Maggie LRS so ridiculously good

@chopandchange 

Yes I still have the MMG.

Things that I have done since my post old post here in the thread.

As I said I crossover the MMG at 53Hz there the Maggies roll of.

I put up my super upgrade bookshelf speakers and could do A/B comparison the MMG were better in every way you name it.

Expect in one area!

I hade a test track that had some constant bass line and it sounded better on the bookshelf. I with a frequency analyze I could determine that the frequency were 80hz.

So when I have two 18" right and left woofers. Those are a bit behind the MMG and the DSP time align them ao that the MMG and the woofers are playing from the same Place and arriving at the same time to your ears.

(In other words it is like having a 3 way and no issue with localization when they are more or less where the MMG is)

The second thing is that the 18" woofers plays up to 2000 Hz linearly.

So then I thought: why not let the 18" woofers play the 80 Hz instead of that the MMG is doing it.

So i made the crossover point at 100 Hz instead so the woofers play now the 80 Hz plus the Maggies would get some relief.

When I re-did the A/B listening tests now the bookshelves had not the upper hand any longer and the 80 Hz bass line in the song were produced by the woofers as good as that the bookshelves could!👍

Next thing I have done on my +40 year old MMGs that has the exact same plate/binding posts/fuse/attenuation connection.

I modified and put a good quality blinding posts. Plus scraped the fuse and attenuation steel components and went directly to the crossover.

To be honest I usually don't hear any difference when I do tweeks.. And I usually/sometimes let the tweek be in the system when I have not heard any degradation either.. but when no noticeable sonically improvement were the tweeks worth it.?!

But this time when all that crap steel connectors and all the solider joints, were removed from the signal path I heard a real improvement. And I were just baffled with the thought that nobody that are listening to their MMG/LRS in orginal condition have yet NEVER heard their full potential! 

(The silly signal path for the Tweeter on the MMG/LRS:

First bad steel binding post for your speaker wire, then solider a lead to that solider to the fuse holder then contact with the fuse and the little thinn fuse lead and another end of the fuse and its clip holder solider wire to the steel binding post for the jumper (attenuation) to the other steel binding post and the last soldier to the lead that now eventually can go to the crossover..) 🤣

Well here I am still continuing to listen to these Magnepan LRS panels - they are very good indeed - however I did need to purchase a powerful amp to get more out of them.

I have chosen to use a Musical Fidelity M6si which is good ol’ fashioned Class A/B which seem to work very well.

I am not a bass freak so - I will stick to the LRS for now despite there being a very good deal on a 1.7i nearby which is tempting - but I shall refrain ...

It also helps to open the sound a little with valves in the mix somewhere - in my case the use of an Audio Note 0.1x. DAC.

Not to take away anything of the opinions of those that are happy with the bass with Maggies alone, I suggest you get one or two subs and integrate them well in your system and listen to what happens. The subs fill out the sound. These are panels so they are just not going to move air or have any percussiveness. No bass slam. When you add subs it just revolutionizes the sound. It’s not a small improvement. It’s a massive improvement. So just go get subs. Borrow them from a friend or dealer if you can. If the dealer is smart they will loan you some subs. You will end up buying them. 

As an alternative to LS50 Metas I tried LRS speakers with an Ayre VX-5 amp, augmented with a pair of KEF KC62 subs. I was impressed. As an alternate for KEF Reference 1s I’ll be trying them with an Ayre VX-5 Twenty and Parasound JC 1 monoblocks augmented with a pair of Velodyne HGS-15s with SMS-1 bass managers that provide acoustic room correction. I’m expecting to be even more impressed.