Anyone send back Magnepan MMG's?


I'm currently trying out some MMG's under their 60-day money-back trial period. I'm two weeks into it and I've already made up my mind that they're going back. The presentation is interesting, but the soundstaging is no better (perhaps even worse) than my trusty Audio Physic Tempo's. There is a problem in cohesion from midrange to bass, and this manifests itself quite frequently when I play 80's rock and pop (Pat Benatar especially). And they get congested with complex orchestral music. Granted, with simple chamber music or guitar solos, they sound pretty good. But they just can't handle the gamut of music that I play like my Audio Physic speakers.

There are those who may claim that perhaps my amp isn't up to the task of powering the Maggies. I have an Innersound ESL 300 which is designed for planars and electrostats, being able to double down twice to 2 ohms, and still stable at 1/3 ohm impedance. It should be more than enough to drive the Maggies.

And some will claim that the MMG's don't adequately represent the abilities of Magnepan's higher-end offerings. I've heard a 3.6 previously, driven by Classe electronics, and while it sounded OK, I wasn't thrilled with it. Which surprises me, because I tend to gravitate toward electrostatics, and I thought I'd gravitate towards planars as well.

And I will admit, my old Audio Physic Tempo's originally retailed for $4000, which is substantially more than the MMG's $550. But still, even at their entry level, the Magnepan's should be hinting at something that those box speakers can't quite do. But I'm not hearing it. I came into this with a very open mind, and I'm somewhat surprised that the speakers are likely getting shipped back to Magnepan.

Has anyone else come to this conclusion?

Michael
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Showing 2 responses by sthomas12321

Bottom line for me is, at $550 nothing even comes close. I think the mmg are good in smaller rooms, not so much in large ones. A sub helps. I used a cheap sony receiver w/ 110 watt output and used the internal eq, to bump the lower bass. I was surprised at what a eq did to these. Were they acurate, maybe not, but they were very injoyable which is what magnepan is all about, music.
I would say the MMg's are more musically enjoyable, and less acurate, or typical audiophile like speakers. This is not a bad thing at all. The first thing I look for in a speaker is how musical they are. I also like the MMG's in small rooms, actually with a EQ(extremely rarely the case with me)to enhance the bottom end a little, and in some cases tweak the treble a little.

This is probably do to the fact the mmg's sound seams sort of dead or flat when left alone to me. While they do have a sound of there own for sure, I dont feel its in the tone they produce as much, the EQ helped a lot at least for me and some excitement to them.