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Where are your maggies??

Hi,

Just took delivery of a pair of Magnepan 3.6 R's and I'm just starting to get a handle on their sound and at the same time having some placement issues.
I'm using a Belles 250i integrated, which despite it's modest power rating seems to handle the Maggie's incredibly well....large, open soundstage, dynamic, no compression to speak of at higher spl's etc.

My only issue so far is that the overal balance and presentation is a little on the bright side of neutral, more so than the monitors that I've used for the past 6 years or so. Also, bass is definately on the 'lean' side, which doesn't help with the issue of a bright tonal balance.
I'm wondering if my room is mostly to blame for the forward presentation, and wondered if any Maggie owners could cast some light on their own placement issues with 3.6's and what steps they may have taken to overcome the forward presentation and lack of bass. I know that placement with the Maggie's is critical and so far I've spent two evenings making adjustments without any real impact to the overal sound. I have some issues with reflective surfaces, but the speakers are 10' clear from the front wall, 25 or so feet clear from one side wall, 12' clear from the other side wall and 18' from the listening chair with 3' behind the chair to the back wall. So room reflections ought not to be a significant issue given their proximity to the room boundaries.(also, they are 12 feet apart with slight toe-in and the tweeters on the outside).

I've messed around with distance from side and front wall, distance from listening seat, distance between speakers, toe-in angle, and have switched the speakers around between tweeters inside and outside.
The changes in position have effected the soundstage, imaging depth/width but have not really altered bass response or the tonal balance to any real degree.

I'm wondering if these are just inherrently 'bright' speakers with no bass??....though I have heard people claiming to get great bass response from 3.6's and have never heard anyone claiming that they are overly bright. (I've got the Maggie supplied tweeter attenuator installed also, by the way).

Should I be trying anything else as far as placement is concerned, what have others used to tame a forward sound??

Should I be concerned about the amp?...it is an integrated with a tube pre and solid state power stage, and most people describe it's sound as warm, full and tube-like.

Sorry for posting yet another 'Magnepan' thread, but my instinct is that these speakers are capable of much more than I'm getting out of them, and I have the space to allow them to 'breathe' with a room approx 30x60.
I do however have a limited budget for amps, $3k max, though I suspect the Belles is really a great amp that is up to the task of handling these puppies.

Any ideas, insights or tweaks would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks,

Rooze

rooze

Showing 3 responses by eldartford

eldartford
4,262 posts
 
I have MG1.6. I assume that the "attenuators" which you refer to are 1 ohm resistors. (That's what came with the MG1.6). If you still find your MG3.6 to be too bright, try a 2 ohm resistor and see how you like it. All crossovers have resistors in series with the tweeter so as to match its SPL to the woofer. One crossover schematic that I happen to have handy (for a Dynaudio system) uses 3.5 ohms, so don't feel guilty about the resistor.

I am not familiar with your amp, and it may be a fine unit, but Maggies, perhaps more than any other speaker, benefit from brute force. At the same time they are an "easy" resistive load for the amp, so perhaps the amp doesn't need to be an exotic expensive design. I have 350 watts (4 ohms) and I am willing to believe that an even more powerful amp might extract even better sound.

To be specific, see if you can borrow an Adcom 5500 (200 watts into 8 ohms) and give it a listen. If it works for you your budget will still have $2000 in it for other neat stuff.
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
They say that if a town has one lawyer, he is unemployed, but if there are two they are busy! So too with audiophiles.
Here is another point of view.

First...get more watts. They don't need to be esoteric expensive high end watts, just lots of them. The relatively inexpensive Adcom 5500 would be worth a try, and use it as a basis of comparison to see if you can justify anything more expensive.

Room size...I don't think that the room is too big. In my experience, bigger, with cathedral ceiling is ideal. If you have a high ceiling, suspend the speakers well off the floor and away from all walls. Because your room is so big, you could try a diagonal setup. This can work well. (I envy your room, and I bet some of those other guys do too. Sour grapes).

Get another Maggie...just one for a center channel. IMHO center channel has many advantages, but making more noise is one of them. Use the Adcom 5503 3-channel amp instead of the stereo version.

Get another pair of Maggies, and amp....even more noise. $$$? With dual side-by-side stereo speakers positioning can be difficult, but results can be good. The best I ever heard was KLH 9 electrostatics, dual pair.

Get three more Maggies for full 5-channel setup...$$$$$$$$$ Power the whole rig with the Spectron 6-channel digital power amp. $$$$$ Go to jail for embezelment. (But you will be happy).

Last, and probably least, get several subwoofers.
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
sean...I know what you mean about the bass of auto sound systems. In my rural location I can hear tham coming down the road from a mile off.

As the engineer who always looks for the analytical explanation, it's not easy for me to discount your comment, and simply say (what seams to clinch the argument on this site) "it sounds good, trust me". Perhaps the low "room gain" goes along with minimal room resonances, which I find to be very desirable. The very-smooth LF response of Maggies is what makes their limited LF extension acceptable.

IMHO the out-of-phase rear radiation of a diple speaker only becomes a problem when they are placed close to the front wall, so that the soundwave is reflected back with little delay, and therefore can cancel the front wave. Unfortunately the houses that we live in usually result in the speakers being too close to that front wall. The best way to hear Maggies is in a very large room, 40-50m feet long, and with the speakers set up almost half way. You need to live in a barn to do this right.
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