Maggies and Talon Roc


Has anyone any listening experience with a Talon Roc subwoofer mated to a pair of Magnepan speakers? I need to get a sub for my Maggies and and the Talon seems to garner quite a bit of praise.

I just auditioned a pair of Vandersteen 2wq subwoofers mated to Magnepan 1.6s. Yes the sound was good as the musical foundation was complete. My only concern is that I could still detect a timbre difference between low bass and bass on about half of the CDs. Even though I could not locate the bass there was ever present the slightly different pitch as the bass notes climbed the scale. So the blending was good but not perfect. This may be the rule of the day with any subwoofer, I don't know.
nealhood
Disclaimer: I am a Talon dealer.

Nealhood...The Talon Roc (original, 2002, or the new Roc 12) is the ONLY sub I have ever heard that could keep up with the transient speed of electrostatic speakers. The pitch difference you heard may have been due to the sub getting "behind" the Maggies, but are you sure that you had the sub phase and crossover setup correctly? I have no doubt that the Talon would work perfectly for you, just want to make sure that you aren't running into a setup problem. Let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Best Regards...Mike - Father & Son Audio
Nice post Mike. Much like you, i would second the comments that the sub might not have been optimally crossed and / or placed in the room. This is something that can take a LOT of trial and error if you are unfamiliar with the procedure. This is not to say that i think that the Vandy's are the worlds best subs, but that i do think that they are pretty solid performers. I would hate to see someone disregard a quality product at a fair price simply because they did not experiment quite as much as what was needed. Sean
>
Good information here. I guess the set-up could have been less than ideal but, from a visual standpoint the subs were located beside and just inside the panels. Seems like a respectable place to put them. And the x-over from the Vandersteen 5 was employed. In addition this was a well respected dealer. I really did not have the knowledge to start moving things around and, given the dealers reputation it should have already been well thought out.

Please, don't misjudge my words. The Vandersteen 2wq is a solid performer. Just not perfect from my perception during this one limited audition. Yet it was good enough for me to purchase a pair assuming I do not find a better solution. Thus my solicitation for opinions on the "Roc".
Echo comments about placement and correct xover. Talon will give you a truly fast sub and should pair well
I'm in full agreement with all of the above posts. I've used a Roc with a pair of Khorus, with Peregrines, with Martin Logan Aerius, and with Newform Research R645's, and find that it integrates perfectly (if such a thing exists) with anything I've thrown at it. It's truly a magical, musical sub. I have an old pair of Maggie MG-1C's lying around (remember those guys?), and you've got me curious about whether I would notice any timbre differences with the Roc. Now if I could only find those Maggie "feet" which I've been looking around for!

I may be going out on a limb here, but I've also found that the Infinity Interlude series subs are amazingly quick and integrate well with ribbon/ESL/planer speakers. I've mated an Infinity IL100 sub (for about $250 new on Ubid) with Bohlender Graebener X1 and X3 ribbons in my finacee's system and was shocked at how seamless and transparent the presentation was with an Outlaw Audio 1050 receiver - we're not talking about a big dollar set-up by any means. Have a listen to an IL120 (with a 12' driver) at Circuit City (if you can block out all of the other noise in there!) and you just may be surprised.