Polling Magnepan Users - Room Size

I had Maggie 1.6 in a 13 x 22 x 8 room and it filled it nicely

a guess is that room would work for you as well

Use 1.7 in a 22x30x10 room. They fill the room with sound.

Big Maggies and other line-source-approximating speakers have an interesting characteristic: The sound pressure level falls off more slowly with distance than from a point-source-approximating loudspeaker. So they lend themselves to larger rooms better than you might expect, in that the increase in power needed to "fill" a large room vs a smaller one is a lot less than the increase that would be needed for conventional speakers.

Also, in my experience Maggies and such really bloom when you can give them 5-7 feet between them and the wall behind them. This allows a nice long time delay before the additional (spectrally-correct) reverberant energy from the backwave reaches the listening area. Imo dipoles (and bipoles) are at their best in large rooms.

Dipole bass is often better in large rooms, where the out-of-phase backwave isn't reflected back towards the listener as quickly. That being said, dipole bass generally doesn't have the chest-thumping impact of a good box speaker because it doesn't actually pressurize the room. But in general dipole bass is smoother in-room than bass from box speakers, so the subjective speed is better (smooth bass = "fast" bass), and the pitch definition is also usually better.

Duke
dealer (of dipoles)/manufacturer (of bipoles)/longtime Maggie fan (I've owned five pairs)

I was a Magnepan dealer for many years. I have set up well over 100 pairs in all kind of different rooms and environments. I have also personally owned almost every model that Magnepan has ever made.

I agree with Duke. They should work very well in your new room. You will need to play around with placement, but once you get them dialed in, they should be superb.

Thanks for the feedback. In my current room the 20.'7's sit approx 7 feet into the room. To address the leanness in the bass I recently added two REL R-328 subs and this has been a significant improvement overall. The Maggies have always been superb on accoustic music, female voice, jazz, and large scale orchestral, but not so great on classic rock 'n roll. Adding the subs fixed that! I have the REL's set on the lowest crossover point and about 1/4 on the volume. Now I can actually 'feel' the bass and midbass enery pressurize the room with music that has strong bass lines; not 'boomy' or muddy, just energy that is there and makes the entire presentation sound and feel more real.

Adding the subs has also expanded the soundfiled noticeably. There is more 'there' there in the space behind the speakers, greater density and I am actually heaing more detail in the soundfield than before.

I don't want to loose these improvements in my new room by going too large. I am leaning towards something around 19w x 29L x 10h.

I've had them in rooms that size and also find they do their best in larger rooms with distance between and to front wall.

I heard mine at Jim Smith's Audition shop in Birmingham AL back in the 80's set up along those lines in a similarly sized room and bought them on the spot.

In my limited experience, dipoles have sounded better when placed in front of the long wall of the room.