Magnepan Tympani 1D

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dorokusai

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Magnepan Tympani 1D
« on: 29 May 2008, 01:51 am »
I was fortunate to pick up a pair of these, fresh from a full factory refurb, a couple weeks ago. The broken leg I'm sporting delayed getting them into the house but I have one of them set-up in the 2CH rig so far. I'm a long time planar fan....my wife however, is another matter. The process of setting up a 6ft x 4ft loudspeaker has been fun so far but my wife was absolutely horrified when she saw them. Oh well, a couple nights on the couch never hurt anyone.

I'm going with the traditional setup from the owners manual because I can swing the tweeter out of the way due to the right speaker being near a doorway.

Has anyone heard these speakers? or the earlier, or later, 3 panel versions?

Mark

Wind Chaser

Re: Magnepan Tympani 1D
« Reply #1 on: 29 May 2008, 03:05 am »
Has anyone heard these speakers?

I've heard both the 1-D and IV.  They work best in a HUGE room and require massive power.  It takes a lot of patience to position them for optimum performance, but when done right, they are in an exclusive class second to none.  You might want to contact Jim Winey.

dorokusai

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Re: Magnepan Tympani 1D
« Reply #2 on: 29 May 2008, 03:18 pm »
Yes, they are terribly inefficient but I don't have power issues...thank goodness. Unfortunately I don't have a huge room :(

Is Jim on here Wind Chaser?

Mark

Rob S.

Re: Magnepan Tympani 1D
« Reply #3 on: 29 May 2008, 03:51 pm »
My local friend has a pair of Tympani I's, (not sure if they are 1D's or not)  Their the 3 panel Tympani.   He had Magnepan do a refurbish on it a few years ago.  Magnepan told him they wouldn't be doing it anymore because of age.  I do not know if it applies to all Tympani I's or not not.

He has a large ~ 20 x 30 room with maybe 12 ft ceiling, no room treatment.  Powered by 2 stereo vintage AR tube amps (? 75w), and an older AR tube pre- (SP something?)  Exposure 3010 cd player, cheaper cabling throughout.  Sound was good ( if you like Maggies )  Very tuby, smooth,  but not a great top end, since it's the old wire tweeter ( maybe 16k limit )  Bass was kind of wooly on most music,  but my comparison  was a smaller pair of maggies w/ SS amp, tube pre, SB3 source.  There was a wall of sound coming at you, but localization of specific instruments is not that precise.   I know the setup with these is trickier than the smaller maggies up to III series.   I would post a ? over on this maggie site   http://www.audioasylum.com/scripts/etv.pl?forum=MUG   

Mark- how big is your room?  Has your wife settled done yet?

Rob S.

Wind Chaser

Re: Magnepan Tympani 1D
« Reply #4 on: 29 May 2008, 05:25 pm »
Mark,

Set them up as best as you can.  If you are not satisfied, depending on the size of the room Jim Winey (at Magnepan) may be able to help you fine tune them. 


Rob,

Your friend has an ideal room.  If he plays with the positioning he should be able to recreate a very realistic sound stage with imaging equally convincing.  Specific localization is a characteristic not mutually exclusive to the speakers and how well they are set up, but pretty much everything else upstream.  The Tympani's won't hone in with the same precision as a smaller speaker, but if they are optimally placed in a room as big as your friend has, and the listener is seated back far enough, the realism is unparalleled.  If seated too close, the Tympanis will overwhelm.  They are most certainly not suited for near field listening.

Despite the weaknesses in frequency extremes, there isn't a speaker that can match their strengths that I know of.

konut

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Re: Magnepan Tympani 1D
« Reply #5 on: 29 May 2008, 10:54 pm »
I owned the Tympany IDs from 1979 to 1991. Initially powering them with a Crown DC300A. Then I bought another DC300A, going monoblock. Then I got a McIntosh MC2300 and used the outboard external passive line level crossover. Were talkin about 2KW of power at full output, total. With a quiet front end, this combination was very dynamic. The best drum reproduction I've heard before or since. You need an amp with a high damping factor to keep the bass panels from getting flabby. With enough power they WILL play to the lower 20s with authority.  As was said earlier, the tweeter panels are the weak point. Then again the Crowns were probably not the best match for the tweeter panels. Placement is everything. It drove me crazy, not that I had that far to go. I spent many wonderful hours listening to them from full scale symphonic to solo acoustic guitar. A true classic. 
« Last Edit: 29 May 2008, 11:24 pm by konut »

dorokusai

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Re: Magnepan Tympani 1D
« Reply #6 on: 4 Jun 2008, 02:06 am »
Rob S. - Thanks for the comments. I'll have them tweaked soon, so I'll have to get back to you folks. My room is like a matchbox compared to these but roughly 16x24x8 but it's not a completely open room. I've owned some 3.5R's previously and was able to knock them out pretty easily, setup wasn't an issue....these are looking to be more work obviously :) That's the fun tho'....sometimes.

The wife? Whew....I don't even bring them up :) Hopefully a huge stack of gear can go out the door soon to appease the female diety that I live with.

Wind Chaser - Ok, will do. I have to resist the compulsion to wire in some decent binders and create yet another project for myself. These are too big to have downtime.

Konut - The earlier mention by Rob of a 16k high end...or roughly thereabouts, is fine as my hearing probably isn't what it used to be anyways. It might work out just right. I'm gingerly putting them thru the paces for now but would like to get something done by this weekend. I have 1hp worth of power for them and it's worked out for everything I've thrown at it so far. You know how that goes I see :) 2kW of Crown....that's beastly.

Mark

Wind Chaser

Re: Magnepan Tympani 1D
« Reply #7 on: 4 Jun 2008, 03:04 am »
Mark,

16 X 24 is pretty much ideal. :thumb:

Take your time tweaking them; it won't happen over night, be patient.

I'm green with envy. :green:

KenSeger

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Re: Magnepan Tympani 1D
« Reply #8 on: 14 Nov 2008, 01:32 pm »
I own and used to sell T-1Ds in the 70's and I can attest that getting them to work in a room is a study in experimentation.  After setting them in so many different customer's houses I can firmly state that everything is variable and there are no hard and fast rules that are written in stone. I have run into rooms that given the WAF (Wife Approval Factor) limitations of placement - there is no good way to set them up, period, and they'll never sound as good as they can, but this is rare and usually in very asymmetrical rooms.

Here are some guidelines to start with, please feel free to alter them or do the exact opposite as your room might like them or not.

Realise that the originals were electrically a two way but mechanically a three way, since yours were rebuilt - who knows...  Generally the inner panel (lets call it the woofer) is best pointed away from your ears perhaps outward - left to left, right to right.  The midrange (lower frequency outer panel) pointed towards you or slightly outward.  The tweeter (upper frequency outer panel) depends on what type of sound stage you like and the room.  Places to start with the tweeter are - do you want it on the outside of the 6 panels or the inside.  Don't laugh, each room is different. Tweeters can be angled so that the perpendicular is straight at you, just outside your ears right to right and left to left, or my favorite - having the perpendiculars intersect about 2 to 3 feet in front of your nose, but I like a very spacious and deep sound stage - if you like a close intimate sound stage you probably won't like that. Usually having the panels flat to each other or any panel parallel to the front or rear wall doesn't work.  Ditto for setting them up in a concave manner hoping for some time alignment, though do try having the midrange and tweeter panel equal distant from your ears at some stage of your experimentation.  Please note that, particularly with the tweeter panels, changing the angle so that the outside moves an inch can make a huge difference in the sound stage.  Also a bit of heresy here, having the tweeter on the inside and the midrange touching the wall works great in some rooms. Furthermore, if there is a magic formula for how far they need to be from the back wall, I haven't figured that out yet.

Best of luck and I hope you have an audiophile friend that is willing to move the panels while you listen to them.  I would volunteer, but I live 1,000+ miles away.

Ken