I'll have music playing all day through these things, I might even leave them playing over night. I'm so fking giddy right now, it's insane. My wife and I are having a ton of fun playing random tracks from the library, everything is fun to listen to. Gobs of detail, PRESENSE, holy cow, it's hard to describe, it just catches me by surprise and we're like "he/she is in the room with us", the separation and sense of space can be heard and in our living room we're feeling it too. Bass articulation is on another level. I thought I was getting great detail before, but this is a whole 'nother ball game. I was seriously considering spending more on Maggie 3.7, but I'm glad I didn't. I've heard earlier iterations of that speaker and it's lovely, but there's no way it can touch the dynamics I'm hearing and feeling in these Moabs. I love that Magnapan sound, but this dynamic speaker is much better, many times over (to be expected since I had MMG). My ears (and my wife) tell me that I shouldn't worry about a new amp right away. I'm going to call it quits and get some rest in a bit, but I'm waking up early to get some work out of the way and its back to the listening chair. I don't know where to start, there's so much to choose from. Oh, I've been playing ABBA's Dancing Queen to see if I can tolerate it and with each improvement/change over the last 3 months it's become more tolerable. Tonight after a couple of hours of playing music I decided to put that on and holy $#!+ the track was fun, musical, I could make out what was going on in the mix, it wasn't fatiguing. My wife and I looked at each other with this "holy smokes" expression at the same time, it was hilarious. Just need that paint to finish off-gassing, it's much less now than when we first opened the box. Gonna listen to some
Jamiroquai again before I call it quits for the night, the Space Cowboy album is a lot of fun. |
grey9hound, Yeah, let me put it this way, it got my toes tapping and I could hear the music, I wasn't cringing my way though the usual high frequency mess. But yeah, my wife found it funny. And nope, haven't touched the green stuff in over two years. There's some in the freezer which we look at every once in a while like "you wanna?" but nah we're good on that. It was fun. Now a we enjoy a little Jameson once in a while, but a tiny amount. We're having a great life together without the vices. Not judging the folks who partake, fking blaze up if you must, just don't insist that I do mmkay? :)
MC, I made a comment about building room treatment a while back and you were like hold off. So, the plan was to put some up for the first configuration but I held off. So right now no real treatment, just odd room dimensions a decent amount of space, lots of furniture and cats.
System progression since moving to CA:
I live in a town house. Our listening room is 14'W x 24'L x 9'H. It's got a big ol window on the front wall near next to a fairly heavy door. One side is a straight wall from front to back, the adjacent wall is broken up by a closet by the front door, a fire place with a stepped construction 3 widths widest from the wall to the fireplace edge about 7" deep, then the stairs to the second floor which is open to the top of the house above the second floor by another 6ft or so. The back wall is short at about 7' with an opening to the kitchen and then dining room.
The speaker positioning is as follows:
Front baffles ~5ft (I need to remeasure this to be sure) from the front wall
Left speaker ~3'4" from the left wall
Right speaker ~10 from right wall
Speakers are ~6'8" apart
Listening position is 7'10" away from the front baffle if you drew a line between the center of the speakers.
Toed in to a few degrees off axis currently, will listen some more with them firing right at my ears. I'm not sure which one I prefer.
In this room I get very even, deep and detailed bass response at the listening position, no harsh echo or reflection, imaging is tight, soundstage is pretty deep and wide. Midrange and mid-bass are also clean and articulate. No issues with treble, but I will see what happens with amplitude as I could not play my MMGs terribly loud due to a buzz that developed recently in both panels.
Initial setup:
Speakers: Magnepan MMGs on homemade Lowes special stands, steel L brackets on 2x4. I prefer the sound when they are upright vs angled up,
Amp: Emotiva XPA-2 Gen2
Speaker cable: Whatever model of Mogami cable that Emotiva sells. 12ft since I had no idea where I'd putting the amp and speakers when I ordered. I might upgrade this in the future.
PrePro: Denon 3808
Interconnect: StraightWire Rhapsody
Source: Lenovo Tiny Desktop M700 i5 quad core with SSD. I used Plex at the time for music playback and some Amazon HD -- 192/24 Exclusive mode
Interconnect: Some sturdy HDMI with gold connectors (lol)
Subwoofers: 2x Polk PSW350 in stereo on subwoofer isolation pads (I put them away I don't remember who makes them but they're hella effective) Crossed over at 60hz with 0deg phase. Measured smooth from 25-150hz, I'd challenge anyone to hear a transition from sub to Maggie.
Change #1 (we'll skip the test with the Denon as the amp for shitz n gigglez, it didn't sound horrible, but it's not the most engaging experience, and the Arcam 8p isn't up to the task either)
Placed the Maggies on Herbs isolation pucks which I ordered in advance for the Moabs, and what do you know, better imaging, just a bit tighter everything. My wife even noticed without me saying anything.
Change #2 I turned the subs sideways to shorten them by an inch and put the Maggies on top of them with pucks in between and got a bit more coherent soundstage, drum thwacks came from specific spots when mixed that way. I also measure a slightly better response and I think that was just luck in moving them around a foot or so each. I could also get up and walk away and not lose so much of the sound quality. Win Win
Change #3 Bought a Topping DX7Pro DAC. HTPC is connected to it via USB cable. Immense change in sound quality, you all know what a good DAC does so I won't go crazy here, its a beautiful detailed easy to listen to DAC. It represented a few levels of improvement in sound quality. I won't be doing the DAC rolling thing, this is here to stay until I feel I've maxed everything else out. I'm hearing more of ABBA Dancing Queen but I'm feeling that you can't really save this recording.
Change #3a Removed Denon from the equation. Running Mogami
Mogami Gold STUDIO-03 XLR between the DAC and amp. Subs now connected via RCA on the DAC.
Change #4 Moved the Lenovo PC SMPS brick from a 12 outlet surge protector shared with other SMPS of dubious quality which is on a Panamax filtered outlet to it's own outlet. Yeah, I should have done that sooner. Removed a bunch grain from the sound that made the top end of some of the more annoying recordings sound much better. ABBA Dancing Queen is now a little bit more listenable but I'm still wondering how people like that song so much with such a strident top end. Disco + Drugs = IDGAF? Maybe.
Change #5 Tried JPlay and felt there was a change in sound quality that was pleasant but I couldn't stand the user experience, through the UPnP apps. Horrible in comparison to Plex.
Change #6 Added an iFi Purifier 3 which made the top end a little more pleasant. The overall sound at this point is deep, detailed, engaging. Unfortunately MMGs have their dynamic limits and now that's really the missing piece here.
Change #7 Took out all the wiring and spent an evening with the wife and cats carefully routing cables in the rack (its home to everything above and a PS4, cable DVR, combo VCR/DVD player (you know, for those vacation videos and workout tapes that we don't watch). Nothing runs in tight parallel except the XLR cable, power and signal cross at 90deg in the one or two spots where they must. Lost of clips and channel used in the process but worth it in the end. I thought things were good already but another bit of smoothness and clarity was obtained, nothing earth shattering but noticeable. But this all additive and improvements are being heard, I like this.
Change #8 Checked out Roon and Qobuz trials. I'm glad I did (I now subscribe to both). I ultimately settled on using the DSP with upsampling to DSD512 over ASIO. I'm really pleased with the result. Overall everything adds up to the music sounding effortless etch free. Awesome transient response, shimmer, decay, ability to "walk around" the recordings is a real thing now, true physical fatigue has me stopping my listening sessions, not my ears. ABBA Dancing Queen isn't as annoying now, top end isn't a strident mess.
Change #9 Enter the Tekton Moab. <Insert series of expletives here> <take a breath> <Insert some more expletives here>
Magnapan who? The Moabs are like "Hey buddy, check this out, this is what your system should sound like. You hear that, check that, you feel that? Yeah, THOSE are drums buddy. Hold on, yeah, right there, you hear that? Yeah, THAT'S a bass line. Lemme show you what the drummer is really doing with that kick drum. Oh yeah, that's the room you hear, has some nice reverb going on right? Pop quiz, how many backup singers can you hear and where are they? That's right, you found all of them. Now which one has a cold? Okay I'm fking with you, maybe..." It goes on and on.
I'm utterly confused by the naysayers and I'm not even going to go into it too much but to my ears you have to be crazy not be impressed even a little bit by these speakers. Having played in orchestras in my younger years, being around live music in general, I can say these speakers get it right. If there's perfect out there I haven't heard it, but convincing? Yes these are convincing. Some live recordings that Roon played randomly had that quality in the vocals where they person singing gets a little close to the mic and you get increased presence and power from the venue's playback system, you get that through these speakers. I have to focus on some jazz, Zappa, remember to pull up that Aja album, and some Mahavishnu Orchestra. HiRez Audiophile recordings are fun and all but, there's a ton of classic stuff I need to hear first.
Okay, I think I've carried on long enough here. I got up early to get work done (and report back here) and it's done, so I'm going to check out the sound now that they've been playing for 17 hours now.
Thanks COVID I haven't paid this much attention to my system since my 20's and early 30's! And if you made it this far, thanks for reading.
-T |
Thanks! @MC Playing around with toe in, seems like it’s going to be a critical adjustment. The dispersion is fairly narrow, not head in vice, but the sweet spot is on the small side. Tonal balance changes a bit the further off axis, a little more sensitive in the horizontal than the vertical but the sound changes quite a bit when I stand up, but I’m 6’4". First few seconds of some slack key guitar and my wife exclaims "your last setup sounded FANTASTIC, but THIS, THIS is something else, another level". Nah, I wasn’t prepared for that. I plopped these things in the same spot as the last pair (MMG on top of poke subs, literally on top of them). I’ll do the REW thing later in the week but my usual battery of test tracks tell me they’re in the right spot.
About the weight, it’s just safer to have two people. I could and would have wrestled these things in the house if I had to, wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to do some heavy lifting, but it was way easier with a "spotter". I’ve never seen a delivery man run off so quick. I turned to make sure the boxes were stable and I turned back to ask if he could take the pallet and he was all the way down the driveway yelling "nope, gotta go!". SOB.
I’m curious about springs, will try those later. I’m going to enjoy these and make changes gradually.
One thing is for sure these speakers are telling me I’ve been on the right track, more layers removed, hearing deeper into the music, it’s fking effortless, my amp is the weak link now but I’m still getting goose bumps with it. Weak as in if I put my ear to the tweeter with nothing playing I hear a slight hiss, not at the listening position though (8’ 4" away). I’m going to enjoy this setup a bit before I go amp hunting. I’ll post more, but I have to run and grab some food. The hype is well deserved. Oh and the sound already changed over the past couple of hours, the bass filled in a bit and a slight etch is gone. |
@MC, Woah, that is no joke! My wife and I wish you a swift recovery!
|
Forty seven hours in, yup, ABBA Dancing Queen is still fun and musical! For extra lolz I dug up Sia’s Chandelier. What do ya know, I could make out what was going on in that busy ass track. Her voice is pretty fking rough. Will try to post in a bit after a nap with impressions from various points of break in 0hrs, 3hrs, 17hrs, 40hrs. The super short version is these things change character slightly over time and I’m super happy with the performance I’m getting currently. I need this room in a home away from other homes so I can really crank it when I want. I’ll probably never really stress these things out and that’s perfectly fine, holy cow these speakers maintain their composure at loud volumes. In general I’m listening around 75-85db during the day and the impact from these speakers is incredible.
I’ve been listening to Norah Jones, Lorde, Joni Mitchell, Sigur Ros, Miles Davis, South, Israel Kamakawiwoʻole, Hugh Masekela, Bjork. Going to put on some Beck (Sea Change), Zappa, and Steely Dan when I wake up.
@raysmtb1, I’ve always wanted to listen to those McIntosh speakers, a couple of them really, the designs are intriguing, the pricing prohibitive for my four kids having ass. I don’t worry about the what ifs, life’s been good, but damnit, without kids I’d be right there toying with some of the more big buck equipment. I’d want to experience the different designs. So many ways to skin this cat (not that I’d skin a cat, I love cats, but you know what I mean. :-| ). If you could briefly describe what that 10% more sounds like?
Okay, nap time.
-T |
Well, I'm patiently waiting for my pair. At last check the cabinets for my Moabs in custom "Pepper" (Sherman Williams color) we're ordered, this was about a week after I placed my order. I'm hoping for a nice surprise like my Uhaul container getting here a week early. Maybe the Moabs arrive mid August at the latest, crossing my fingers. I've been having fun with my Magnepan MMGs and Emotiva XPA-2 setup in the meantime. In this room I didn't install the subs, I've been using a couple of powered Polk 10s which worked way better than I thought they would in my last home. I've got 22x13x9 to play with, no real treatments yet. My fabric arrived today so I'm going to rent a table saw and get to work on absorbers. I want to get them done and temporarily installed with the current gear and move things around as needed for the Moabs.
Can anyone recommend a good cost effective usb mic for doing room acoustics analysis? The room doesn't souind bad at all but in the bass frequencies I can hear that things could be a bit better. Shoot, just putting the Maggies on isolation pucks on a isolation platforms made a huge difference in bass response and imaging. Turns out I've been doing it wrong with the MMGs, gotta decouple those suckers from the floor. I want to install two or four panels above the listening position, just need to look into proper mounting hardware for that. I'm not a fan of things falling on my head.
I was going to upgrade to Maggie 1.7i, but I've been dying to try out Tektons for a couple of years but have been nervous about losing that fine midrange and overall detail that I get with the MMGs, but all I've been reading is that I can get that and some more with Tektons. Was ready to pull the trigger on Double Impacts, then saw the sale on the SE, but I couldn't get a clear picture on what the real differences were between the two since the SE isn't a small upgrade, it's a whole different set of components. I read in more than one place that the SE was not as dynamic but I could live with that since having never heard the standard DI all I know is it would be leaps and bounds better than my MMGs based on the reviews. But hey, for only $500 I can get even more speaker for my money with the Moabs and my wife said "why half ass it, just get it in a nice color" and to that I said, "okay, you pick it and I'll order". (Hits the Staples "That was easy" button)
Now I'm nervous that this $4500 over-expenditure will turn into $10000 if I start getting the itch to get another amp. My hearing is done at 16.7khz, so I'm not sure I'll hear the difference in a quieter amp than the XPA-2 which I find to be pretty damn silent. But I will notice changes in dynamics, imaging, soundstage etc. What I have now is non-fatiguing, and pretty effortless, dynamic, and spacious as loud as the MMGs will play. The Moabs are what 98 or 99db sensitive? Yeah, this will be interesting.
I use my Denon 988 AVR in pure mode with no room correction. It's there for DAC, surround processing at the time -- I'm two channel for now, and volume control. It sounds really good, me and my wife have a ball picking apart songs and all those little "did you hear that" moments. So with that said, I'm wondering if I'm better off spending some bucks on a sound processor with better DACs so I can use HDMI, or start obsessing over a better amp after I've my initial fun, I know there's better stuff out there.
Okay, so this carried on for a bit. Anyway, I'm dying to see Miller's delivery post, then setup and listening posts. I don't really drink, but I might just have one when his arrives, pretty sure it's going to be a good read. |
MC,
Congrats on your purchase and receipt of the Moabs! I was bracing myself for the ", but, ", but it didn't happen. Another glowing review! Mine are apparently moving along nicely, hopefully no more than another three to four weeks to go before mine arrive.
I think I read that you integrated a couple of subs with them. Was that out of real need, or just for shitz-n-gigglez? In your room how low do the Moabs extend before the 3-6db rolloff?
Regards,
T |
roxy54,
I've always chosen odd screen names over my mumble something years on bulletin boards and the internet. To answer your question, nope, I'm neither Hawaiian nor witch doctor. But, my wife is Samoan. A wife that encourages my hobbies (nice to hear "yeah, might as well get the Moabs and make some room treatments before they arrive").
Regards,
T |
The Moabs bass is simply wonderful. Its full and round, not lean but also not bloated. There's a character to the sound of a string bass, I think it comes from the body of the instrument resonating, and these capture that better than anything I've ever heard. This includes million dollar Wilsons. (Sorry. But when I hear a good sounding Wilson I will let you know.) But there simply is a limit to what can be done with bass with just two sources.
It's a beautiful thing when you can hear really hear the instruments in that manner. That catches my attention more than "hey that guy is over there, and that singer is over there", that's not saying I enjoy a smeared sound stage, not at all. Having spent fair amount of my youth around live music I have a sense of what instruments should sound like. My ears love a great reproduction. Anyway, Wilsons... Having heard about three installations in various dealers some mumble something years ago all I recall is not being blown away. I don't know if it was the rooms they were in, the gear, or what, but while it sounded "pretty good" I didn't feel like I'd drop tens of thousands of dollars on them if I could at the time. Just got back from Home Depot. I picked up a bunch of premium 1x5x8 furring strips, table saw, screws etc. Going to get to work making the frames for the absorbers. I'm going to try and get them done before the Moabs arrive. I want to hear what the Maggies sound like with treatments in the room. I thought I was getting great performance out of them in my last room, but it's even better here (22'2"L x 13'3"W x 9'H) without anything on the walls or in the corners, just rugs, plenty of furniture and cats. I definitely hear some flutter echo when standing up, but not so much while sitting, and I should get some improvement in the bass response when it's all installed. By ear the sweeps and test tones don't seem so bad. I just found my Rat Shack meter so I have to put some numbers to it and see what's up. In any case this will be interesting as I haven't had a cone based speaker as my mains for a looooong time. I'm curious to see how the Moabs interact with the room. From what I've read they shouldn't be a handful to setup. I know you (MC) got lucky with the placement, but I wonder how much effort it took to settle on the location of the Talons. Will need to find a home for the MMG and the MMGC surrounds soon. Any recommendations for a DAC with quality volume control, analog passthrough, remote control, and not horrifically expensive? Regards, T |
MC,
Heh, nah, what I meant by luck was you being able to drop the Moabs in where the Talons were originally or thereabouts. On other threads I've read folks talk about struggling with placement after supposedly having the previous pair dialed in. So, if it took you a few days even, LUCKY!
Yeah, finding the right spot is a pain but also fun. I remember girlfriends at the time struggling to understand why I kept moving the speakers, the couch, the orientation of the whole room, the pages of measurements, the tape on the floor, and my alleged obsession with certain tracks. The Maggies have been the most forgiving between rooms, no dynamic speaker I've owned has been as easy to setup. Getting the Moabs setup is going to be interesting. I've read mostly that they aren't hard to setup, but then I've read a couple of reports that they were a bit difficult, however, the writing had some questionable or conflicting content so I'm not so sure what was going on there.
So about those traps/absorbers. I was leaning more towards Roxul Safe N Sound. By the numbers it should perform better than OC 703, even taking into account the 1" difference in thickness. I'm aiming to do early reflection treatment and corner treatment. I'm not sure how crazy I'm going to get, but my wife is in full support (we're both IT engineers). I have a health concern with fiberglass existing outside of the wall. The cats although they are pretty good with sticking to their scratching posts and such, and my wife had a bad experience with the stuff, so I'm going to sidestep that whole discussion and go for the Safe N Sound. We're okay with the thickness. I started ordering GIK 5 1/4" absorbers and saw the cost getting out of control along with the shipping costs and wait time. I need a project outside of work and saving a few bucks is really nice as well. Money towards a DAC perhaps.
Regards,
T |
@MC,
Holy sh!t these things are heavy! Just finished unboxing and setting them up on their feet. Yeah, luckily my wife favorite past time is Olympic weight lifting. Old Dominion don't do stairs and it's about 12 shallow steps up to my front door. They sent the biggest truck they could find so it couldn't drive up to the stairs, and the gentleman was at least in his late 50s and not even trying to make the attempt. We ended up carefully carrying them up a flight of steps from the garage to the first floor. I would have gone through the front door but I didn't want to risk someone hitting one of the boxes while we moved one. The paint came out just as we ordered per the swatch so that's nice. I haven't looked too tough into the speaker but from what I can tell it's got some good bracing in there at least between the ports. They arrived with dual connections so I'll find out if they are bi-wire or bi-amp in a bit. Eric wasn't sure but he'll send a set of jumpers if need be. I'll strip some Rat Shack 12Ga in the meantime if I have to. I'm pretty fking excited but damn, I need to take a breather first. Almost ready to connect to the amp and play some tunes!
-T |
Here they come. Some of you are a little thick headed, and grumpy it seems If you found an insult in my comments there's something a bit off on your end. A little too sensitive I'd say, but par for the course in this society. Geez. It's a real unfortunate thing, and I've experienced this in a variety of my hobbies and other things that I follow. That's what you chose attempted to comment on? Why bother? Who are you standing up for? I don't care what anyone buys or listens to. I'm here to share an experience in my own words to describe how I feel about the situation. If some of you don't buy into it (who ever asked you to) fine, but a lot of precious (sarcasm for the thick headed) bits have been wasted on negative comments for no apparent reason. And I haven't seen a detailed BAD analysis of Tekton speakers, so there's that. To each his own, I just think there's "I don't like/I don't care for/Didn't offer the improvement I was looking for" and then there's categorically bad. If there was ever a criticism its the people claiming the latter with no experience and NO DATA TO BACK IT UP. Anyway back to listening. Go enjoy whatever floats your boat outside of the thread and just let the people in here have a on topic discussion.
-T |
domimax7, I don't think anyone here would disagree with YES. The Moab specification is 98db sensitivity at 2.83v. So 1 watt if you get the 8 ohm version or 2 watts with a 4 ohm version. Basically unless you're trying to damage your hearing 80 quality watts is good enough.
I think I'll test this later and see how much power draw at the wall I see while playing at 98db. That's way louder than I ever care to listen at home (or anywhere really).
|
We laugh our asses off at how tall they are. I mean we knew that before hand, but once you get them in front of you, its another story. They are narrower than the MMG on top of subs they're replacing, but I think they're 17" deep.
Your room is shorter than mine by about 8 ft, but much taller, so not having them so close to the ceiling might help aesthetically.
I got lucky, my wife was totally like "GET THOSE". I would not have had such luck with my first wife (last time I'll bring that up, bad juju).
Your post reminds me that I have a really nice (pricy for its time) McIntosh receiver that had a nice full sound to it and did the detail thing (to what extent I don't remember) which needs some restoring. I wonder how that would sound with the Moabs.
glupson6 commented on aesthetics regarding room dimensions, but also what about room treatment? That size room would need some treatment for nodes so things don't get too boomy, no? Most rooms need some treatment to a degree, but he's almost in a cube. I've had to deal with a 13x13x10 for a short while and it wasn't fun. |
MC, Glad you're back and doing okay.
Audiogon "accidentally" suspended my account over the weekend. That was odd.
I ordered my Moabs in a custom color called Pepper. The paint came out perfectly and matched the matting of the artwork in the living room as intended.
I have to say past 50 hours I didn't notice too much change in the sound. But who knows. I want to think certain things I thought I noticed had more to do with my attention level or attitude at the time. Overall its wonderful. But now I must tackle the room. It's a different ball game with these speakers vs the Magnepans. They excite the room differently. Playing certain material revealed some midbass boominess on occasion and it was horrible when I heard it. I peeled myself away from the music to run measurements with REW and it confirmed my ears findings. Also a nice -15db suck out at 61hz. Using Roon's parametric EQ I was able to tame most of it and get a lot of detail back in those recordings within those frequency bands. In the end I added a little boost to 61hz but I can't say that it really had an effect. Cutting the humps found between 100-250hz helped tremendously. I've been listening each day for hours at a time and my ears are never fatigued but REW says the response is a bit lively and there's some decay issues in the upper mid band and out.
So, I definitely have some more reading to do and might even give one of those treatment retailers a call for a consultation. I was going to roll my own, but I'm not sure that's the way to go to solve this ~60hz issue. I think the first order of business is to do something about the first reflections and something in the rear of the room. I'm thinking about how to tackle the front of the room.
The main goal is to not use DSP to control the sound before room treatment but it was cool to see it work so effectively.
-T |
@glupson6,
You can pay upfront or when they ship. They billed me when it was time to ship.
My order was held up in the paint phase due to staffing, so I can’t complain about that. I’m very happy with the result so the wait was worth it.
Because of the big ol’ "do not carry" labels on the boxes I called Tekton to find out how they were packed and was put on the phone with the fella who does the packing. After talking to him we were able to get the boxes up the stairs without risking damage to the speakers.
Tammy has been super helpful, Nicky as well (she’s new). I got a chance to speak with Eric briefly regarding the terminals on the speakers, I got bi-wire terminals unexpectedly.
An issue with my grill order was resolved quickly and those are now on the speakers, pretty handsome looking. My wife actually like them with the grills off "I’m going to have to get used to this".
My order was a bit late but the customer service experience was very positive.
@Speedbump6, Hopefully your speakers arrive soon. Did you order grills? |
