a bit when listening, I can't hear a difference, so a few inches either way seems not overly critical.

 Still trying to figure out a way to set toe-in repeatably.  Takes a couple minutes to get it just right again every time I fold them out for listening.

 

[mcgsxr]

Would a hinge door stop work?

Might stick out too far for the young ones roaming around, but they are cheap.