[andyr]

Now stacked Mini Maggies, that gives me some more ideas.

Shirley, if you buy 2 or 3 pairs of mini-Maggies ... you will end up paying more than some 1.6s or 1.7s - so what's the point? 

Regards,

Andy

[SteveFord]

Stop calling me "Shirley".
You would get the ribbon and and DMW or two - how that would compare to a 1.7, I dunno.  It would be fun to try out, though.

Where's that winning lottery ticket when I need it?

[Robin Hood]

I believe that the Mini Maggies may sound better than any of the other current Maggies, except for the 20.1.  True the 3.7 has a fuller bass and can play louder, but I already have 8 ft tall electrostatic speakers with multiple dipole subs to fill that role.

What interests me in the Mini Maggies is achieving the best sound qualities that I might achieve with Stax headphones and Woo Audio headamp without being tethered and as a secondary audiophile speaker reference system.

I think the Mini Maggies are sexy, cool and have great WAF. They may also provide me with great flexibility and ease in assembling or disassembling any stereo or multi-channel speaker system configuration that I wish to explore.

The current advertisement for the Mini Maggies is put the 3.7 on your desk, so IMO Magnepan believes that for sonics the Mini rival the 3.7s, though obviously they sound different.

If I have learned anything by visiting several Maggie forums is that many users modify and tweak their Maggies for sonic improvements over the stock Maggies. The Mini Maggie separates makes experimenting fun and easy. Of course if all you want is one of the stock Maggies as your main speaker system, then the Mini Maggies is probably not the best choice for you.

As for stacking Mini Maggies, I don't know what works or what Magnepan has tried. But two Mini Maggies systems and two additional DWM woofers only costs $4600, which is still significantly less than the 3.7s. It may well be that 4 midrange/tweeter panels and 4 DWM woofers may sound better when properly setup and optimized than any other Maggie speakers, except the 20.1 at 3 times the cost. And as we all know Maggies are a bargain and can easily be sold. And the modularity of the Mini Maggies means that they are also the easiest quality Maggies to ship.

There is nothing to lose, I know the Mini Maggies sound great and I plan to enjoy the adventure.

[andyr]

What interests me in the Mini Maggies is achieving the best sound qualities that I might achieve with Stax headphones and Woo Audio headamp without being tethered ...

Correct.  They are a very-near-field speaker - ie. either side of your PC monitor, so maybe 3' from your ears, max.

The current advertisement for the Mini Maggies is put the 3.7 on your desk, so IMO Magnepan believes that for sonics the Mini rival the 3.7s ...

"3.7 on your desk".  What that says to me is that if you want "3.7 quality & style of sound" on your desktop ... buy some Mini Maggies.  They will sound better than 3.7s if your ears are 3' away from them (as on a desktop).  But they will not sound as good if your ears are 12' away from them.

They are not a cheap replacement for the 3.7s - they are a way of getting great planar sound at your desk ... if you can afford them (compared to "normal" desktop speakers).  So they are ideal for a professional who does a lot of work at their computer. 


Regards,

Andy

[Robin Hood]

This is what The Absolute Sound has to say:

"Yes, the Mini Maggie System is essentially a 3.7 in miniature. It is the world's first full-range dipole speaker system that will sit on (and under) your desk. The Mini Maggie is essentially a miniaturized version of the 3.7 midrange and tweeter. The Maggie Woofer (DWM) is a small section out of the 20.1 bass driver that sits under your desk in the foot well. Together, it is very much like a 3.7---up close and personal...The Mini Maggie System was originally designed to be a miniature 3.7 on your desk. But, we were pleasantly surprised how well it works as a near-field listening experience in a small room...The Mini Maggie System may do an amazing job in some larger rooms. But, we don't want unhappy customers if it turns out that your particular installation or room acoustics are not compatible with a Mini Maggie System."

When I first heard the Mini Maggies at my dealer's show room, we were sitting about 8 ft away. When the folks first heard the Mini Maggies at CES a few years ago, they were also sitting some further distance away.

My point is that the Mini Maggies incorporate features of the 3.7 and 20.1 speakers. If one decides to use multiple woofers and midrange/tweeter panels, at some point it may be that the Mini Maggies may best those speakers too.  It's food for thought. I don't know the answer and neither does anyone outside of Magnepan at this time.

I will say that I have the Mini Maggies set up at home, my listening position is 9 ft away, and they sound fantastic. Closer they sound even better, as can be expected as one minimizes room interactions and achieves excellent headphone like sonic qualities. So for me, the satellite/woofer system of the Mini Maggies work very well for me and they are worth every penny, especially as a secondary reference audio system.

If I want more, I may add woofers or midrange/tweeter panels or I may use a variety to build a multi-channel audio system. That's another great thing about the Mini Maggies. It's a lot easier for me to buy small affordable panels and assemble what ever works best in stages.

If I did not already own large electrostatics and multiple dipole subs, I would be looking solely at the 20.1 Maggies. That is not the position of most Maggie buyers or potential buyers, but it is my situation.

[josh358]

What interests me in the Mini Maggies is achieving the best sound qualities that I might achieve with Stax headphones and Woo Audio headamp without being tethered and as a secondary audiophile speaker reference system.

As Wendell says, there are advantages to a full length line source. Also, if a line source is short compared to a wavelength, it will start acting like an omni. Not a good thing, since the radiation pattern will change with frequency.

Have you looked at Satie's Tympani mod on the Planar Asylum? He combines the Maggie ribbon with a line source made with the BG Neo-8's, which are quasi ribbon push-pull planars. I suspect you'd get much of what you're looking for with a combination like that.

[Robin Hood]

As Wendell says, there are advantages to a full length line source. Also, if a line source is short compared to a wavelength, it will start acting like an omni. Not a good thing, since the radiation pattern will change with frequency.

Have you looked at Satie's Tympani mod on the Planar Asylum? He combines the Maggie ribbon with a line source made with the BG Neo-8's, which are quasi ribbon push-pull planars. I suspect you'd get much of what you're looking for with a combination like that.

It's hard to imagine two Mini Maggie panels stacked above each other would be anything but a line source. I would guess that the bottom of lower panel to the tip of the top panel would be about 30 inches. What constitutes a full length line source when you are seated? Can that be described in the length of the Maggie ribbon projected and flared out to a larger length at your seated position?

I would love to hear Satie's system, I'm sure it sounds fantastic. If I only had the DIY skills and craftsmanship. Perhaps I do need to hear Satie's system to get me motivated.

[Davey]

If you have a somewhat normal sized room, I don't think any driver height less than about 60" could be considered a line source.  Two mini-Maggie panels stacked would be well short.  Even if you stacked about five or six of them together you still have a "breaks" in the line from the frame work.

The quote about the mini-Maggie system being "essentially a 3.7 in miniature" is.....silly.  It's essentially a completely different speaker, except for the brand name.  It's designed for a completely different application after all.

Cheers,

Dave.

[josh358]

It's hard to imagine two Mini Maggie panels stacked above each other would be anything but a line source. I would guess that the bottom of lower panel to the tip of the top panel would be about 30 inches. What constitutes a full length line source when you are seated? Can that be described in the length of the Maggie ribbon projected and flared out to a larger length at your seated position?

I would love to hear Satie's system, I'm sure it sounds fantastic. If I only had the DIY skills and craftsmanship. Perhaps I do need to hear Satie's system to get me motivated.

The behavior of a line source depends on the frequency. At high frequencies, where wavelength is small compared to the height of the line source, a shorter line source will do, although you'll likely lose the unique capacity of line sources to reproduce height. At low frequencies, the floor and ceiling act as mirrors to create an infinite line source (not quite, since they aren't perfectly reflective). So you need a floor-ceiling line source where frequencies are low. If you don't have one, they line source and its reflections will start to act like spaced drivers, and you'll get areas of cancellation and reinforcement.

BTW, Satie's Neo mod doesn't require woodworking skill -- he just put the Neo drivers in his Tympani IV's, in place of the original midrange. You do have to use an external crossover and triamp, or make a new crossover network and pad down the Neo's, which are very efficient. I'll probably be doing the same thing with my Tympani IVA's.

[rw@cn]

They will look huge in that room. If it is a dedicated listening room and you have the latitude to arrange it properly and use room treatment, you should be fine.

[andyr]

I believe some people are even tri-amping their larger Maggies.

Yes, I started actively triamping my IIIas over 10 years ago. 

Regards,

Andy

[SteveFord]

The question is:

My room is 12ft.wide,16ft. long with 8ft ceilings. Are Maggie 3.7's too large for this room.

Is anyone running 3.7s (3.6s, etc) in a room this size so they can offer a first hand opinion?
My room is 16' wide so I can't be much help other than to agree with the previous posters in that it should be okay - too much bass response is what you'll have to look out for.

[Robin Hood]

"In a very real sense, the 20.1 or a 3.7 are smaller than an MMG. If Magnepan sold only the portion of the 3.7 or 20.1 that operated from about 200 Hz and up, the question of speaker size/room size would never come up. An ideal ribbon line source driver is very narrow and would go from floor to ceiling. Most of the area of a Magneplanar is needed for bass reproduction."

The above answer begs the question, what are the dimensions of the midrange and tweeter drivers in Maggies?  It would also seem that if the ideal ribbon line source driver should go from floor to ceiling, none of the Maggie speakers would be deemed ideal (unless you have a very low ceiling).

[josh358]

"In a very real sense, the 20.1 or a 3.7 are smaller than an MMG. If Magnepan sold only the portion of the 3.7 or 20.1 that operated from about 200 Hz and up, the question of speaker size/room size would never come up. An ideal ribbon line source driver is very narrow and would go from floor to ceiling. Most of the area of a Magneplanar is needed for bass reproduction."

The above answer begs the question, what are the dimensions of the midrange and tweeter drivers in Maggies?  It would also seem that if the ideal ribbon line source driver should go from floor to ceiling, none of the Maggie speakers would be deemed ideal (unless you have a very low ceiling).

There's an unofficial table here with some information on driver size:

http://www.integracoustics.com/MUG/MUG/articles/speakers.html

However, it doesn't really contain the information that you're interested in, which is the distance from the tweeter to the midrange or the midwoofer in the two-way models. That's less in the smaller two-ways and even less in the three ways (the 3.x's and 20.x's are three way). What that distance determines is how close you have to sit to get good lateral imaging. What happens if you sit too close is that the mids and highs are coming from different angles, so the image smears laterally. But I don't think they can give a figure on this because it's subjective, it's not like there's one distance at which it happens and one at which it doesn't. The point is just that in small rooms or when you sit up close the larger three-ways like the 3.7 can have a sharper lateral image than the smaller ones. Which is a bit counterintuitive.

Bass loading is another issue, and this works in favor of the smaller speakers. If you put a really big Maggie in a really small room the bass gets boosted, partly because the walls and ceiling extend the baffle size (you can hear the same effect if you put one close to a wall) and partly because small rooms tend to have more bass because of where the room modes are. Anyway, if the Maggie is too big, the bass starts to sound tubby. It should actually easy to fix with equalization and you'll get a nice performance boost because the woofer won't be working as hard, but many people are averse to that. I can say that for me, it isn't a major issue since it's one of the things that we do know how to fix.

Then there's imaging. The big ones will generally make a bigger image. They're also closer to the ideal floor-ceiling line source you mentioned. The reason they don't run floor-ceiling is that dipole design is a compromise. The less expensive models have to be smaller, otherwise they wouldn't be less expensive. But if you made a narrow baffle that ran floor to ceiling, you'd lose bass response owing to dipole cancellation around the sides. So they make the best compromise possible, balancing these and other factors. At the opposite end is the practical limit of speaker height, they can't make them so tall that they wouldn't fit in everybody's room. In fact, you don't have to quite get to the ceiling for optimum performance, just close enough so that the woofer and its reflections act acoustically as a single unit, without generating interference patterns. The 20.1 is 79" tall, so I imagine it comes pretty close in a room with a standard 8' ceiling. Anyway, the rule here is the biggest you can fit.

Then there's whether you can fit them, and whether they overwhelm the room visually. Which also depend on you and your circumstances and any special requirements, e.g., my room doubles as a home theater so I can't block the screen.

The upshot is that it isn't easy to make cut and dry recommendations. I think the best course is to do what you're doing and ask around on the forums. Dollars to donuts you'll come across some people who have used them in a room the size of yours, and they'll either say "It didn't work, the bass was boomy" or "It works great."

[Robin Hood]

Thanks for the interesting table.

Are some values shown for one speaker or both L+R speakers?

For instance the Tympani IV shows 6 screens; woofer: 1254in²; midrange: 168in²; tweeter: ¼"×57. Should I assume the values show for the woofer and midrange are total amounts for L+R speakers (3 panels per side)?

Whereas the 3.6R shows ribbon tweeter: ¼"×55"; QR midrange: 199in²; woofer: 537in²

And the 20 shows true-ribbon tweeter: ¼"×55"; QR midrange: 137in²; woofer: 786in²

For the 3.6R and 20 are the midrange and woofer values still the total for the L+R speakers?

[josh358]

I've never measured, but I always assumed the figures were for one speaker alone. Forex, the Tympani IVA panels are 18" x 72", which means each panel is 1296 square inches, so both woofer panels would come to 2592 square inches. So if the figure in the table is correct it seems that the drivers themselves occupy about half the total area of the frames, which sounds about right.