[josh358]

Update on my quest for Maggies for my Music/HT system. I spoke with Wendell earlier this week to get his thoughts on going with MMG/1.2/1.7 or MC1's as mains in my room (issue was that 3' was the max I could move them out from the front wall), Wendell did not see that as a major issue, his opinion was that the larger Maggies would not be any more compromised than my current box speakers, and recommended I go to see the NJ dealer (The Audio Connection) for a demo.

I demoed 1.7's and 1.2's at The Audio Connection this week, and decided that 1.7's were my preferred choice, WAF pending. Since then, I've picked up my used MC1's, positioned them the best I could in the main L/R position, crossed them over at 80Hz, and listened for about an hour to some of my favorites. Came away thoroughly impressed by the MC1's, amazing what they could do, everyone in the family could hear the difference. Now that my significant other has seen the MC1's, I received the go ahead to order the 1.7's, so I'll be pulling the trigger tomorrow. What makes the decision even easier was that the dealer is giving me a 2 week period to try them out, if for any reason they don't work for me I can receive full credit/exchange. Was also happy so see that my Anthem receiver could drive to MC1's to more than satisfying levels w/o any issues.

Thanks again to everyone for their thoughts & inputs.

Hey, congratulations. Let us know how it turns out.

[SteveFord]

You owe your wife a duck dinner.

[Ekeman]

You owe your wife a duck dinner.

Can't afford to after blowing the budget on the Maggies, we'll be looking at chicken salad.

Seriously, she really surprised me when I got the "approval" for the 1.7's, there is a catch, the family room is going to be repainted (25x16 with vaulted ceilings), fair trade, I'll take it.

[SteveFord]

It's worth slapping a little paint around.
I've got Jethro Tull going through the 1.7s right now and there's a very large smile on my face.
It makes up for all the crap I go through during the day.
Enjoy!

[martino3]

Over the last 10 years my MMGs have produced nothing but pure joy as long as I used decent quality power amps of over 150 wpc.  Laugh if you want, but I have had great results with two old, inexpensive Audio Source amps: the Amp 3 and Amp 300, both of which were perfectly stable at 5 ohms. 

[Ekeman]

Update, I got the 1.7's and set them up on Saturday, and have been continuously running them on music/TV/HT to break them in. I've got them about 30" out from the front wall, tweeters on the outside, toed in so that the tweeters cross about a foot behind the "sweet spot", and some silk trees behind the speakers to act as diffusers. Speakers are about 8' apart, and 10' to the sweet spot. First impressions, though I haven't had a chance to do any real critical listening yet:

- For watching TV, we don't have the center (CC3) set up yet, and are using the 1.7's in phantom center channel mode, with the tweeters on the outside and toed in to cross behind the listener, the 1.7's do a pretty good job at presenting a viable center channel image from any position on the couch, it doesn't collapse at either extreme L/R position. I wasn't able to create this wide of an effect with my previous box speakers.

- Listening to music, the image is huge and airy, now I understand what other folks have referred to as the "big voice" effect. Impressed by the size of the sweet spot, though the center seat is best, the image doesn't collapse when you move off center, but rather it's a different view into the presentation. One of the most obvious differences with the Maggies is the way you hear the snap of the drum at the moment of impact, much more realistic than my previous speaker. I'm crossing over to my 12" sealed sub at 60 Hz, and the sub is integrating very well with the 1.7's.

- Walking around the family room with music playing, I like the way the entire room is filled with music. I never felt that the soundfield collapsed to just the left or right speaker being heard, rather the position in the concert hall has changed. Music is very listenable throughout the room.

- So far so good running the 1.7's with my Anthem receiver, playing music/HT as loud as I would desire with no evidence of clipping, after about an hour of "loud" music I touched the receiver and it was warmer than usual, but nowhere close to hot or uncomfortably warm.

To sum up, quite happy with my limited experience, I can already see that once you have a panel type speaker it will be hard to go back to boxes.

Looking forward to continuing the break-in, and playing some more with toe-in, positioning, diffusion, etc., might try switching the tweeters to the inside once I've got 100+ hours on the speakers and see what effect that has on the sweet spot.

[bpape]

Can't afford to after blowing the budget on the Maggies, we'll be looking at chicken salad.

Seriously, she really surprised me when I got the "approval" for the 1.7's, there is a catch, the family room is going to be repainted (25x16 with vaulted ceilings), fair trade, I'll take it.

I'll trade painting a room for new speakers any day.  She sounds like a keeper to me.

Bryan

[Mr. Orange]

Congrats on your new Maggie HT set up! When I had my 5.1 HT set up it consisted of 1.5s in front with a CC3 and a Martin Logan Depth sub with a pair of 1.0 imp in the back. I really enjoyed it while it was up and running. I was using California Audio Labs for a processor and an ATI AT2505 amp. I always had plenty of juice!

[Ekeman]

Latest update, I've got about 50+ hrs on my 1.7's, reversed the tweeter positions such that the tweeters are on the inside, toed in to the center position of the couch (my sweet spot for listening). Still impressed with size of the sweet spot even with the tweeters inside, though I don't think it is quite as large as when the tweeters were on the outside. The tradeoff is additional detail and an even more realistic 3D image. I noticed a large difference in the sound somewhere after the first 10-15 hrs, absolutely impressed by the quality, without a doubt the best speakers I have ever owned. I've also run the room EQ program (ARC) on my Anthem receiver, and attached the file for anyone interested. Prior to running ARC, I thought the 1.7's sounded very good, but a little thick on male voices and the upper bass. After running ARC, the "thickness" cleared up, and I didn't notice any artifacts that detracted from the overall quality of the sound. The graph shows three traces, the RED trace is the uncorrected measurement, BLUE trace is the target curve, and the GREEN trace is the calculated response after correction. Note that the measurement trace is an average of six measurements, center of couch, l/r of the center position, then repeated the same sequence approximately 18" forward of the initial measurements. I also crossed over the 1.7's  to my 12" sealed sub at 60Hz, found this to be a good crossover frequency without detracting from the 1.7's low frequency capability.