Long hiatus from audio, getting back into it, speaker/room help please


Hey all, thanks for offering this forum, I've been reading a lot, and as the subject says I'm coming back to audio from a long hiatus. Long story short, about 25 years ago I built a very nice home theater in my previous house in CA - it was a Martin Logan 5.1 system, Sunfire amps, Lexicon MC-1, Sunfire subs, etc. It was awesome at the time and I had a very good time with it. Then, after 20 years, I got a divorce - also at the same time as the divorce I lost my mom to cancer, and also at the same time I got my own cancer diagnosis. So I moved to Texas to treat my cancer, finalized the divorce (a 3 year process), and then if that wasn't enough, was involved in a very bad burn accident. I've now come out the other side, no cancer, burns recovered mostly, and I've been wanting to get back to my listening enjoyment.

I have a room (my office) that is going to be (mostly) dedicated to this listening for mostly me only. Its 17 feet by 30 feet in size, is solid wood surround (walnut), and has cathedral ceilings. Its rectangular and has a spiral staircase down to a garage below in the southeast corner of the room. On the south end it has a single window (5 feet wide, 3 feet tall), and on the west side are 3 smaller windows (each 2 feet wide by 6 feet tall). On the north end of the room is a window that is 3 feet wide and 5 feet tall. There is a door into the room on the east wall, sort of in the middle of the room but more towards the north corner.

I read about Magnepan LRS and that got me sparked to start this back up again. My ML's I had before sounded great for the type of music I like - accoustic and vocals, live music, light rock and roll. I love piano, strings, percussion but not so much horns. 

I'm thinking a good spot for the LRS' are at the south end of the room. There I can put them about 5 feet off the rear wall, and put my listening position about 15 feet back from them, centered between them. They'll have about 12 feet between them. I thought I'd drive them with a Schiit Vidar. I'm wide open in terms of preamp and source devices and would appreciate any recommendations there. What I really like about the LRS is that apparently they have great performance for not so much cash. Same with Vidar. So I'd like to keep that theme. I kind of like the analogy of the small block chevy to hot rods - a ton of parts available for a motor that virtually everyone uses, and its been used by everyone - i.e. everyone knows it. Similarly I think there's a wave of people using LRS+Vidar because its a relatively low cost entry into high performance. I think some of the Schiit preamps and DACs may find their way onto my list also perhaps. 

Anyhow, as far as budget goes, I'm lucky in that I'm not really limited there other than I'm not looking to dump $30k into this, rather I'd probably prefer to keep it under $5k to get the basics going. I *really* like the sound, transparency, stage, etc. of panels and since that's what I'm used to from the ML's I'd prefer to keep panels instead of cones.

I have a block diagram of the room but i'm not seeing a spot to upload it, perhaps I can link it in.

Thanks for any suggestions,
Jeff in Texas (DFW area)
n6gq
Congrats on surviving all of that. First thought is the LRS might be too small in a fairly large room unless you listen closer to the speakers. Steve Guttenberg has a few videos on the LRS which may help.
Congrats on surviving all of that. First thought is the LRS might be too small in a fairly large room unless you listen closer to the speakers. Steve Guttenberg has a few videos on the LRS which may help.

Thank you for your thoughts and kind words. Since I posted I'm starting to think maybe the 1.7's might be a better fit for the room. So maybe, while the LRS is a novel idea, I really do need a bit more size. 1-2 listeners max in a dedicated listening area.
I am a professional theater designer and Maggie's are terrible  for theater 

They don't play loud are dynamically limited they are hard to drive and día podes for fronts confuse image placement 

Martin Logan are hybrid  which are better suited for theater 

You want dynamic speakers



Easier to place and tune  more dynamic and designed for your application 

Dave and troy
AUDIO INTELLECT NJ





Welcome to the forum. You've had quite a tough go of it, so you deserve to treat yourself to some audio goodies.

Since you've already owned ML speakers, I guess you don't need to hear the speech about the pros and cons of panel speakers. You seem to like the transparency they can give you and your musical taste seems to be in their wheelhouse. But I will suggest that you have quite a large space to fill and you might be happier with 1.7s or larger. And adding subs might be in order too. That would be optional for what you mainly listen to though.

Good luck with your new system.

Oz