[Rclark]

 Again, I have yet to order my MMG's, soon, but not quite yet, so I'm still trying to wrap my head around how these things will be in my room, almost thought experiments, and I came upon an interesting point.

 They say that Magnepans come closest to the "live" sound. But isn't all live music played out to the audience via dynamic cone speakers?

[JohnR]

Only if it's amplified...

[Chromisdesigns]

This is part of the general audiophile paradox -- which is, hardly ANY of the music we listen to is either produced or recorded using the kind of equipment we would normally find appealing in our own systems.

You might as well ask why we aren't all using pro studio monitors for playback.  Now, there are some musicians and recording studios that use what we would generally term "high-end" or audiophile equipment, but the majority do not -- at least not to produce and record their music.  This has actually been discusssed at some length over the years.

[Rclark]

It just makes me wonder what a line array would be like in comparison, like an LS-9.

[Chromisdesigns]

Like any generalization, this needs to be taken with several grains of salt, but over the years my impression has been that the best "live" sound I have heard (not necessarily most accurate, best imaging, etc) has been from speakers with large emitting surfaces, like big Maggies, my friend's old Ezekials, Quads, large horns, some other large electrostatic speakers, and large speaker arrays.

My personal suspicion is that they mimic actual musical instruments and band setups better than "single point" sources like most conventional speakers.  Real instruments and especially bands are NOT "single point sources", for the most part -- some instruments excepted, of course.  Unamplified human voices are -- and this just reinforces my suspicions, since the best reproduction I have heard that is not a large source has been of individual singers.

I have a pair of older ProAcs that have been my main system speakers for a while, now;  and, while I love them and they image great, I'd ditch them for a pair of large Maggies in a New York minute if I had the space for the big guys.

If you've heard recorded music through a large concert array (like they often play before the concerts start), you may recall it has a "presence" that is hard to ignore, even though it may not be all that flat.  This is the kind of thing I am talking about.

[TONEPUB]

Love my magnepans, but they aren't the closest to live, they just don't have the dynamics.

The reason a lot of studio engineers use the speakers they do is to expose flaws rather than listen to music.  However, not all do it that way.  When I visited Metropolis mastering in London last year, they had a Bryston/PMC setup in well treated rooms that sounded exactly like a great home hifi system.  It just depends on the approach.

Also, a lot of engineers are completely anti-audiophile, etc etc.  (and a lot of records sound awful as well)

At least in my experience, the engineers that can still hear and really care about sound have mastering/monitoring systems that are very similar to a great hifi in their studios.

[josh358]

Love my magnepans, but they aren't the closest to live, they just don't have the dynamics.

The reason a lot of studio engineers use the speakers they do is to expose flaws rather than listen to music.  However, not all do it that way.  When I visited Metropolis mastering in London last year, they had a Bryston/PMC setup in well treated rooms that sounded exactly like a great home hifi system.  It just depends on the approach.

Also, a lot of engineers are completely anti-audiophile, etc etc.  (and a lot of records sound awful as well)

At least in my experience, the engineers that can still hear and really care about sound have mastering/monitoring systems that are very similar to a great hifi in their studios.

Dynamics are the one area in which I'd give the typical studio setup the edge over a good home setup. Few home speakers, including high end ones, can reproduce all acoustical material at realistic levels.

That being said, most studio systems aren't nearly as revealing as planars of any kind. But then, it wouldn't be that easy to use a planar in the studio. They aren't loud enough to replace soffit monitors, they're too big to use as near field monitors, and they require positioning that might work in a dedicated mix or mastering room but probably not in a session room. Also, they aren't much like what the typical listener has, and, unfortunately, particularly in pop, commercial recordings are typically mastered to sound good on least-common-denominator equipment (and these days, to sound louder than everything else, even if it means distortion).

[Chuckdog2005]

For me, it's their life sized sound stage, lack of box resonances, and transparency that make them so convincing.

[Rclark]

I wouldn't call stock Magnepan dynamics horrible either. I of course, am only refering to mids and highs, since mine are cut off at the kness at 80hz, so I'm not getting much bass out of these at all.

 So in this case, I get a lot of dynamics within the range they're playing. I was playing some jazz with some very strident trumpets and they sounded as they should, much louder than the rest of the ensemble when blasted loudly (or trumpeted haha) , enough to really get that pleasurable sensation from a loudly played trumpet.

 They aren't as dynamic (loud) as my monitors in terms of all out, max spl, but in terms of dynamics (soft to loud within an album), and especially at listening levels, these do pretty well. I understand that post mod, however, these will take on box speakers in terms of dynamics.

 And I find it funny reading my pre-MMG posts. I honestly had no idea what to expect. My estimation now is anyone who enjoys music needs a pair of planars.