[Rclark]

Very occasionally the music will produce a sound that grabs my attention because it sounds like it's behind me or far to the side as well.

[josh358]

Thanks for the info, Josh.  My room is 15'Lx12'Wx8'H.  I suppose I would start where my speakers are now: 54" from the wall behind them to the mid/front point of their cabinets; 42" from the same point to my side walls and 60" apart with my seat the apex of an equidistant triangle.  There is about 58" behind my chair the majority of which is covered with open backed record cabinets courtesy of IKEA.  The walls are flat*.  Any thoughts?  Anyone?

Someone told me that Maggie's will not image outside of the speaker itself and I took that to be cause they are more directional than box spealers.  That about right?

*however, an open legged sofa table is serving as a rack centered on the back wall behind them:  http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?action=systems;area=browse;system=1448

About 5' out from the front wall works well. In general, the further the better. Side wall isn't critical, 2' or more is fine. I'd say an 8' listening distance is good but some swear by listening closer.

Really, though, these are just starting points -- you have to experiment since it's different for every room.

Flat wall is good.

Imaging, yes, that's about right. But it depends on toe-in and room geometry. The dipole null is in line with the panels, so no sound goes in that direction. But the null is relatively narrow. If the toe in such that a mirror on the wall shows you the speaker edge-on from the listening seat, you'll hear no sound off the wall. However, that doesn't mean you should adjust toe-in to do that, you should follow the recommendations in in the manual to keep the driver phasing right.

[josh358]

Very occasionally the music will produce a sound that grabs my attention because it sounds like it's behind me or far to the side as well.

There are various reasons for this. One is if the cues are encoded on the record, either intentionally or accidentally. There are devices that will position a sound anywhere in a 360 degree sphere around your head -- however, they don't work very well in a live acoustical environment like a room, so the effect, which is used on some pop albums, is kind of hit or miss. Mostly miss.

Another reason is that the head-related transfer function isn't all that good at distinguishing front from back. We depend to some extent on room reverberation to do that. Speakers that are directional like beamy electrostatics are prone to imaging behind the head. It occurs quite frequently when listening in an anechoic chamber.

[jult52]

I recently upgraded speakers in my family room system with some Wharfedales (MSRP $2k).  They are pretty good - not perfect, a bit bright (surprising considering the manufaturer's rep), very detailled, but a solid, effective component.  I bought these at a steep close-out discount.  I have small children and some WAF to take into account so couldn't go for Planars.

My conclusion: Magnepans are the biggest bargain in audio.  The Wharfedales can't compete with something in their price range from those guys up in Minnesota.  I could buy 1.6s used with Mye stands for what I paid and that would result in a world-class speaker.  The only advantage I'd give the Wharfedales is they have a slam that is appropriate for rock, which sometimes makes for pretty cool listening, but the detail, presence, mid-range of the Magnepans isn't there.

[medium jim]

I've heard things coming from WAY outside of the speakers. 
Like outside of the house which is impossible.  Strange but true.

When I had my 1.6's, I had them set up for HT a couple of times and was watching a movie and I swear during a scene where there was rain that I could feel/hear the rain drops dropping, even behind me....it was amazing. 

Jim

[rollo]

Au contraire, mon ami.
Put on Atom Heart Mother by Pink Floyd and tell me just where the sounds are coming from.

  All over da place. Freaky cool. BTW yes to the OP question. Strayed to Nearfield Acoustic  924's. from Maggie 3As .Recently heard the GT Audio planars and for the buckarooines very well done. It was the GT audio speakers that got my nervosa up again. Man are they good. HELP !!!!! So if budget allows Omega if not GTAudio. The 3.7s will be auditioned as well. Back to panels we shall see.

charles

[satie]

The big mouth effect on close miked recordings is a product of imprecise focus of the drivers in the time domain. I aim my tympanis so that all the instruments on a mono recording line up into a narrow slit image that has a horn like depth dimension and some sense of height . Some mono recordings have an image the size of a golf ball and have no depth or height dimension.

I have not strayed from planar dipoles per se, just that in the 80s when I had my mind set on one (Quad 57 then maggie III or CLS) they were more expensive than I could afford, and I wanted more bass kick, so I ended up with JBL Centuries that later had their tweeters replaced with Yamaha NS 1000 tweeters that made the JBL tweeters look like toys.

I sold it all off and went back to grad school, where again I could not afford a planar (at least not one that works) and went for a local Vandersteen 2C, ratty  looking but worked wonderfully.

When the time came, I got an old Tympani IV and made heavy  feet for them right from the start, and then replaced the mids (the weak point) with a line of Neo8 planar drivers. For the kickin bass I paired the Tympani bass panels with a powerful amp (Crown 5002) and braced them to the wall. A dual sealed subwoofer project is on hold for now.

[Emsquare]

Satie, something that I have observed over time with my 2.6's is that I no longer hear the exaggerated image size that I did at first. I theorize that my auditory perception has gone to work on what I am hearing to compensate for this effect. Could be wrong.

Not what I really wanted to ask though. I am curious as to how you feel about your shift to the Neo8's.  Has the sound signature become mostly dominated by the Neo8's  covering the midrange now? The Neo8 or perhaps the Neo10 seems to be a natural consideration for the next step. If you had it to do over again would you stick to your current configuration or might you have gone another way?

Noticed your pic you are using now with your moniker. Your old friend? I remember you caring for your very ill dog and wanted to offer some sympathy with what may have come from that. Neil Gaiman quoted part of a poem by Kipling 'The Power of the Dog' on a blog that I frequent. I can't best it ...

http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_dog.htm

[Rocket_Ronny]

Yes, but I will be back one day.

Rocket_Ronny

[Davey]

Satie,

Are you saying that toeing of the speakers can alleviate vertical image height unnaturalness of Maggie speakers?
I haven't found this image height issue to be controllable in any meaningful way.  I believe this is an inherent "time domain" characteristic (which can't be altered) of the speakers resulting from the physical configuration.

I don't listen to mono recordings so haven't really noticed the golf ball effect, but it does beg the question of why a person would choose speakers like Maggies to listen to close-miked recordings.  I assume you don't have mono recordings, but that you sum channels in your normal stereo recordings to adjust the speakers and then switch back to normal stereo operation?

However, it's interesting that imaging seems to be an important listening priority for some folks.  I find the lack of imaging distracting sometimes, but it's the sort of unnaturalness (maybe it should be considered naturalness) that your brain can fairly quickly adapt to even if the recordings are typical poorly recorded studio productions.

Cheers,

Dave.

[SteveFord]

I first noticed the Big Mouth Effect on early Rolling Stones recordings and then it became more pronounced when Aerosmith came out.

[berni]

I first noticed the Big Mouth Effect on early Rolling Stones recordings and then it became more pronounced when Aerosmith came out.

Hehe a good one 

[satie]

Satie, something that I have observed over time with my 2.6's is that I no longer hear the exaggerated image size that I did at first. I theorize that my auditory perception has gone to work on what I am hearing to compensate for this effect. Could be wrong.

Not what I really wanted to ask though. I am curious as to how you feel about your shift to the Neo8's.  Has the sound signature become mostly dominated by the Neo8's  covering the midrange now? The Neo8 or perhaps the Neo10 seems to be a natural consideration for the next step. If you had it to do over again would you stick to your current configuration or might you have gone another way?

Noticed your pic you are using now with your moniker. Your old friend? I remember you caring for your very ill dog and wanted to offer some sympathy with what may have come from that. Neil Gaiman quoted part of a poem by Kipling 'The Power of the Dog' on a blog that I frequent. I can't best it ...

http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_dog.htm

First, yes that would be he who pulled my life off the counter and chewed it up. That is at age 11 or 12, he is now 16. Thanks for the Kipling poem.

Part of my goal was to go to time coherent and minimal phase XO, which meant either LR4 or 1st order, Since 1st order was doable in PLLXO, I ended up doing that, and had Marchand do an active LR4. That was a product of my experience with the Vandersteens. To make that feasible with the maggie tweeter, you need to cross it over one or two octaves up from where it XOs on the original design- so that low freq material does not reach the tweeter while you are using a 1st order XO. So I would not do a Neo10 since it beams as you go over 2khz, meaning that it needs to be out of the picture at 5khz, which in turn is too low to protect the tweeter at the volumes I play. So I don't see that I would do anything differently but perhaps building a new mid/tweeter panel with closer placement.

The dominant character is the bass panels of the Tympani and its magnificent midbass. The Neo8 just makes it sound more like what makes a Tympani speaker a Tympani. The ribbon integrates well with the Neo8 array, better than in the original speaker. The Neo8 does not dominate the character of the speaker in that it was dominated by the sound of the ribbon and the bass panels and is still dominated by those characteristics, just that the bottom two octaves of the ribbon are now produced by the Neo8.

[satie]

Satie,

Are you saying that toeing of the speakers can alleviate vertical image height unnaturalness of Maggie speakers?
I haven't found this image height issue to be controllable in any meaningful way.  I believe this is an inherent "time domain" characteristic (which can't be altered) of the speakers resulting from the physical configuration.

I don't listen to mono recordings so haven't really noticed the golf ball effect, but it does beg the question of why a person would choose speakers like Maggies to listen to close-miked recordings.  I assume you don't have mono recordings, but that you sum channels in your normal stereo recordings to adjust the speakers and then switch back to normal stereo operation?

However, it's interesting that imaging seems to be an important listening priority for some folks.  I find the lack of imaging distracting sometimes, but it's the sort of unnaturalness (maybe it should be considered naturalness) that your brain can fairly quickly adapt to even if the recordings are typical poorly recorded studio productions.

Cheers,

Dave.

I am saying that since the Tympani don't have a fixed relative distance between the drivers you can adjust it in a way you can't do with the other 3 way maggies.
The height issue is entirely driven by the recording, you can only adjust it with the forward/backward lean of the speakers ( I use a spirit level to level mine).

I use only recordings made in mono originally, not mixdowns or channel blends. That is why they are useful for the adjustment. I don't use pop recordings  for the most part since they were already quite synthetic by the 50s, with overdubs and reverb and cut up performances where parts of the accompaniment was recorded without the lead etc.

Imaging, and particularly shifting the recording's perspective (usually balcony in classical recordings) to the one I prefer listening to (front rows) is what I am after. It is important to me for the same reason it was important for me to pay up for the front seats. It is important to me that I jigger the system to produce a piano quartet that sounds like it is playing in my room not like it is on a far away stage, for the same reason that I don't go to hear chamber music in a large hall. While my standard arc arrangement puts me roughly in the original acoustic without any magnification effects, I do use other arrangements to bring the chamber ensemble into the room and to move the orchestra into a more desirable perspective. I don't do anything for pop recordings, their inept production values are not worthy of an effort at fidelity, they get whatever I setup for classical and jazz. Surprisingly, they also benefit from my efforts at manipulating the perspective.   

[Emsquare]

First, yes that would be he who pulled my life off the counter and chewed it up. That is at age 11 or 12, he is now 16. Thanks for the Kipling poem.

Part of my goal was to go to time coherent and minimal phase XO, which meant either LR4 or 1st order, Since 1st order was doable in PLLXO, I ended up doing that, and had Marchand do an active LR4. That was a product of my experience with the Vandersteens. To make that feasible with the maggie tweeter, you need to cross it over one or two octaves up from where it XOs on the original design- so that low freq material does not reach the tweeter while you are using a 1st order XO. So I would not do a Neo10 since it beams as you go over 2khz, meaning that it needs to be out of the picture at 5khz, which in turn is too low to protect the tweeter at the volumes I play. So I don't see that I would do anything differently but perhaps building a new mid/tweeter panel with closer placement.

The dominant character is the bass panels of the Tympani and its magnificent midbass. The Neo8 just makes it sound more like what makes a Tympani speaker a Tympani. The ribbon integrates well with the Neo8 array, better than in the original speaker. The Neo8 does not dominate the character of the speaker in that it was dominated by the sound of the ribbon and the bass panels and is still dominated by those characteristics, just that the bottom two octaves of the ribbon are now produced by the Neo8.

You're welcome concerning the Kipling poem.

Now that is an interesting perspective with what you have experienced with your configuration. I would have guessed otherwise with the Neo8's voicing the mids for your speakers. Glad I asked. I actually intend to do something about this when I have the time to invest in it. The trick for me is to keep the exercise fun. And not end up with a whole spare room of discontinued equipment.

Thank you for your thoughts on the matter.

[satie]

Now that is an interesting perspective with what you have experienced with your configuration. I would have guessed otherwise with the Neo8's voicing the mids for your speakers. Glad I asked. I actually intend to do something about this when I have the time to invest in it. The trick for me is to keep the exercise fun. And not end up with a whole spare room of discontinued equipment.

I know you are thinking that because it covers such a wide portion of the speaker's output the Neo8s would dominate the signature, but it does not really do it because it does not stand out and simply does better in the octave stolen from the bass panels and the two octaves stolen from the ribbon. It does not lose its composure like the ribbon does at the bottom of its range, and it is far clearer than the bass panels in the top of their range. And, of course, it is far faster cleaner and more precise than the original mids, while being more sensitive and have better output. Which is why I am saying that it makes the Tympani more like what you would have wanted it to be, but not making it sound like something else.

I played the Tympani as a 2 way with ribbon and bass alone and it still sounds like a Tympani. If I didn't like that signature I would not have gone with a Tympani. But with all that there was a weakness in midrange detail, compression, clarity, etc. which the Neo8 cured. It also made some other things possible, like playing the mids with a triode amp, using 1st order slopes like the original T-1, for mids and tweeter.

[Emsquare]

And you would be exactly right. I assumed the Neo's would dominate the speaker voicing. With that waterfall plot would that be such a bad thing? I have a certain level of trust for the amount of thought and time you have put into this. And time was needed to become very familiar with what I have before I could start to pick out the weaknesses of my speakers. I would not be ashamed to play them for anyone considering the modest investment. However, I notice that I keep pushing the speakers louder over an extended listening session. I could compensate by shifting the crossover point higher. Or I can accept the idea that pairing the ribbon with a set of Neo8's in a separate baffle would be better still. I've been pondering that for well over a year without coming up with anything that seems like a more appealing idea yet.

I do like the picture of your buddy. Holy cow, they're not even our own species yet the bond is there. It's not all roses but what relationship is?

[klao]

I first listened to the Maggie MG 12 with PrimaLuna integrated back in early 2005.  Having read wonderful reviews of all the Apogee speakers during my teens, I kind of biased towards the panel speakers to start with.  I decided to purchase the MG 1.6 later in that year.  Added the CC3 and MC1 for HT setup as well.  From then on, there's no going back to box speakers for me. 

I later upgraded to a used pair of 3.6's in 2007; sold them in 2010 to finance the new 3.7's ordered.  Unfortunately or fortunately, the 3.7's in the colors I wanted did not arrive before Magnepan introduced the 20.7's.  So I said, what the heck.  Now my 20.7's are kept with my dealer while I'm waiting for the new listening room/house to finish.

In the interim, I'm enjoying the 1.7's in my current listening room.

BTW, I bought a pair of PSB Synchrony One B in 2009 for my late father, only because I couldn't find a good used pair of the MG12 in Thailand to fit the budget.