Last Fall I got to thinking about the various audio reviews and how they all seem to gush over how superlative everything is. Could this possibly be the case or were these people just trying to flog some new junk to keep the industry going?
This led me to do some fact finding of my own by running down to The Listening Room in Towson, MD where one thing led to another and I now find myself enjoying a set of Magnepan 1.7s (a disappointing demo which turned out to be a tremendous speaker in my home - go figure).
Not too long ago I decided that it was time for Lynda and myself to take another trip down to The Listening Room to see what the deal is with the 3.7s. My 3.6s were no slouch so were the 3.7s all that the reviews were making them out to be?
I brought along two favorites: Zappa's Apostrophe' and Maria Muldaur's A Woman Alone With The Blues. Both are recorded really well and I know the Zappa piece by heart - within 30 seconds I can tell if I like something or not with Apostrophe.
The equipment was warmed up for a little bit, we were seated and on went the Zappa.
I kept the volume at a moderate level where you could talk over it (a bit loudly) and be heard. My biggest complaint with the 3.6s (and the 1.6s) was that you had to lean on the volume to get them to come alive. At high levels they sounded great but they just don't cut it at lower levels.
The swirling snowdrifts on Apostrophe sounded great and the first thing I noticed with the 3.7s was that the soundstage was more three dimensional - Frank was back in the mix with the action going on out in front of him.
Tina Turner's background vocals came out of nowhere and by the time that CD was done and Maria Muldaur came on doing her version of Fever the system sounded tremendous. For the demo the equipment used was a 90W Rogue tube amp, an Audio Research preamp which I covet and a Cambridge Audio 840 Azur CD player which is a nice piece.
By the time Fever was over I was giving the 3.7s some serious consideration so did a little dickering and left saying I'd think it over a bit but probably nothing would happen until 2012. Maybe I can find a used set by then, I dunno...
After dinner that same evening I let my stereo warm up for a bit and put on Maria Muldaur's Fever at roughly the same volume level as I'd heard it on the 3.7s. Coming out of the 3.6s it was well, less than wonderful. It just seemed kind of flat sounding and all disconnected somehow SOOOO after a little sniveling about how life was unfair I made up my mind.
That Monday I ordered a set of 3.7s in the exact same natural oak with black socks as my 3.6s had and began the mad scramble to make damned sure that I wouldn't be caught short of pennies when they showed.
They arrived four or five weeks later, I had the dough in hand and the good people from The Listening Room not only delivered them but insisted upon setting them up. That's service.
They were initially set up with the ribbons on the outside (which is how I had the 3.6s set up) and resistors were installed in the midrange and tweeter slots per Magnepan's advice.
I spent three days being pretty much of a shut-in listening to them and the longer they played the more I noticed that something was off. No amount of Q-tipping could get the sound right to my ears although I did succeed in having the cleanest ear canals in the county.
I flipped the speakers around so that the ribbons were on the inside which I found to be a big improvement and then removed the resistors one at a time. Better and better yet but still not right. WTF sez me? Why do they sound so weird? Maybe they're still just breaking in? The 1.7s didn't have this weird haze to them when they were breaking in...
Then it hit me - I had purchased some small fans to keep the amps cool in the summer and the amps were never hitting their designed operating temperature. Could that be it?
I shut the fans off and fifteen minutes later that wonderful VTL sound was back and the speakers sounded perfect.
What I've found is that they have that great 1.7 coherency where everything is seamless (or balanced) but there's a lot more of it. You could really just have a one sentance review:
Take the 1.7s, stretch them in every direction and that's the 3.7s
What that means is that there is a much larger and deeper soundstage, a better top end thanks to the ribbon and considerably better bass.
These speakers really brought out just how good the Magnepan's bass is. Listening to Paul McCartney on the remastered Beatles CDs or Jack Cassidy on the 180gm vinyl Airplane releases on the Sundazed label demonstrates not only how good those two guys are but how realistically these speakers reproduce the bass guitar. It's not overbearing, it's not anemic, it's just right. They do the bass frequencies so well that I don't use my sub anymore. If anything, it just screws up the sound with it's farting away over against the wall.
Detail with these speakers is much better than anything I've heard before. On certain recordings you're aware that there's a lot of stuff going on in the background but it's kind of lost in the mix so it's kind of a sonic blur. Not with these - the more complex the piece, the better the sound.
When I had the ribbons on the inside with the 3.6s the sweet spot was fairly small. That is not the case with the new ones - I agree with TAS in putting the ribbons on the inside. You get better detail and the soundstage is still really wide.
If you want to hear what these speakers can do, one album that really stands out is the 180gm vinyl double album edition of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by David Byrne and Brian Eno. I think that you can still get it on Amazon.com, it's really well recorded and it'll make your eyes pop open with these speakers. It's kind of an intense album and will probably give sensitive people nightmares.
One of the major plusses for me is that these speakers do sound good at low to moderate levels (as do their smaller siblings, the 1.7s). Now your wife can bitch you out for spending $5500 on a set of speakers you big idiot what the hell were you thinking you selfish bastard don't you care about blah blah blah and you can still enjoy your Maggies at the same time.
Associated equipment is the usual: VTL MB250 monoblocks with Winged C tubes (and no fans!), Sonic Frontiers SFL-2 preamp with unknown Russian military tubes, Jolida JD-100 CD player with Sovtek tubes, Harman Kardon F500x tuner with the stock tubes(!), APC power conditioner, Otari B5050-II reel to reel deck, Kimber speaker cables, silver interconnects, Supra LoRad power cords and my much maligned Bedini 4 CD Clarifier. I use CD-Rs on this system burned on an Hhb 830 BurnIt Plus as the Well Tempered turntable is on the upstairs system.
The SVS subwoofer is being relegated to MMG duty.
I found best results to be 50" out from the rear wall, 20" out from the side walls with moderate toe-in. Any further back and the bass becomes a bit overpowering.
The only modification that I can forsee these speakers requiring is to chuck those totally inadquate little feet in favor of some Mye stands or something custom made which is the route I'm going.
So, the question is were the reviews correct and are they worth the dough? Yes and god help me, yes. They're that good.
Correction: the speakers did not relocate Zappa's voice on Apostrophe, I believe it was the CD player used during the demo.
