Magnepan CC5 Review: Center Channel for a 2 Channel Guy?

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SteveFord

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The Problem


                                       Wife
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Room

What's a mother to do?
« Last Edit: 9 Nov 2012, 11:47 pm by SteveFord »

josh358

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Re: Center Channel for a 2 Channel Guy?
« Reply #1 on: 9 Nov 2012, 10:55 pm »
Learn from a pro.






SteveFord

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Re: Center Channel for a 2 Channel Guy?
« Reply #2 on: 9 Nov 2012, 11:02 pm »
Sorry, no stinkin' politicians can help me.
Artillary is the answer!



                                   Bryston 3B                                                                   
                                                                                                         

                                                                                                                                                Hafler XL280


 BillD modified Carver C1, Sherwood caught in the pic

 

The Box

Actual details to follow shortly - I have a bit of a construction project underway...

Update for the first photo:
 The wife says that it should just show a photo of me as I am the problem!
« Last Edit: 10 Nov 2012, 04:39 am by SteveFord »

josh358

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Re: Magnepan CC5 Review: Center Channel for a 2 Channel Guy?
« Reply #3 on: 10 Nov 2012, 02:20 am »
I thought that was you in the picture below your wife?

ajzepp

Re: Magnepan CC5 Review: Center Channel for a 2 Channel Guy?
« Reply #4 on: 10 Nov 2012, 02:56 am »
So are we talking about 3 channel stereo? How does that work?

satfrat

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Re: Magnepan CC5 Review: Center Channel for a 2 Channel Guy?
« Reply #5 on: 10 Nov 2012, 03:23 am »
Your wife is very wise, so what's the construction project Steve, a doghouse for you & the pup?  :lol:

Cheers,
Robin

SteveFord

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Re: Magnepan CC5 Review: Center Channel for a 2 Channel Guy?
« Reply #6 on: 10 Nov 2012, 04:37 am »
I'm afraid that would be a doghouse built for one - me.
The dog and I actually look a lot alike; I'm hairier but he sheds more which is the impetus for this latest round of merriment.

medium jim

Re: Center Channel for a 2 Channel Guy?
« Reply #7 on: 10 Nov 2012, 05:53 am »
Learn from a pro.




Pro at what, sending our jobs to China, India and other places?

Jim

ajzepp

Re: Magnepan CC5 Review: Center Channel for a 2 Channel Guy?
« Reply #8 on: 10 Nov 2012, 06:56 am »
Well, I guess we know who MJ voted for!

Rclark

Re: Magnepan CC5 Review: Center Channel for a 2 Channel Guy?
« Reply #9 on: 10 Nov 2012, 07:38 am »
I thought that was you in the picture below your wife?

 :lol: :thumb:

josh358

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Re: Center Channel for a 2 Channel Guy?
« Reply #10 on: 11 Nov 2012, 12:06 am »
Pro at what, sending our jobs to China, India and other places?

Jim
So as not to open an off-topic political discussion, I'll just point out that I was referring to Seamus. :-)

medium jim

Re: Magnepan CC5 Review: Center Channel for a 2 Channel Guy?
« Reply #11 on: 11 Nov 2012, 12:11 am »
Josh:

Fair enough.   

Jim

SteveFord

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Re: Magnepan CC5 Review: Center Channel for a 2 Channel Guy?
« Reply #12 on: 11 Nov 2012, 09:19 pm »
Where were we?  Oh yes, the CC5.
The problem is I can't exactly set things up like I'd prefer due to my intransigent better half digging her heels in SO when life gives you lemons you squeeze them.  Sometimes squeezing Lynda's lemons helps but not this time so I called up Wendell at Magnepan and explained my dilemma.
After some commiserating about my having suffered the torments of the damned at the paws of that infernal Molly dog he decided that a CC5 would be the ticket. 
Not knowing any better, I said okay. 
Set up was a puzzler for me as if it's not two channel I'm kinda stumped.  I've got a two channel preamp w/ a sub piggy backed onto a main out so what do I do? 
The answer was to run to Rat Shack and pick up a Y adaptor: two male RCA to one female.  That goes to a main out which goes to the amp which drives the CC5.  As luck would have it, AVNerdguy had just recapped a Bryston 3B Pro for me and it has a gain pots on the front.  I switched that to mono, hooked the amp up to the preamp (using an XLR to RCA adaptor on the amp from Parts Express which then goes to the Y adaptor), ran some speaker cables from the Bryston to the CC5 and I was in bidniss!
I'm using AVNerdguy's old hot rodded Hafler XL280 to run the MMGs and it was just a matter of adjusting the gain pot on the Bryston until everything blended in. 


Much ado is made on the Magnepan site about how difficult it is to set this sucker up so you'll need to use the enclosed CD or else you're asking for Big Trouble.  I didn't see any enclosed CD so I did it the way I do everything: by eyebone and by earbone.
To my ears, if the MMGs are at 100% the CC5 at 60-70% worked out best.  If the volume for the CC5 was up too much vocals kind of barked out at me and the entire soundstage was pulled to the center with the MMGs being pushed to the back like an unwanted mariachi band at a wedding reception.
Listen, turn the gain screw on the Bryston, walk around, turn the screw a bit this way, a bit that way, perfect.
It was pretty easy to set it up and the end result is a seamless soundstage throughout the room.
With the Magnepans they have to go big to achieve a realistic soundstage with two speakers (there's other reasons for the big boys but that's one of them).  If you look at the room, one thing that really sticks out like a sore thumb is just how far apart the little MMGs are.


When it's balanced correctly, the CC5 takes up the slack in the center and gets rid of that weird hole I had going on.  Now you can walk from one side of the room to the other and it's a wall of sound that squirrely old Phil Spector could only dream of.
I understand that Mr. Spector is currently enjoying one of these which isn't even close:


Eat your heart out, bud!
With the sound now coming from the entire wall, movies and television are also greatly improved as well.  Sound quality, at least - the programming is still wretched.  Because the CC5 is curved the sound is dispersed in a pretty wide field so you can understand whatever it is that they're mumbling about no matter how far off axis you're sitting.
The dog still has the best seat in the house for movies.  Go figure.
Initially I wanted to put the CC5 up top and have it angled downwards but I was overruled by she who must be obeyed.  We ended up setting it under the television and it was a perfect fit.  I'm told that if the CC5 was any bigger we'd have problems which sounded rather ominious at the time.  Luckily, it's 3' wide by 10" tall. 


and like all of the Magnepans it's a thin dipole but it only needs to be a foot or two out from the wall which is a good thing.



Swiping the info from the factory website, the CC5 employs a horizontal, curved quasi-ribbon midrange/tweeter and quasi-ribbon super-tweeter with a range from 200-20K hz.  It's no subwoofer but it's not meant to be.  I was a little worried about running the Bryston mono into a 3 Ohm load but it runs cool and sounds just fine.
What the CC5 does is it allows you to use two smaller main Maggies in a large room and then it fills in the hole in the center and it pulls the sound together.  You don't have that channel here and other channel way the hell over there, you have a large, musical wall.
The Beatles mused upon how cool it would be to have musical wallpaper; we may not have that but this is pretty damned close.

You wouldn't want to just listen to a CC5 by itself but it does blend in nicely with the MMGs and I would suspect the 1.7s.  As I said, get the sound up too high and it seems "shouty" but blend it in and it's seamless. 

The ultimate arbitrator is the dreaded Mother In Law so it was with some trepidation that I let the system warm up in preperation for her afternoon Spanish soap operas.  The result?



She likes it - it gets the Mother In Law stamp of approval!

Good job, Magnepan!




josh358

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Re: Magnepan CC5 Review: Center Channel for a 2 Channel Guy?
« Reply #13 on: 11 Nov 2012, 11:03 pm »
Whew! Glad it worked out. Note, however, that I do not plan to let our dog see this post. No sense putting ideas in his little furry head. Bad enough that the excellent rectangular room I'm sitting in now is slated to become the library while I have to shoehorn everything into an overgrown closet.

SteveFord

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Re: Magnepan CC5 Review: Center Channel for a 2 Channel Guy?
« Reply #14 on: 12 Nov 2012, 01:39 am »
Dogs are pretty easy going, spouses tend to be difficult.

Oh, I heard from Wendell and he says that if I had a processor with bass management the CC5 wouldn't sound "shouty" at a higher relative level.  That could be but I work with what I have. 
The Carver C1 preamp has sentimental value as it was the developmental test mule which belonged to a friend who passed away last year.  He modified the bejeezus out of the thing and it sounds pretty darned good.

berni

Re: Magnepan CC5 Review: Center Channel for a 2 Channel Guy?
« Reply #15 on: 12 Nov 2012, 07:30 am »
The CC5 is a very nice thing, but a big one....Have been thinking to try one for myself, hate it when I hear a strange sound coming from a small center speaker. :lol:
My thought would be try it without the board covering it all in in a cavet . I know you have this board for having a support for the TV, but I think it would be a improvement  without it...

SteveFord

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Re: Magnepan CC5 Review: Center Channel for a 2 Channel Guy?
« Reply #16 on: 12 Nov 2012, 11:07 am »
When the wife is gone today I'm going to drop her TV down and stick the CC5 up above it.
It has little feet on the bottom which naturally angle it downwards so that's where it belongs.
Domestic harmony, wherefore art thou?

berni

Re: Magnepan CC5 Review: Center Channel for a 2 Channel Guy?
« Reply #17 on: 12 Nov 2012, 12:52 pm »
Why do  we all make some  changes when the wife is outside :?? :roll: :D

SteveFord

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Re: Magnepan CC5 Review: Center Channel for a 2 Channel Guy?
« Reply #18 on: 12 Nov 2012, 01:29 pm »
Because we're old enough to know better! 
They can get a little ornery at times and if mama ain't happy, nobody's happy.

I did have a few minutes to try out my initial plan (drop the flat screen, CC5 up top) and it does sound better that way as the sound is more widely dispersed.  If I do some clutter reogranization I should get it to look acceptable which is what Lynda's concerned about. 
I don't blame her as I've taken over every square inch of the place but it'll work out.

berni

Re: Magnepan CC5 Review: Center Channel for a 2 Channel Guy?
« Reply #19 on: 12 Nov 2012, 02:44 pm »
The simpliest way would be to take everything away and hang the flat screen on the wall.
And I am shure your wife will approve it.