[sunmoon95]

Planar enthusiasts,

Been patiently waiting for these since the initial sneak,

Any insights?




 preview.....

https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/16-woofers-magnepan-ultra-wideband-bass-system-first-listen/

[SteveFord]

The only thing I've heard is they're priced rather high.

[Saturn94]

Magnepan has been teasing with this sub for years with no real details, estimated price, or release date in sight. 

[dB Cooper]

It is sad to see a company as esteemed as Magnepan wasting their time 'solving' problems that were solved nearly fifty years ago by the late (and seemingly largely forgotten) Roy Allison, but the stated design objectives and and design approach and the form factor of this box suggest that is exactly what is happening. It all has to do with speaker driver relationships to room boundaries and crossover points. Biggest difference seems to be that this seems to be a lot of woofers to yield high power handling whereas the Allison systems were fullrange three-ways.
Sometimes I wonder if the reason Allison's discoveries have been overlooked (maybe even ignored) by the audio industry in favor of multi sub configurations is that the industry makes money by selling boxes- the more boxes they get you to buy, the more money they make. Maybe that's why the simple solution gets short shrift.
Allison One (1974)

[mick wolfe]

Reminds me of a far more sophisticated /complex version of the late, great DCM Time Window. A design I'm "guessing" DCM tried to replicate in a 2-way at a much lower price point of course. FWIW and from distant memory, the Time Window with even smaller drivers did just fine in bass response as well.

[Tyson]

It is sad to see a company as esteemed as Magnepan wasting their time 'solving' problems that were solved nearly fifty years ago by the late (and seemingly largely forgotten) Roy Allison, but the stated design objectives and and design approach and the form factor of this box suggest that is exactly what is happening. It all has to do with speaker driver relationships to room boundaries and crossover points. Biggest difference seems to be that this seems to be a lot of woofers to yield high power handling whereas the Allison systems were fullrange three-ways.
Sometimes I wonder if the reason Allison's discoveries have been overlooked (maybe even ignored) by the audio industry in favor of multi sub configurations is that the industry makes money by selling boxes- the more boxes they get you to buy, the more money they make. Maybe that's why the simple solution gets short shrift.
Allison One (1974)

What were the things he did to solve these issues?

[HAL]

The Allison Model 1 and Model 2 speaker were designed to be placed against the front wall.  The Model 2 was a smaller version of the Model 1.

The woofer had to be placed below the 1/4 wavelength distance at its upper frequency range from the floor to the listening height to minimize comb filtering interference in the lower ranges.  Being against the wall makes the mirror image be at 0 distance to the woofers to reduce front wall interference. 

Frequency response was very even, but having a sound stage with depth was not part of the idea.

[Tyson]

The Allison Model 1 and Model 2 speaker were designed to be placed against the front wall.  The Model 2 was a smaller version of the Model 1.

The woofer had to be placed below the 1/4 wavelength distance at its upper frequency range from the floor to the listening height to minimize comb filtering interference in the lower ranges.  Being against the wall makes the mirror image be at 0 distance to the woofers to reduce front wall interference. 

Frequency response was very even, but having a sound stage with depth was not part of the idea.

Gotcha.  So they took into account having a wall boundary directly behind it when they did their baffle step compensation?  Basically bass doesn't have big losses at wavelengths longer than the baffle, when placed up against the wall.  Something like that?

[HAL]

Yes, and minimize the floor bounce loss as well.

[Tyson]

Yes, and minimize the floor bounce loss as well.

Smart.  But, also terrible for imaging, as you noted.

[josh358]

Planar enthusiasts,

Been patiently waiting for these since the initial sneak,

Any insights?




 preview.....

https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/16-woofers-magnepan-ultra-wideband-bass-system-first-listen/

It's in production engineering as we speak, so I'd say not long -- certainly by AXPONA next year, when Wendell Diller expects to show the full spouse-friendly system (12" panels and the woofer -- the combo that was shown as a rough prototype in their market research tour a few years back).

[josh358]

It is sad to see a company as esteemed as Magnepan wasting their time 'solving' problems that were solved nearly fifty years ago by the late (and seemingly largely forgotten) Roy Allison, but the stated design objectives and and design approach and the form factor of this box suggest that is exactly what is happening. It all has to do with speaker driver relationships to room boundaries and crossover points. Biggest difference seems to be that this seems to be a lot of woofers to yield high power handling whereas the Allison systems were fullrange three-ways.
Sometimes I wonder if the reason Allison's discoveries have been overlooked (maybe even ignored) by the audio industry in favor of multi sub configurations is that the industry makes money by selling boxes- the more boxes they get you to buy, the more money they make. Maybe that's why the simple solution gets short shrift.
Allison One (1974)

The triangular form here has a different purpose. This was designed as the woofer for their forthcoming spouse-friendly system -- 12" wide panels. The challenge was to design a capable dipole woofer that was small enough to be easily concealable or unobtrusive, and that had as well a very wide bandwidth so it could cross over to the narrow panels at a relatively high frequency. That in turn meant that it would have to be coupled to the side walls. The triangular design turned out to be the most compact way of satisfying these criteria, and it looks cool to boot.

[stonedeaf]

Wendel's been talking about a subwoofer longer than Elon Musks been flogging the Cybertruck -in both cases I ain't gonna start breathing heavy until I see one at a dealers for sale.

[josh358]

Wendel's been talking about a subwoofer longer than Elon Musks been flogging the Cybertruck -in both cases I ain't gonna start breathing heavy until I see one at a dealers for sale.

Heh, well, I don't blame you, but speaking as someone who worked on this project (but isn't an employee of Magnepan), it's pretty close. Right now, they're working on cosmetic issues and details of construction -- it's a challenge to squeeze all this stuff into a woofer this small, and each possibility involves compromises. To use one example, if you front mount the woofers, you need a spacer for the grille cloth, but if you rear mount them, there are problems with screw accessibility. So which is the better compromise with regard to appearance, price, and robustness? You have to examine different possibilities for grille cloth support, and different possibilities for screw insertion and repair, and that's time consuming. It all has to be considered and decisions made before the speaker goes into production.

Anyway, it's currently product number one in the queue, so I'd say before the next AXPONA is a done deal. Wendell wouldn't ordinarily have shown the prototype -- they usually just notify the dealers and send the first production models to the reviewers, and that's the first anybody hears about a new model -- but in this case, he wanted to win industry acceptance for a dipole woofer as a satisfying solution to the sub-won't-mate-with-a-panel conundrum.

[dB Cooper]

The Allison Model 1 and Model 2 speaker were designed to be placed against the front wall.  The Model 2 was a smaller version of the Model 1.

The woofer had to be placed below the 1/4 wavelength distance at its upper frequency range from the floor to the listening height to minimize comb filtering interference in the lower ranges.  Being against the wall makes the mirror image be at 0 distance to the woofers to reduce front wall interference. 

Frequency response was very even, but having a sound stage with depth was not part of the idea.

I never felt like I had a 'depth deficiency' if by 'depth' you mean actual depth cues present in recordings and not the impressions of depth added by room reflections not part of the original recording and the plethora of room effects that afflict this approach. Both of my Allisons (Model Four and CD8) sounded virtually the same anywhere in the room. (My friends who had them sounded pretty much the same as mine- in completely different rooms. Magnepan's approach appears related aside from the column-of-woofers design approach. It too will be subject to the same laws of physics every designer must wrangle with, and time will tell if it interfaces well (as essentially a 2.1 arrangement) with narrow-dispersion dipoles like the entire Maggie product line.

[josh358]

I never felt like I had a 'depth deficiency' if by 'depth' you mean actual depth cues present in recordings and not the impressions of depth added by room reflections not part of the original recording and the plethora of room effects that afflict this approach. Both of my Allisons (Model Four and CD8) sounded virtually the same anywhere in the room. (My friends who had them sounded pretty much the same as mine- in completely different rooms. Magnepan's approach appears related aside from the column-of-woofers design approach. It too will be subject to the same laws of physics every designer must wrangle with, and time will tell if it interfaces well (as essentially a 2.1 arrangement) with narrow-dispersion dipoles like the entire Maggie product line.

It's a woofer rather than a sub and the default expectation is that it will be used in a 2.2 arrangement, though it may be possible to use it 2.1, depending on a design decision that's being made as we speak. The wife-friendly version with its 12" panel for which it was designed it plays high enough that it might be localized in an asymmetrical arrangement. When used with the larger panels, that would be less of an issue, since it could be crossed over below 100 Hz.

[SteveFord]

Did I read that correctly, they're expecting you to use two of them?

[josh358]

Did I read that correctly, they're expecting you to use two of them?

Indeed. With the CSS, anyway -- it's part of the system, the equivalent of the bass drivers in the traditional panels. It isn't a sub! But it may be possible to use only one in some cases, depending on engineering decisions not yet made.

[whydontumarryit]

Reflected sounds have quite the attraction to the uninitiated and may be the correct way to listen to music in a typical home environment. The thing is, offering more lipstick (decent low frequency response) to a pig (magnepan) just complicates what is obviously a losing battle when realistic, accurate reproduction is wanted.

[SteveFord]

That does it, I'm putting my Maggies out to the curb.