[timind]

That's great advice, not just for maggies, but any audio purchase.

In my experience this is extremely important with Maggies. I've heard them sound wonderful/magical when set up properly in a proper sized room. I've also heard them sound not so wonderful in a room (mine) not suited to them. Luckily I had them in for demo.

[andyr]

I have always been curious about Magnean speakers. Now the 3.7 comes out and with a better low end. People are talking about them.....

I will be using quality McCormack gear.

Apart from calling it "quality" gear, you haven't provided any specs re. the McCormack's output power into 4 ohms.  So you should be aware that the 3.7s may require you to enhance your amplification, to get the maximum out of them. 

Regards,

Andy

[twitch54]

I found 3' is way too close to the wall.  5' minimum, preferably more.

While I agree more space behind is ideal, I disagree with '5 ft min' , for even at 3-4 feet if the back wall is properly treated ...all is well ! But it is true 5-6 ft would be nice !

As with most dipoles that I have experienced, the closer to the wall more absorption and as one gets further away ...diffusion.

[geowak]

Well those are some very fine experiences with Magnepan speakers. Thanks for sharing them.

Andyr- I would be driving them with 200 watts per 4ohm. Would that be enough to get good sound out of them?

Also to all- The midrange and upper freqs will sound realisitic, open, and not boxy. But how can the lower ends be described?

[TONEPUB]

Elizabeth makes the best point; get a demo and you will love them or hate them...

If you don't listen to really dynamic or heavy music (large scale, orchestral, heavy rock or hip hop) you will probably be closer to love.

I've owned quite a  few magnepans over the years and have noticed that while they are a relatively inexpensive speaker for the performance they deliver, the more power you have and the higher quality amplification you can throw at them will always be rewarded.

[Wind Chaser]

Elizabeth makes the best point; get a demo and you will love them or hate them...

I neither loved them nor hated them.  We just shacked up together for a few years.  They were all right in their own unique way.

[andyr]

I neither loved them nor hated them.  We just shacked up together for a few years.  They were all right in their own unique way.

Yes, I guess it wasn't love if you merely shacked up for a few years.    Maggie and I got together nearly 20 years ago and, while I traded her in last year for a new model who could show me a few more "tricks"  , Maggie will be with me until I die.

Regards,

Andy

[andyr]

Andyr- I would be driving them with 200 watts per 4ohm. Would that be enough to get good sound out of them?

It may be ... but not all 200w amps are equal, when it comes to Maggies.  But I run 200w on my bass panels alone (active setup).

If:
a) it's not a large room - say, 300 sq ft
b) you don't listen at headbanging levels, and
c) you don't listen much to large-scale orchestral music,

... it might do.  But (as TonePub pointed out) you might find with large-scale music, the sound gets a bit congested.

Also to all- The midrange and upper freqs will sound realisitic, open, and not boxy. But how can the lower ends be described?

Again, it depends on the bass drive of the McCormack.  But if that's good, and you have them well positioned in the room, you should experience great bass with 3 caveats:
1.  you will need a sub if you're a pipe organ music afficionado! 
2.  the impact of the bass is not as visceral as what, say, Orions will do for you (with their pair of 12" cones each side).
3.  the louder the bass notes and the deeper they are, the more the mylar moves away from the magnets.  This means the mylar moves into a region of lower magnetic field intensity - producing a slight lack of bass definition on the leading edges, compared to cone speakers.  BTW, the 20s & the 20.1s don't have this defect, as they have magnets on both sides of the mylar.

But to me, this is a minor flaw compared to her other attributes. 

Regards,

Andy

[TONEPUB]

Though most magnepan people would frown on this, I've found the Gotham subwoofer to be an excellent match.

[BaMorin]

Well those are some very fine experiences with Magnepan speakers. Thanks for sharing them.

Andyr- I would be driving them with 200 watts per 4ohm. Would that be enough to get good sound out of them?

Also to all- The midrange and upper freqs will sound realisitic, open, and not boxy. But how can the lower ends be described?

Once I got used to the bottom end of my MG-1's (1978, and first pair) I understood that the bass note is accurate. My 3.6's are run without a sub. I haven't found a sub yet that doesn't blur the very bottom.......louder, yes
but interfers with the very bottom of the note

[timind]

When I demoed the MG12s I found the bass to be one of their better attributes. The bass was clean, crisp and very natural sounding. I normally use a James EMB1000 sub but kept it off for most of the demo time as I wanted to hear the Maggies.
The problem I had was male vocals along with imaging, very unnatural. Remember I stated earlier my room was too small. The salesman should have known this and should have guided me away but when I laid out the cash what could he do? His biggest mistake in my book was when he blamed my amp for the problem. My amp sounded wonderful with my speakers.

[SteveFord]

Timind and others bring up a very good point which I can't stress strongly enough: you need to size the speakers to the room size.
If the speakers are too large for the room they will sound like a wall of mud, too small and the soundstage won't be the right size and too close to the walls and they'll just sound "off".
There were some 20.1s on Audiogon recently and they were WAY too big for the room - one look at the picture and I knew why they were for sale.
The Maggie bass is actually quite good but if you want to vibrate the floor a sub is required.  I keep the sub volume low so it doesn't overwhelm the panels and it works for me.
My two cents and YMMV, as they say.

[TitaniumTroy]

1. Dipolar bass, has less room nodes than box type speakers. Hence it will be tighter less boomy.
2. If you purchase a model with a True Ribbon Tweeter, you will have one of the best tweeters you can buy, period.
3.The backwave gives Magnepans, greater power response, which is the sound of the whole room, not just the direct sound like with monkey coffins. Giving them a laid back sound vs a more in your face sound.
4.They sound more like live music, folk,jazz,classical, not to mention Pink Floyd sounds huge which is the way they should sound.
5. Listener fatigue is not a factor as with many even expensive speeakers. It caused in general by distortion from the speaker, which brain tries to compensate for. After maybe an hour your brain gets tired trying to correct the problem and you just want to turn the speakers off.

Magnepans however are not, for people who want a lot of bass and midbass at very high volumes, with a lot of punch, like the kind that you can feel in your chest. Then you might like something like the Klipsch Cornwalls, which are horn based speakers.

A pair of used MGIIIAs might be a good start, if you want to upgrade or do not like them just put them back on Audiogon or ebay. That is how I started out with Maggies.

Troy

[I.Greyhound Fan]

I can get fairly good room shaking bass from my MG 1.6's coupled with my Parasound A21 amp and my hybrid AVA preamp and DAC depending upon what tubes (Amprex 6CG7's) I use in the preamp and DAC.  It won't shake or go as low as a sub but I'm not lacking in bass.  I used to use a Velodyne sub but not any more.  Of course the Dampening factor of the Parasound (greater than 1,000) helps keep it nice and tight.

[TitaniumTroy]

I recently improved the bass for speakers by adding some plywood wings to the sides of speakers. Mine are folded back to due to limited space. They work by lowering the frequency at which the front and backwave cancel each other out. It also helped out the imaging, so much I disconnected my center channel.

I find that diffusion on the wall behind the speaker helps with clarity, I tried absorption but did not care for the results.

[ajzepp]

, not to mention Pink Floyd sounds huge which is the way they should sound.

Pink Floyd sound amazing on Maggies, I agree. Another really freaky demo is the song "Free Radicals" by the Flaming Lips 

[Brandon B]

I'd reiterate  the necessity of a home addition.  I had MMGs several years back, and went to buy 1.6s.  I was completely puzzled, as the pair in the showroom (McIntosh components, nice wall treatments, etc), playing an SACD that I brought and was quite familiar with, sounded worse than my MMGs at home.  Store owner said they had at least 100 hours on them, but they were dry and flat to me (too much room treatment?).

I figured it was not possible they were worse than the MMGs and bought them anyway.  Got them home and after a minimal break in (2-3 hours), there was what I was expecting, same sort of sound, but improved in every way.  And I have talked to a couple other people with similar stories.

Also ditto on the power requirement.  I'd call a couple hundred watts into 4 ohms a minimum to really open them up. 

My 1.6s expanded to a full surround setup, with MMGs playing surrounds and MGMC1s playing rears.

[ajzepp]

I had a whole lot of GIK treatments up in my last room when I had a pair of box speakers. When I went back to Maggies, I found I had to take about 1/3 of the panels down to get things to where the room had life again. Now I just have a couple corner traps up front and one at each first reflection point.

[pelliott321]

I thought that the fact that the Maggy's are dipoles the sidewalls are actually out of play.
My room is only 12ft wide and I am using MagIII'a with the panels about 2ft from the walls ribbons out, I am getting a pretty good solid image and quite happy. my seat is only 8ft away so I am almost nearfield.
The only treatment I am thinking about is diffusion on my ceiling just in front of the panels.  My ceiling is quite low at just 7ft, but one of the acoustic companies I talked with said not to worry with Maggys because there is no vertical dispersion taller than the panel so I am at a loss.   

[josh358]

He's right, one of the advantages of line sources is that they don't suffer from floor and ceiling reflections, in fact they make use of them at lower frequencies. Essentially what happens is that the floor and ceiling reflections create an infinitely long line source!

The side walls are partly out of play. The speakers radiate no sound to the side but they do radiate some at intermediate angles, so whether you'll hear a first reflection off the side walls and to what degree depends on the angle of your speaker. If you put a mirror along the wall and turn the speaker until from your listening seat you're looking at its reflection exactly side on, you'll have eliminated the side wall reflection entirely. I've done it and you can hear the precise point at which it happens. In any case, the bottom line is side wall reflections are much less critical than they are for monopoles, certainly not the first thing you'd address, if you have to address it at all, unless your speakers are too close to the sides.

The main concern with planars is the backwave reflection off the front wall. Most people seem to prefer diffusion to reflection if the speakers are at a reasonable distance from the wall. They also apparently sound better and better all the way up to 15' from the wall -- I say apparently because I've never had a listening room large enough to pull them out that far! But those who have say the sense of depth you get when you do is nothing less than spectacular. I've heard it said that brick is the ideal front wall material. But some people do prefer absorption because they prefer smaller scale works and find the imaging more accurate. So as always, you have to try it . . .