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Magnepan + live music = 🔥

I’ve been living with my Magnepan .7 for a few days now. When the unit just arrived, the sound is quite confusing when I’m throwing a mix of genres, the mid has a hollowness and the highs do not depict the sense of transparency and finesse I’m expecting from what I’ve been reading (comparing to my Dynaudio, Paradigm, Klipsch speakers), the bass is fast but doesn’t have much of a punchy dynamic (which was expected). I tried different positioning and the situation isn’t a lot better.

But there is something I started to notice and later fully verified with me and my pals, when it comes to live music reproduction, the Magnepan is what I’d say significantly noticeably more realistic and I’d say enjoyable in terms of sound stage, tonality and transparency than other speakers. Especially when playing music recorded from say a small room or basement, the realism of someone sitting in your room is surreal - even the bass becomes deep and punchy. And for this type of live music, the other speakers that were more exciting and "hifi" suddenly either appear to make some symbols or vocals overdone, underdone, over-rendered, or have a fake sense of unrealistic details - the live music sound more like a sudio-mix compared to Magnepan.
Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qWMHYsmvds , in this video, the Magnepan really closes the gap between the cognitive dissonance of watching video and hearing the music, you can feel the musicians in the room with you, while my other speakers still make this video feel like I’m enjoying a piece of well mixed 2 channel soundtrack, separated from the video.

So I have a theory that Magnepan wasn’t doing a worse job playing non-live music, it’s just human is actually able to better tell if a music sound realistic if it’s a live recording. And "unreal" music usually sound better in non-live situations. This also makes me think Magnepan, specially .7 as a specialty speaker doing extremely well for smaller set of music than a bigger set.
Amp used is PS Audio Class D amp, I'm getting a class AB this Friday and see if anything changes. 
bwang29

Showing 2 responses by jrwaudio

jrwaudio
356 posts
 
I know it's a YouTube video done with my handheld Samsung S10 but it will still give you some indication of the dynamics of the Maggie's with a good high current amp
Watch "Magnepan .7's & audio system" on YouTube https://youtu.be/WmHjTmDRO88
jrwaudio
356 posts
 
I have the Magnepans. 7's that purchased recently. l let them break in for approximately 200 hours before any critical listening  I have mine position 4 feet from the wall, 7 feet apart with slight toe in They are 10 feet from my listening position  l only have room for one sub which is the SVS Ultra 13 Originally l used my VAC PA 100 100 tube amp/ ARC LS 15 tube pre amp Exogal external DAC and OPPO BD 105 blu ray player. My streaming source is the Audiolab 6000N The Maggie's sounded magical!  I thought maybe l should try switching out the VAC and insert my Spectron musical MK ll class D amp  that weights 54 lbs. As you know Maggie's love watts/current and this amp gives it in spades 500watts@8ohm 650@4ohms &1,200@ 1ohms! The Spectron will produce 65 amps for 500 milliseconds. I typically listen to all kinds of music at 75/80 db and l must say the energy, inner detail, soundstage and dynamics almost put me into a live event!  I'm amazed every time l listen for money spent So if you can feed your Maggie's good clean unadulterated power they will really come alive

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