[jimdgoulding]

Well, I'll be a (fill in the blank).
Sometime back Wendell took me to task over "3.7s on steroids" as I guess that the implication was just more brawn.
I did a little fooling around with the preamp and phono pre earlier tonight and put on "One of These Days" from Pink Floyd's Meddle.
During a slide guitar section I had a moment of panic as I thougt a tube was going haywire.
Nope.  It was a slide guitar passage which zipped from the bottom portion of the left speaker over to the bottom portion of the right speaker and then the guitar swirled up the right speaker. 
I've heard this album since it was released back in the early 70s and I've never heard that passage before as it was always buried in the mix.
Increased resolution would be the phrase (along with moving a lot more air).
Very impressive.

Back  to Meddle.  The dog really hates this album, ha, ha.

What, then, is "on steroids"  Could it apply to 1.7's?

[SteveFord]

They did a trickle-up strategy: they updated the 1.6s and then did the 3.6 and then the 20.1.

What I was trying to get across was it's the same basic sound but a lot more of it (if that makes any sense).
The 3.7s sound like 1.7s but more of them: larger soundstage, better highs, they go lower and there's more detail.
The 20.7s sound like 3.7s but there's more everything: lows, mids, highs, detail, larger soundstage, they play louder, etc.
One thing that still surprises me is how good they sound at low volumes: they seem to do that better than any of the other models.

If the room isn't too large the 1.7s sound tremendous.  They're just perfect in the upstairs bedroom.
If they sound a little dwarfed you'll be trading them in for the 3.7s.

I suspect that the new MMGs are going to sound like smaller 1.7s.
I have the first version MMG and they're kind of warm and wooly sounding.   It could be the amp but I think it's mostly that they're showing their age.

What I noticed most in the 1.7s is how much better they did at low volumes compared to the 1.6s.  I really had to put some power to the 1.6s to wake them up.  The 1.7s come alive at a much lower volume setting. 

Does that help?

[jimdgoulding]

Yes.  Very encouraging to me.  Thanks.  I still have a concern about my L07 monoblocks .  They weigh enough that you'd think they could drive a train.

[TONEPUB]

Magnepan reminds me a lot of what Acoustat did back in the 80s, all of the speakers shared a "family" sound, and each was better suited to an increasingly bigger room.  I agree with Steve.  1.7s in a well optimized small to medium room come fairly close to what the 20.7s do in a big room, though the big speaker still moves more air and is more spacious because of increased panel area.

Other than my old Tympani IV's, The 20.1/20.7 are definitely my favorite magnepans.  Big panel speakers are really pretty special.

[SteveFord]

Tonepub got it across much better than I was able to - thanks!
Several years ago I saw Jeff Beck play in a medium sized venue in Scranton, PA and the following night after work I listened to the same material on the 1.7s at roughly the same volume.  Our seats were about 21 rows back. 
Aside from the lowered bass output the sound was the same.  Close your eyes and you're there.
If I had a real sub upstairs instead of the little NHT "subwoofer" I could have duplicated the sound from top to bottom.

You know how you leave a concert and you feel drained because you're so involved in what's going on? 
The 1.7s can do that if you crank the volume but the IIIAs, 3.6s and 3.7s I was using downstairs never did.
The 20.7s do that and it's from what Tonepub was talking about, they're sized for the room. 
A little oversized but you work with what you've got.
The 3.7s were just a little bit too small for the living room to give you that totally drained from immersion feeling.

Wendell's been doing this a long time and is a pretty smart cookie.
I wonder if he didn't encounter the exact same situation and that's what got him to thinking about adding DMWs to the 3.7s? 
He looks at things from a speaker designer's perspective so he'd go on along the lines of correcting bass and midbass room dependent anomolies or some such nonsense.
I'm sure it does that but I'd look at it as making the speakers a bit larger for increased impact. 
Who's going to RAMF and can give a report?

[josh358]

Wendell is an inveterate tinkerer and seems to try everything!

As he explained it to me, it's a matter of tuning woofer area to the room. They can only design to an average-sized room, besides which, rooms have insane frequency swings in the bass, and placement of speaker and listener matters as well. I've seen measurements of the same planar in different rooms that, as far as the bass is concerned, might have been measurements of entirely different speakers.

And, as you've pointed out, too much bass area for a room can be a problem too. Fortunately, it can easily be equalized down as you're doing and then you end up with extra headroom. We should all have such problems . . .

[Rclark]

Magnepan reminds me a lot of what Acoustat did back in the 80s, all of the speakers shared a "family" sound, and each was better suited to an increasingly bigger room.  I agree with Steve.  1.7s in a well optimized small to medium room come fairly close to what the 20.7s do in a big room, though the big speaker still moves more air and is more spacious because of increased panel area.

Other than my old Tympani IV's, The 20.1/20.7 are definitely my favorite magnepans.  Big panel speakers are really pretty special.

And that's why I chose modded MMG instead of shoving big 3's into my small room. they're all mylar of different size. I'm small to medium room for the next few years at least.

(although I'm fully convinced my setup with Ncores could also rock a pretty large room too)

[medium jim]

Magnepan reminds me a lot of what Acoustat did back in the 80s, all of the speakers shared a "family" sound, and each was better suited to an increasingly bigger room.  I agree with Steve.  1.7s in a well optimized small to medium room come fairly close to what the 20.7s do in a big room, though the big speaker still moves more air and is more spacious because of increased panel area.

Other than my old Tympani IV's, The 20.1/20.7 are definitely my favorite magnepans.  Big panel speakers are really pretty special.

Actually 1.6 or 1.7's would have been the choice for a small to medium sized room according to TONEPUB.

Jim

[kevin360]

What, then, is "on steroids"  Could it apply to 1.7's?

I don't know about their being 'on steroids', but I love the sound of the 1.7s. In a way, they are the most 'stat' sounding speaker in Magnepan's lineup - very much 'of one cloth'. Like all planars that I've heard, I think they need some help on the bottom end, but they are stellar in all other respects. If I hadn't auditioned a pair of 3.6s and heard that ribbon tweeter (best tweeter I have ever heard), I would have been very happy to purchase the 1.7s. 

[medium jim]

I don't know about their being 'on steroids', but I love the sound of the 1.7s. In a way, they are the most 'stat' sounding speaker in Magnepan's lineup - very much 'of one cloth'. Like all planars that I've heard, I think they need some help on the bottom end, but they are stellar in all other respects. If I hadn't auditioned a pair of 3.6s and heard that ribbon tweeter (best tweeter I have ever heard), I would have been very happy to purchase the 1.7s.

Kevin:

That was the buy in for me, the true ribbon tweeter.   I was ready to by a used pair of 3.6's and then for some inexplicable reason, I perused Craigslist and saw the 2.5's that I ended up with and after some reparative surgery on them, couldn't be happier.  I'm on the fulcrum for room size with them, but don't at all feel stuffed or cramped with them. 

Moreover, there just isn't a speaker that can represent the mids and highs as well as magnepan's with true ribbons.  The difference between my 1.6's and 2.5's is very noticeable and I have to believe it is due to the ribbon vs quasi ribbon. 

Enter the 1.7 with an improved super tweeter that really has bridged the gap!

Jim

[jhm731]

Enjoyed reading this thread about Steve's adventures with his new 20.7s, and the comments from Magnepan owners about the other Maggies.

I haven't owned any Maggies since my T-1Ds.

Question, do you folks feel the 20.7s are too big for a room like HP has them in?

[SteveFord]

I would think so - he must have bass out the wazoo (to put it in audiophile terms).

[josh358]

Enjoyed reading this thread about Steve's adventures with his new 20.7s, and the comments from Magnepan owners about the other Maggies.

I haven't owned any Maggies since my T-1Ds.

Question, do you folks feel the 20.7s are too big for a room like HP has them in?

I would have thought so, but according to Wendell Diller, that room is great with Maggies -- over the years, they've even had Tympanis in there.

We were speculating on why in some other threads. Those facets in front may have something to do with it, deflecting the rear wave to the side. It's hard to tell exactly since the floor plan we came up with is only approximate.

Usually, the problem you have with big Maggies in small rooms is too much bass, but that's easily tamed as Steve is doing, and then you have more bass headroom, a plus. But as Wendell also points out, the acoustical footprint of the larger Maggies is actually smaller than the small ones -- the center of the midrange in the three ways is closer to the tweeter than the woofer in the two ways is. That means you can listen closer without too much lateral image smear.

Of course, big rooms are usually more desirable overall, since the further they are from walls the more image depth and width you get, and the less colored the sound. But they can work nicely and HP's room appears to mitigate that problem thanks to the facets (which are similar to the facets used to create a reflection-free zone in studio control rooms).

[jimdgoulding]

If that is the room with a bay window, that could have something to do with the sound.  Need a little help with the word "facets" as in what is meant.  Thankx.

[jimdgoulding]

You'd be amazed at how much more grunt your system would have with something like a pair of REL's or a Gotham crossed over at about 25hz.

Of course, you just bought 20.7's, but don't rule it out when you're ready for the next round.  One of my guys has a pair of F112's crossed at 25hz with his 20.1s and the improvement was staggering.  Listening to "the Sonus Faber" speakers at Sumiko, which go down solid to 20hz still benefit from a couple stacks of REL G1s.  You can barely hear the diff when they are switched off from a sense of bass drive, but the room ambience really opens up with the subs.  I still freak out when I hear that.

Where would you recommend crossing the 1.7's over with subs?  Thanks.

[SteveFord]

No right angle corners back there - most people have to use plants or bass traps or something. 
Crap, burned my dinner while I was looking at his room layout. 
Maybe the dog would like it?

I would start at 40hz and work my way down if need be (that's for the 1.7s). 

[SteveFord]

Both Berni and Thunderbrick have theirs in really big rooms so I'm sure that theirs were just plug 'n' play. 
Perhaps they'll chime in?
There's no way I could have gotten these speakers to work in the space that I have if Kara Chafee hadn't been kind enough to run some calculations and send me a bag of coupling caps to experiment with.  The bass would have simply been overwhelming unless I wanted to be known as the Bass Trap King of Pennsyltucky.  It does have a certain ring to it but even so...
deHavilland has won a customer for life as that was just so nice of her to take the time to help me out.

[medium jim]

Both Berni and Thunderbrick have theirs in really big rooms so I'm sure that theirs were just plug 'n' play. 
Perhaps they'll chime in?
There's no way I could have gotten these speakers to work in the space that I have if Kara Chafee hadn't been kind enough to run some calculations and send me a bag of coupling caps to experiment with.  The bass would have simply been overwhelming unless I wanted to be known as the Bass Trap King of Pennsyltucky.  It does have a certain ring to it but even so...
deHavilland has won a customer for life as that was just so nice of her to take the time to help me out.

Always good to have enough bass without subs and a company that is willing to send their customers capacitors to fine tune things.

Some day down the road I hope to have a bigger room to really let my Maggie's breathe in.  When I heard the 20.7's, the room was approximately 20x24' and with a 12' ceiling.  No real treatments other than a couple of fake ficus plants.  I could live with the sound of them for a long time if I had to

Jim

[josh358]

If that is the room with a bay window, that could have something to do with the sound.  Need a little help with the word "facets" as in what is meant.  Thankx.

Yes, I was referring to the angled sides of the bay window. Here's a picture, you can see that some of the rear wave is going to be reflected off the angles, rather than undergoing the usual corner double bounce that makes the sound wrap around at the corners (speaker - front wall  on side wall side of speaker - side wall - ears).

http://www.hpsoundings.com/2012/12/1170/

[medium jim]

Maybe not the correct thread, but to me Magnepan panels load or energize a room completely different than cone speakers.  Because of this, integration with subs is a bit more difficult, sans Magnepan's own bass drivers. 

One advantage is that the sound pressure from panels don't travel the same distances as do box speakers. 

Jim