Trying Magnepans, need advice

Here's a quote from a thread I started when I tried out a pair of Magnepan 12s. My room is small also and they just did not work for me. I would advise anyone thinking about Maggies to audition them in their room.

12-12-09: Timrhu
Thought I'd finish this thread off.
After careful evaluation the Magnepan 12s went back to the dealer. I tried all of the suggestions that were possible in the week that I auditioned them but they never got me there. I spent about two solid hours Wednesday evening listening to various music, some well recorded and some not so well recorded. On Thursday I swapped my Kestrels back in and listened to the same music. The Kestrels were truly better for me.
I won't spend time critiquing the Maggies but they just did not work in my small room. Thanks for all the suggestions.

The biggest mistake with Magies is some just folks dont realize that simply installing the correct resistor for the tweeter output for the given room is a must.
When properly adjusted with either nothing,a 1/2 ohm a 1.2 ohm or 2 ohm resistors I have rarely had an issue dialing them in I remember them working in a a 9.5 x 15 with great results.
Could it be that these well intended mis guided information volunteers and self appointed expert know betters are also
non manual readers as well.
Cheers Johnny

I've got the 1.6 Maggies. Love'em. I will say this, positioning them properly is everything. When we're not listening to them my wife likes to keep them about 2' away from and parallel to the wall. Ok for background music but not serious listening. In our case they need to at least 3' from the wall and tilted in about 15 degrees toward the listener. Also, we found having the ribbon tweeters on the inside rather than the outside sounds better....fishing555

Get the MMGs and a sub.

Thanx, Russ

I agree about the tweeter resistors. In most average rooms, I feel maggies will produce too much treble energy, and needs to be balanced out. The purists will tell you to use positioning and room treatments to balance out the response, but that's not always feasable. I feel Magnepan purposely makes the treble a bit hot, to account for dead rooms, as it's always better to have to attenuate a tweeter, as opposed to trying to attenuate a power hungry woofer.

MMG's should be fine in your small room, but you will need to consider break-in and room matching (tweeter resistor), for best results. Cable choice can also play an important role. Adding a smallish, good quality sub (or two) would be icing on the cake.