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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
tok20000's avatar
tok20000
608 posts
 
My Maggies are sold. I had them for almost 3 years.

Anyway, I say listen to Tireguy because he is a Maggie expert.

Personally I would advise the following:
- get the most powerful amps you can afford to drive them
- no integrated amp is going to do what a 500+ wpc amp/amps will do into the Maggies
- Maggies take a while to break in, whatever brightness you hear is due to your system, the room, or the Maggies needing to break in. Maggies are not inherently bright speakers.
- You probably are not getting much bass from the Maggies due to your amp. You need more power to get the Maggies to perform better (especially in the bass).
- At a $3k budget I would get a couple of the Bell Canto digital switching amps and monoblock them or go with used Plinius SA-250 mk4 if you can get one around $3.5k or so... Think POWER.

KF
sean
6,231 posts
 
1) Your room is TOO big for this type of speaker.

2) You don't have near enough power for the speaker that you are trying to run. Combine this with the size of the room that you have and it's no wonder you aren't happy.

3) In order to get what you want out of this system retaining these speakers, you'll probably need to buy a WAY bigger amp ( you can't buy one big enough ) and supplement the bottom end. That will probably take another amp since most "quality" subs don't come with their own amp.

4) If you go the route mentioned above, all you'll have left to do is to play with matching the gain levels on the mains and the subs, find the best placement for the subs and then hope that the subs and Maggies blend well together.

5) You probably bought the wrong speakers. "Good" products are not universal in application.

Getting around the problems cited above may have you pulling your hair out, getting very frustrated and going bankrupt. Sorry for the bad news and being brutally honest, but i'm trying to save you a lot of headaches and heart-aches. Sean
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sayas
189 posts
 
the room is massive, period!

slide the speakers all the way to the back wall and move one out until the bass is satisfying, do the same with the second. use some type of repetitive bass music like a nice stand up bass for this exercise.

good luck.
philjolet's avatar
philjolet
2,306 posts
 
I always felt the 1.6s were bright and especiall touchy and revealing about how they were driven and associated components, my theory is the massive tweeter/QR ribbons have so much output they sometimes need taming.

I agree with the Cardas method of placement, I tried everything with my 1.6s and after using the Cardas formula I never moved them again which is really saying something given my tweeking habits.

Ficus trees placed behind them and near the front on the outsides so as to interrupt the soundwaves headed toward the walls helped. Though these points might not matter much with your large room.

When I switched from my Plinius SA100 MKIII to a Plinius 8200 MKII integrated I lost a surprising amount of bass. You have to get an amp with a ton of current, and Plinius seperates are a great choice, with unsurpassed bass as well as a slightly laid back high end which I think would suit you well.
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.
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