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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

128x128rooze
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.
dannylw's avatar
dannylw
172 posts
 
Here are some of the things I have done with older Maggies and also ML's they seem to work with both. Decrease the distance from the wall behind the speaker to about four feet. Put the speakers about 10 feet apart. Sit about 10 to 12 feet back and then see if the bass changes. Also, have you broken these speakers in. My Maggies and my ML both needed to be broken in.

I'm not familiar with any of the newer Belles models. You said the amp is low powered and it is bright in the highs. Is the amp broken in? All of the Maggies I know want to see high power unless played extremely low.

Good luck.
rathbone
22 posts
 
Rooze,

You need to shrink your room. If you can't do that physically, your screwed. That is a lot of air to pressurize, even for a massive cone speaker. Quite a few people use one of the various speaker set-ups shown on the Cardas cable web-site. Most of the time this ends up being some sort of equilateral triangle between you and the speakers. For example, try the maggies at 10 feet from the wall at the narrow end of the room, positioned 10 feet apart , and sit 10 feet from each speaker. See if that (near-field listening) helps. This may be the only solution to "shrink" your room. A lot of people enjoy near-field listening (including Cardas when he had/still has modded 3.5Rs).

The fact that you use the tweeter attenuator probably means that you have purchased the wrong speaker. Putting the attenuator on the ribbon is like buying a stud horse and then castrating it. Not good.....almost all the transparency and presence that sets the speaker apart from the rest is lost.

>>>I'm wondering if these are just inherrently 'bright' speakers with no bass??<<

It's not about quantity with the maggies, its all about the quality. A sub is not the answer either. A good amp can help with the bass most definitely, but if you went that direction (big amp) your already bright speakers might get even brighter. It seems that the 3.6 is the wrong speaker for your house and tastes. No shame in that. There are few people whom have ever found the right speaker for their situation without some trial and error.
jimmyrod
56 posts
 
First off congradulations on owning a fine speaker.

Second did you buy these new or used? They need at least 200-300 hrs to break in.

To tame the tweeter a bit while breaking-in try a simply fix of using some copper wire replacing the metal jumpers for the tweeter attenuator or use the supplied tweeter attenuators.

Now to improve the bass, placement and power will handle that. The comment about using the Cardas method is a good one. I have my 3.6R 48" from the front wall. In your case 10ft from the front wall seems rather far, but again look at the Cardas method to help address this.

Finally Magnepans are not for everyone, but given the right setup they are an incredible speaker especially for the $$.

If you bought from a dealer they should be assisting in setting these up for you.

Some people including myself buy the Magnepans only to end up upgrading their power amps, but before you do set up is key.

Happy listening
onemug
784 posts
 
When the bass loosens up it will mask some of the brightness. In the meantime, see if you can borrow a big amp or powered sub to try. Make sure the sub can be crossed at 30 to 40hz. Some things you can do now are try them 3.5 to 4 feet from the wall behind them, tweeters on the inside and put a 2 inch piece of 12ga. copper wire in place of the steel tweeter bar or resistor your using now. Good luck.
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