Magnepan 3.5r Owners needed.... No bass

@nevada_matt 

My old listening room for years was 24' wide by 34' long.  Vaulted ceilings. 

Best listening room I've ever been in due to wall materials and some other factors.  I HIGHLY recommend Magnepans for a room like the one you're describing.  

They have serious potential when given the space and not crowded with other things.  Other than a few plants, I had nothing else behind the speakers.  My components were off to the side, which is preferable to between speakers.  When I had that setup, I auditioned many expensive setups and in my head would always think(these don't come close to my system at home.)  I didn't always say it because you don't want to insult someone else's setup that they're enjoying.  And they were some really great rigs.  

But it literally took an $85,000 rig to get into the range of realism and Natural detail that I was getting.  

My point - the room is everything with Maggies and I think most people overlook this.  The room I am currently in is not 30% of what I used to get in my old house.  

But that is what happens when you move to the city.  Unless you have a huge loft or something.  Which many people do have.  

Sound stage in my old room was unlike anything I'd ever heard at any price.  It was not only wide, but so DEEP and holographic that it would stop you in your tracks.  

Amazing.  Sounded gorgeous.  A friend at the time who lived around the corner still had the first pair of Magnepans ever sold.  He bought them new.  They sounded AMAZING.  But again, large rooms, high ceilings.  12 feet, at least. 

I favor this environment for Magnepans and I always suggest this to those interested in Maggies.  

Regarding the sublimes, any other thoughts?  Do you feel they color the sound at all?  Are you satisfied with how they dial things in and tune your system?  Do you feel you're at an advantage sonically?  Cleaner?  Less distortion?  Or just different from passive, as opposed to "better." 

Oh, and another note -  the best setup I'd ever had that I described in my last post --- LAMP CORD.  Yep.  Plain old cheap copper wire.  I always get a kick out of that. I have decent cables now.  Wireworld oasis 8 and some audio quest, etc.  

So I definitely think wires and cables can make sonic differences.  But I always like to temper my desire for higher cables by reminding myself that the best sounding system I ever had was with cheap lamp cord type speaker wire.  HA.  I laugh just thinking about that now.  I used that wire from around 1995 to around 2015.  It really is interesting how that works.  Pretty cool, though.   Hope someone finds the stories helpful.  And thanks to Russ69.  I've been busy working, but absolutely need to pull my banana connectors out further and listen for just this.  I never used to push them all the way in, but at some point began doing so.  Thank you.  Very cool logo, by the way.  I've wanted to get a boat for a long time.  

@nevada_matt 

regarding amplification - I'm a pretty low-volume listener, these days.  But I wasn't always.  I also used to have my system on as I worked about the house.  I always loved the way Maggies sounded so LIVE from other rooms.  I used several amps over the years.  Definitely 800 watts per channel.  And more when I had a bridged setup.  My current setup is giving around 1000 watts per channel into the 3.5's.  

They are fine.  Very difficult to push them too hard.  But despite popular opinion, I'd always leave the fuses in.  They're there for a reason and I've blown many over the years.  Usually an error of my own like turning preamp off first like a dummy after too many glasses of wine or something.  But certainly if you're blasting your music for extended periods, this can blow fuses.  But that's what they're there for.  If you're using that kind of power, I'd suggest the 3.7i.  But those are not setup for bi-wire.  So I'd go for a used pair of 3.6's in excellent condition.  I see them pop up from time to time.   Great value for your dollar.  And the used prices are quite stable so you should get your money back fairly easily if you don't love them.  At those volumes, you could EASILY aggravate soon-to-be delaminated speakers.  So even speakers that sound great during audition with no buzzing, rattling or distortion, could develop issues after weeks of playing loud levels like you're describing.  I'd just be prepared for a possible refurbishing by Magnepan.  Which will still be well worth it, in my opinion.  I'm obviously biased to the Magnepan sound.  For the smaller Maggies, I'd say your amps' power is overkill for anything below the 1.7's 

The 1'7's would still benefit from the extra headroom, in my opinion.  I'm pretty sure there are reviewers out there who suggest that even the LRS benefit from loads of power like you're talking about.  

I haven't heard your amps in person, so I am just giving my general opinion based on power rating.  Whatever Maggies you choose, if you go that route, my suggestion is AT LEAST four feet from rear wall.  I had them six feet at least in my optimal setup.  They love the extra space. Once you go closer to the wall than that, I think other speakers sound better in a lot of ways.  

Good luck.  

How far would you from the side walls?  I have absorbers at 90deg off axis from the tektons and some high directly forward and on axis directly behind.  I find this to have cut down on much of the “bouncing around” that I had.   Do the magnepans benefit from room treatments?   Just thinking about it, does the distance from the rear wall perform the “same function” ie, lowering the impact of rear signal bouncing of that hard surface to soon, too strongly and causing what ends up sounding like distortion?

i don’t think the sublime “colors” the music at all.  It simply separates the frequency to separate outs, with a level adjustment available, so say a recording sounds to you like the vocals were overdone on the recording, simply lower the mid output, the overall “balance” of the music is adjustable..  I like adjust the music to how I like to listen to it.. not how some sound engineer decided it should sound…

The one thing I am .. less than enthusiastic about though is the fact that you have to open it and replace the crossover cards to move the crossover frequencies.. I’d like to find one that is variable, but doesn’t inject noise..  but, for $500, this is the best I can do for now, and it isn’t bad at all.  It does exactly what I bought it to do, pull out the sub, separate the low from mid/high and feed separate amps for each frequency range.  I’ll probably pick up a couple more pairs of x-over cards, just to “experiment, but the ones I got originally work well for the vast majority of the music I listen to.

Mark at Sublime Acoustic was very helpful with initial match for the tektons on xover frequencies.

zip cord.. yep.. large gauge good quality copper with many strands, lots of surface area for the signal propagation.  Used them myself in college.  

How far would you from the side walls?  I have absorbers at 90deg off axis from the tektons and some high directly forward and on axis directly behind.  I find this to have cut down on much of the “bouncing around” that I had.   Do the magnepans benefit from room treatments?   Just thinking about it, does the distance from the rear wall perform the “same function” ie, lowering the impact of rear signal bouncing of that hard surface to soon, too strongly and causing what ends up sounding like distortion?

So this is really subjective.  Trial and error is your best bet.  For me, I had great experience quite close or a few feet away from side walls.  

Distance from rear walls certainly does what you say in terms of reducing what sounds like distortion from the timing being thrown off due to being too close for reflections and causing a confused type of sound.  But that is not the primary reason for pulling them out, in my opinion. At least it is not why I do it.  Especially having heard many Maggies much closer that did not suffer from the effect you describe.  The reason to pull them out is to allow them to breathe more.  Vague, I know.  But if you think of the room as your box, it just allows them to be more balanced and complete. More precise. Better soundstage. Deeper soundstage.  Better off-axis sound.  and more realistic and live sounding.  That's been my experience with nearly 30 years of Magnepan listening.  So I'd experiment with moving them further out simply because most speakers benefit from this, but without a doubt, this is crucial to the Magnepan sound.  Again, many have great sound without doing this.  But not on the same level.  Nearly all speakers in nearly all rooms and speakers benefit from acoustic treatment.  Magnepan speakers probably more than most.  I happened to have a naturally beautiful sounding room, so I didn't need much at all.  Same with my friend who had the older pair.  He was in an old house Built in the 1800s.  He had a live jazz band play in his house once and it sounded fantastic.  Everything just sounded good.  He was very lucky.  the fact that you have vaulted ceilings puts you at an advantage, in my opinion, as I always find lower ceilings to crowd the sound.  Again, I'm sure there are many who may have had the opposite experience, and that's fine.   Just sharing mine. 

In general with Maggies, you want to treat the room without making it dead.  you want them to still have life.  I would go to your dealer and demo some of them and get a feel for what you like.  

Again, you're in a good position due to the power reserves you've got.  They like a lot of power.  A lot of current.  They become a much more refined sounding speaker as you go up the chain with front end quality.   

They're the only reason I still like solid state, high power amplifiers.  If not for Magnepans, I'd have gone high sensitivity speakers with tubes, long time ago.  

Magnepans just have something I miss when I am without them.  What part of the country are you in? 

Any Magnepan dealers near you?  

regarding the sublimes - yes, they divide the frequency ranges.  I just wondered if you'd listened with and without and heard a difference in the type of sound. 

I'm interested due to the price-point.  I don't like to use equalizers, so I doubt I'll turn one up more than the other, but I always noticed an improvement when separating frequencies.  

I'd be interested to see a pic of your setup if you end up going with the Magnepans.  Nice to chat about them.  I am tempted to turn them on and test russ69's suggestion about the bananas.  But as mentioned in a previous message, my big issue is a radio station right now.  

It has really turned me off to playing vinyl, which is my main listening source these days.  Real downer.