[andyr]

Hi Greg,

Wendell's response -

"Bass driver magnet and the perforated steel pole piece have a slight curvature by design to allow for the travel of the diaphragm."

Wendell

Thanks, James (& Wendell).  As expected. 

Regards,

Andy

[James Tanner]

Looks like they're very close to the back wall.  Is this really where you put them?

Hi Calypte

In the small room (16x12) they are about 2.5 feet from the back wall - long wall - in the larger room (23x17) they are about 4 feet from the back wall - short wall.

I have always found in the many soundrooms I have had over the years that there is a magic spot where the speaker 'couples' to the room and provides the best frequency response and soundstaging given a specfic speaker type.  I have played with placement a lot and in these specific  rooms and the surprising thing in the small room was move the speakers out another 6 inches and it all turns ugly.  I had a pair of Quad 2905's in the small room previously and they seem to really like the same location - go figure

By the way for what it's worth I am finding that arranging the speakers closer to the front wall and moving the listening position closer to the front wall as well seems to work better than bringing the speakers way into the room and sitting more to the rear of the room.   Obviously you have to deal with the early reflection issues off the back wall the closer the dipoles are to the back wall.  As always experimentation of both speaker and listening position is well worth the effort.

james

[James Tanner]

Hi Folks,

Here is something I put together a few years ago on the older MG1.6's:

Magnepan MG1.6QR Speaker – James Tanner, Bryston:

Hi All

Below are my comments on the Magnepan MG-1.6QR loudspeakers in one of my demo rooms. There is a preamble I gave (room acoustics, my history and bias’s) with my review on the MG3.6’s and Thiel 3.7’s earlier this year which you can refer to if you wish.

Thoughts on the Magnepan MG-1.6QR speakers:
I have 3 different soundrooms but eventually chose the smallest of my rooms for final auditions. The room is (16x12x8)The speakers are on the LONG wall and are 2.5 feet from the front wall – angled in at about 30 degrees – tweeters on the outside.  They are 2.5 feet from the side wall and 9 feet apart center to center. I am sitting about 9 feet back. As I stated in my earlier posting the speaker/room interface has to be considered in totality when evaluating a specific speaker in a specific room and the Magneplanar 1.6QR is a very good example of why that is. The speaker is a Dipole so the radiation pattern looks like a figure ‘8’ pointing at the listener. As a result there is NOT a lot of reflected sound energy bouncing back from the ceiling, floor and side walls. The energy is concentrated to the front and rear of the speaker. With tons of reflected, though delayed, energy from the back wall.

The technical aspects of the speaker I will pass on as they are readily available in full at http://www.magnepan.com/model_MG_16

To start with I would also like to put to rest some myths about dipole panel type speakers:

They are hard to place --- Wrong!
In fact, given the dispersion characteristics, as detailed above, the only concern you have with a panel dipole is the reflective nature of the front wall behind the speakers. Typical monopole (point source) speakers radiate energy in an omni-directional pattern at certain frequencies and a highly directional pattern at other frequencies so the reflective characteristics and the standing wave patterns of the listening room dimensions play a very large part in the final outcome of sound quality. In fact, I would say getting the room speaker interface correct is going to do more to providing you with state of the art sound than any other aspect of your sound system. Expensive speakers placed incorrectly can sound much worse than medium priced speakers placed accurately.

So the advantage of a dipole panel is that the wave launch from the speaker is such that the floor and ceiling and sidewall reflections and room nodes are acoustically discriminated against. There is no energy in the ‘plane’ of the diaphragm with a dipole panel. What that means is that there are no early reflections coming from the floor, ceiling, or sidewalls. Early reflections produce what is called ‘comb-filtering’ which generates dips and peaks in the in-room frequency response. So contrary to popular belief the dipole is actually much easier to place than a more conventional omni or point source speaker. All you have to deal with is the front wall reflective issue. Many people have to use their basements or spare rooms for their audio/video systems and typically these rooms leave a lot to be desired acoustically. Well, take a dipole and place it properly and that lousy sound room can come to life- reason --- the dimensions and surfaces of the crappy basement room are much less instrumental in affecting the overall sound quality.

You need a big room for panel dipoles----Wrong!
Obviously the size of the speaker has an effect on the room size required (MG20.1 for example) but the MG1.6 is not exactly a small speaker physically. So on first look it would seem a larger room would be a necessary requirement. I tried the MG1.6’s in my three different soundrooms and they definitely provided the best sound in my smallest room (16x12) So don’t be afraid to experiment with medium sized panels in smaller rooms. It is true that larger diaphragms and multi-driver loudspeakers take some distance to integrate properly but usually if your back a few meters all will be well.

MG1.6QR Listening:
Let me say straight out that this is a great speaker to audition if you want to move from ‘OK Mid-Fi’ sound to ‘excellent High-End’ sound at an affordable price. In my small room and placed on the long wall it was one of those magical moments when the speaker just works. The soundstage was huge and the tonal balance was superb.  The speakers literally disappeared in the room and other listeners I had over for a test-listen asked. ‘Where the hells the sub hidden?’ I measured the speaker using my ETF system (the one we use in setting up recording studios) and I was getting 35Hz at about 2dB down. That’s pretty good for a dipole this size, but remember that most of the bass integration and capability is very placement sensitive (for both the speaker and the listener). If you want to ring out the last little bit of performance from these speakers please experiment with placement and listening position – believe me it will be worth the effort.

One point I would like to make here is that over the many years I have been a prisoner of this great hobby I have literally measured hundreds of speakers using the state-of-the-art measuring apparatus of the time. Everytime I measure a Magnepan speaker from the early days of Tympani IV’s to the tiny SMG’s  they always measure superbly. The Magneplanars are, always have been and continue to be an extremely well engineered product which is not always the case with many of the more exotic and expensive speakers out there.  Anyway – I digress….

The integration I refer to above is an important point. Think of a dipole panel (or any speaker for that manner) in a room like a pair of headphones on your head. What you’re attempting to do is to place the panel in the room so that it “COUPLES ACOUSTICALLY”. By couple acoustically I mean the speaker is interfaced into the room in such a way that it makes the room and speaker behave as one. The speakers acoustically disappear in the room and allow you to hear only the recording itself. Using the headphone analogy --- put on a pair of headphones and while listening pull the headphones away from your ears about 2 inches on both sides of your head.  Sounds terrible – right? The reason is that you have ‘decoupled’ the headphones from your head/ears and the result is not very accurate acoustically (no bass or definition, etc.) to say the least. The same thing happens with a speaker in a room. If you can find that physical location in the room where the speaker ‘couples acoustically’ you will be rewarded with a fullrange and tonally accurate balance throughout the entire listening space.

By the way, a neat way to check and see if you have this coupling is correct is to go outside the room and listen from down the hall. If everything still sounds well balanced and coherent you’ve got it right! In fact one trick we used at audio shows years ago (please don’t laugh – a smile is OK) was to take a long cord and a pair of quality headphones and go outside the demo room and listen in the hallway with the headphones off – then on – then off etc. The closer you got to the headphones sounding like the speakers in the room the closer you were to finding the magic spot in the room where the speaker coupled acoustically.

The MG1.6QR speaker is of medium efficiency (86 dB) so you should use a stable reasonably powered amplifier to drive them. The good thing about the Maggie’s though is that although the impedance drops fairly low the speaker is a very ‘resistive’ (4 ohm) load over most of the frequency range. Speakers like electrostatics (Quads), on the other hand, may have low impedance loads but they are also very ‘reactive’ loads. They tend to behave like a capacitor and store energy which can play havoc with some amplifier output stages. So you don’t need exotic amplifiers to adequately drive the MG1.6QR’s. In my small soundroom I was using the Bryston 4B SST (300watt @ 8 ohms) with great success. In a bigger room more horsepower may be required.

Sonically I have to say this speaker, within its dynamic capabilities, is absolutely blowing me away. Everything is just so coherent as if everything is coming at you in the same time and space.  Maybe it’s the simple 2 driver Mylar membrane crossed over at 600Hz but whatever it is it’s a strong argument for simpler is better sometimes. The soundstage is spacious and the instruments are very well positioned. It does not have the bloated image size of some of the larger panels out there so the point source crowd will not be too alienated with this Maggie. The midrange – especially voices – have a ‘you are there’ affect that I have truly only heard on the best systems out there.

The only area where I feel the MG1.6QR fails a little is unless you mate it with a good amplifier you may at times feel it sounds a little ‘plastically’. It seems like you are hearing the diaphragm material (Mylar) sometimes. It sounds a little zingy. One of the listeners I had over comment when using her own Class D amp that “anyone who likes ribbons will love these”. What she meant by that is that ribbon drivers have that ability to sound incredibly detailed but sometimes have a ‘ringing’ quality to them.

The other positive quality I found was the MG1.6QR’s ability to delineate very soft micro sounds. Small, and almost imperceptible sounds seem to materialize in space with much more definition than I am use to hearing. Not in the sense that they are calling attention to themselves but more in the sense that the sound was being hidden by other speakers I have used. I worry sometimes that this might be a diaphragm resonance which is exaggerating that particular frequency range but I don’t think so because it varies from recording to recording.

Also don’t be afraid to try some big amplifiers on these beauties. I tried a pair of our 28B SST Mono amplifiers (1000 watts) in my big room (23x16x8) and I have to say it was a match made in heaven. At a recent audio show Magnepan had a 3 channel STEREO system set up using three 7B’s and the result was just superb.  So if you get a chance to hear a 3-channel STEREO setup as done by Magnepan at some of their demos run do not walk to hear this demo. The ability to hold the center image in place is scary.  You can almost sit anywhere in the room and the damn vocalist is locked in the center ----really good!

Many people chose large traditional multi-driver dynamic speakers because the sound very dynamic, move a lot of air and provide a visceral impact to the listener at the expense of inner details and subtle rendering of micro dynamics. Others chose small point source nearfields because they provide a pinpoint image and expansive soundstage at the expense of limited output and no real low frequency capability. Others opt for electrostatic thin membrane planar type loudspeakers because they provide that last bit of detail and resolution in the sound but are restricted to a limited loudness and dynamic level. I think the Magnepan type of design (a planar dynamic) is a terrific compromise between these other types of loudspeakers. Here you have a planar dipole that gives you much of the speed and resolution of the best electrostatics but provides excellent dynamics as well.

One last point to be aware of is that the Mylar membrane used in all the Magneplanar’s are 'stretched' under incredible tension when the speaker is manufactured.  It takes about 6 months for this stretch to 'relax' and as it does the lower end of each driver’s frequency response improves. With that relaxation comes an improvement in transient attack and integration.  So the moral of this story is to not be too quick to judge the speaker in the first few months of use as things will change for the better as it matures.

So, all in all, I find the MG1.6QR speakers superb in a number of areas:

•   Their ability to disappear and provide a huge soundstage with well- defined focused images floating in space is excellent.
•   Their ability to respond to transient information is a major benefit in providing inner details and a ‘you are there’ presentation.
•   Their ability to sound incredibly coherent and integrated, as if everything is happening in the same time and space.
•   The ability to use them in smaller rooms.

So I am a bit surprised at how well these MG1.6’s performed. I mean these speakers were designed a number of years ago and in the past I really had not considered them – being into the bigger MG3.6 and MG20’s etc.

They truly are one of the best values in High-End audio


james

[mr_bill]

Hi Bill,

I have the 1.7's but the not he 3.7's yet (on order) - I think you have to know someone high up at Magnepan to get a priority placement

james

We are anxiously awaiting your comments on the new 1.7s you have!

[pelliott321]

why is the "Magnepan Chat Room" placed here under bryston instead of under the planer circle or a new circle.
do you guys have some kind of financial arrangement between you?

[James Tanner]

why is the "Magnepan Chat Room" placed here under bryston instead of under the planer circle or a new circle.
do you guys have some kind of financial arrangement between you?

Hi pelliott,

No financial arrangement at all - please see- http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=91238.0

james

[bobcole]

Thanks for taking on this load James.

Re: pole piece curvature - when and how is the curvature formed in the manufacturing process? Is the curvature constant from top to bottom of a panel, and is the tension on the mylar the same from top to bottom?

Thanks!

[gregmacknass]

Hi Greg,

Wendell's response -

"Bass driver magnet and the perforated steel pole piece have a slight curvature by design to allow for the travel of the diaphragm."

Wendell

Thanks for taking the time to get an answer for me, it is much appreciated.
-Greg

[James Tanner]

Thanks for taking on this load James.

Re: pole piece curvature - when and how is the curvature formed in the manufacturing process? Is the curvature constant from top to bottom of a panel, and is the tension on the mylar the same from top to bottom?

Thanks!

Hi Bob,

Wendell tells me there are some questions regarding company trade secrets he is just not at liberty to answer

james

[Calypte]

Hi Calypte

In the small room (16x12) they are about 2.5 feet from the back wall - long wall - in the larger room (23x17) they are about 4 feet from the back wall - short wall...

Thanks.  I was sure the placement was carefully considered, and I was just interested in hearing some discussion about it.  I live in a Calif. suburban home, and they rarely provide the idealized shoebox-shaped rooms for audio & HT so beloved by "how to place your speakers" articles in magazines, so I have to work with what is available.  The manager of my living quarters (i.e. wife of 44 yrs) has been tolerant of whatever I wanted to do with speakers or anything else, but she surprisingly objected to a radical rearrangement of the living room where the Maggies are located, so I have to work with what's available.  They sound great most of the time, but sometimes a resonance in the deep base gets energized, and I'd like to mitigate that.  Magneplanar 1.6 QRs don't do 20 Hz organ pedals, but bass drum and low piano and bass viol can be surpisingly potent.

[bobcole]

Thanks James and Wendell! As expected. 

Bob

[grantv]

Hi Grant,

The internal frame of the 3.7 is the same as the 3.6. The 3.7 foot bolt attachment points are the same as the 3.6, so, the Mye stands will work.

Wendell


Thanks Wendell, I've a few emails to attend to then. Again, this is really appreciated (all of what you and James are doing here, not just the reply to my specific question).

Grant

[bibo01]

Thanks to Jams and Wendell for this opportunity! 

Does a push-pull configuration like 20.x have a single mylar layer?

Thanks

[James Tanner]

Thanks to Jams and Wendell for this opportunity! 

Does a push-pull configuration like 20.x have a single mylar layer?

Thanks

Yes, but, it is opposing magnets, not push-pull. Electrostats push and pull.

Wendell

[James Tanner]

Thanks.  I was sure the placement was carefully considered, and I was just interested in hearing some discussion about it.  I live in a Calif. suburban home, and they rarely provide the idealized shoebox-shaped rooms for audio & HT so beloved by "how to place your speakers" articles in magazines, so I have to work with what is available.  The manager of my living quarters (i.e. wife of 44 yrs) has been tolerant of whatever I wanted to do with speakers or anything else, but she surprisingly objected to a radical rearrangement of the living room where the Maggies are located, so I have to work with what's available.  They sound great most of the time, but sometimes a resonance in the deep base gets energized, and I'd like to mitigate that.  Magneplanar 1.6 QRs don't do 20 Hz organ pedals, but bass drum and low piano and bass viol can be surpisingly potent.

Hi Calypte,

I agree speaker placement and room acoustics are huge in determining the quality of audio you can attain.  Here is an article I did a few years ago on the subject.

Hi All

As a follow up to my initial comments about my experiences with the Magnepan speakers

Before I do, I would like to first talk about the most critical part of any speaker system evaluation and that is the ROOM/SPEAKER INTERFACE. Without recognizing how the room imposes it’s boundaries on the speaker there is no way to truly assess a given speakers performance. I have demonstrated the same speakers and amplifiers over the years in many different audio/video shows and believe me the ability to make a specific speaker work in a specific room is no easy feat. The dimensions and structural influence of the room is critical to the understanding of the overall performance. Also different speaker designs, Dipoles, Omni, Bi-poles, Line sources and the ever sought after Point Source being the most recognized versions of a theme.

I have been trying to come up with an analogy of how to best understand how a speaker and room interact.  I think the best one I have so far is to think of the speakers drivers as individual light bulbs. So for purposes of this discussion let’s consider a 3-way system with the tweeter, midrange and woofer being light bulbs and being rated at tweeter-25 watts, mid-50 watts and woofer-100 watts. Also the light bulbs can be either a FLOOD light or a SPOT light or anything in between. So the 25 watt bulb (tweeter) has a limited amount of light it can put out and it also has a specific light radiation pattern. So we will consider the light bulbs watt rating to be our tweeters power capability and the light radiation pattern to be the speakers POLAR- on an off axis frequency response. The same analogy with hold true for the midrange and woofer.

Given the different speaker designs out there the room/speaker interface will produce specific interactions based on the polar response and the integration of the drivers in the speaker as well as in the room. Generally it is accepted among most designers that the better the integration of the drivers to one another the better response a specific speaker will attain in the average room.  If we think about our light bulb analogy what you want is the light from the tweeter overlapping with the mid in a very controlled way. You want those two different light sources to merge on and off axis at just the right amount to have a seamless, uniform light pattern. In other words it looks like it is a single light bulb with uniform light emission rather than two independent bulbs. You want there to be no dark areas or overly bright areas in the room. Same goes for the light integration between the mid and the woofer. The light now appears to be one large light with uniform dispersion of light equally in all directions from the speaker. 

I should mention that because different frequencies behave differently in a room getting all drivers to behave similarly is almost impossible.  Bass radiates out from the speaker in all directions like a Flood light. Tweeters on the other hand generally radiate forward like a Spot light and midranges radiate like a combination of flood and spot lights. Because this uniform and equally distributed light pattern is almost impossible to achieve most designers attempt to get as close as possible to this goal given their choice of speaker design. In my demo systems the PMC’s and the Thiel’s represent the point source approach. The Magnepan’s and the Quad’s represent the Dipole approach.

Getting back to our light bulb analogy, the Thiel’s are a very wide dispersion (FLOOD) design so the integration and off axis polar response of the light is a wide as possible from the front of the speaker. If you measure the speaker’s frequency response it is very flat on axis (in fact a little hot on axis) and very uniform all the way out to about 60 degrees off axis in both directions from center. So the Thiel’s are very successful in providing a very wide dispersion evenly balanced frequency response (light) forward and to either side of the speaker. Recognize that when you’re listening to a speaker in a room you are always listening to a balance between the ‘Direct Sound’ and the ‘Reflected Sound’ from the boundaries of the room – this is called ‘POWER RESPONSE.’ It is that balance between direct and reflected that changes depending on the frequency radiation pattern (polar response) of the speaker.

The Maggie’s and Quad’s are dipoles so their radiation pattern looks more like if you took two ‘spotlights’ and placed them back-to-back so the radiation pattern (light) looks more like a figure eight. As a result of this figure 8 pattern the ‘power response’ in the room is totally different because there is hardly any energy (light) striking the walls, floor and ceiling - just the forward and back sound energy is to be considered.

Ok, the point of this entire preamble is that when I do my assessments of a speaker all of the above conditions have to be taken into account.  What works well for a ‘Spot’ light does not necessarily work well for a ‘Flood’ light. If I have meticulously set up my room to accommodate a specific type of speaker – let’s say a Point Source – then drooping a Dipole in is not a fair way to judge the Dipole or any other speaker with a totally different radiation pattern.

Hope this helps everyone understand my perspective when evaluating audio systems.

James

[rollo]

  Are 20.7s in the works ?



charles

[James Tanner]

  Are 20.7s in the works ?



charles

Hi Charles

Rant first:

I have been answering this question for 36 years. So, if this sounds like a recording, you will understand why-- We always tell our dealers first of any new models. You can imagine how they would react if they first heard about a new model from consumers. We have not announced any new models to our dealers.

End of "rant".

After 12 years, we came out with the 1.7. The following year, we came out with the 3.7 (after 12 years). We understand the speculation that there will a successor to the 20.1 during CES 2012. But, what seems like a logical progression isn't necessarily so. We will not "sprinkle some magic dust" on the 20.1 and call it a 20.2 just to bolster sales. The 1.7 and 3.7 were selected in blind testing with their predecessors. The 20.1 is a tough competitor.


Wendell

[klao]

Can we expect that the 20.2, whenever they're going to be launched, will not be able to bi-wire/bi-amp, just like the latest 1.7 and 3.7?

I'm thinking of bi-amping my 3.6 (with the Bryston gear, of course), and perhaps hoping I can upgrade to the 20.2 later one day.  It would be nice to keep those amps and crossover unit to use with the 20.2.   

Thanks.

[TitaniumTroy]

James, if you were to use a scale of 1-10. Where would the sound improvement of going to bi-amping say a 3.6? Also, got any scratch and dent sale, crossovers laying around?

[DustyC]

My 3.6r's are bi-amped, and they'll stay that way until I get rid of them. No bi-amped option on the 3.7's? Guess I'll be looking for a pair of 20's or 20.1's

Why the change? (unless people were blowing midrange and tweeter panels due to hooking up the bass amp to the wrong inputs.)