The Official Magnepan Owners Thread - Page 54

hmmm...a pair of parasound jc-1 monoblocks for sale on ebay. man, i just don't trust ebay...

none there. darn it

An integrated I have heard was the Arc DSi200 hooked to a set of 20.1's. It is a class D, but you wouldn't know it until you checked your electricity bill.
It is an amazing sound paired with the Maggies. I was stunned. Still am. And it is pretty new tech.

There is a reasonable sales history for the JC-1 on audiogon, keep looking as they will pop up again. You could also post a wanted to buy.

Also, check the discussion forms at audiogon. Lots of info regarding amps for Maggies.

From my brief experience with Magnepans, you're on the right track with amps.

Ever considered good used Pro Amps?

I drive my MG 1.6 QR passively bi-amped with a pair of fanless Crown K1’s.

thanks for the suggestions, steven. i may do that

i just put 50% down on a pair of 3.7s today. spent another 3 hours listening to the 3.6s and the 1.7s again, and i feel pretty comfortable doing that with speakers i haven't heard. that gives me 2-3 months to work out the electronics. i think i'm gonna drive to the parasound dealer 1.5 hours away next week and listen to them. no sense rushing into anything...

Congrats on your purchase of the 3.7’s go_sox!
Sonically they are superior to the 3.6 supposedly. I believe it.
Those JC-1 mono-blocks are superior to my Parasound amps also.
Should you wind up with them and a nice pre-amp, you are in for a nice time for a long time.
I checked the stats for the JC-2 pre-amp and looks good. But the frequency response is from 5hz to 100khz.
My pre-amps frequency response is from 0.2hz to 200khz. I don’t know what kind of difference that makes. But last night I was listening at a normal level and I wasn’t paying attention to it and I realized there was sound around my chair also, it wasn’t just up front. This pre-amp is subtle at what it does and catches you by surprise.
I checked out those Bryston amps and if I was going to go with them, I think I would try to go with the 7B SST’s if possible.
My audio dealer tells me that once you get up to a certain level that it doesn’t matter what the specs say on paper.
Glad your getting the speakers and have time to investigate the rest.
You are in for some fun.

so, vinyl, how does carmina burana sound through your system?

You’ve gotten some good insights – unfortunately, regardless what is recommended it may not be for you – experience costs money trial and error is part of the game - I’ve not read anything on the space where these speakers will reside – a treated room and the acoustics within by far will outweigh all the electronics you throw their way - prepare for that.


O Fortuna ... at 90db inspires

Nice pic. Looks like you have the treatments and I can agree with some of your logic on equipment vs treatment. Except, a piece of crap amp, pre-amp, etc. is going to sound like what it is no matter where its at. If the room is treated, then it has a better chance of sounding like something.
No matter what equipment you have, chances are it will sound better with room treatment.

I got the MMGs in for a trial and it looks like they'll be staying. I found out a number of things that may be of interest. Yes they really do want a lot of power, my Yamaha RX-V3800 will run in 4 ohm mode but to do it the power output is dropped to ~140 watts. The MMGs just didn't sound that good when run like this. When put back in 8 ohm mode the receiver puts out ~260 watts into a 4 ohm load and started to open up the sound. Unfortunately running at HT volumes for an hour caused the receiver to get hot, not enough to go into thermal shutdown but more than enough to make me think of a toaster oven. I decided to take a chance on a pro amp, the Crown XLS1000, to take load off the receiver. It's rated at 350 watts per channel into 4 ohms, is dead quite and drives the MMGs without any drama or coloring that I can tell. With the amp taken care of it became obvious that my existing subwoofers just didn't integrate well. I was running 4 12" eDs in vented boxes which had worked well with my previous setup but sounded bloated with the MMGs. I already had a 12" Rythmik that I could use so I moved it into place. Music was now much better but there wasn't enough bass for HT use (at least as I like it). I put two of the 4 eDs in small sealed boxes that I positioned behind and to the inside of the MMGs with the Rythmik in the center. Now there was enough tight bass to make the opening of the Transformers come alive while sounding great with music. The subs are crossed with the mains at 110 hz. I next tried several different center channels I have in the house as well as using a phantom. The phantom just didn't work that well initially (more later) but neither did a Klipsch, Boston Acoustics or a "Big Foot" from a now defunct ID vendor. During the testing both MMGs had flopped back on the foot that the factory stands have. The floor is carpeted and with three 12" subs on a crawl space I don't really need any shakers for the seats :-). At Lowes I found some Stanley angle brackets that made making feet for the MMGs easy. With the new feet the MMGs are vertical, eight inches up and spiked to the floor. The sound changed enough to make me try the phantom center again. This time it was great with the voices matching the faces on the screen. Sorry for the long winded post but in summary I'd say that the MMGs can be great but you have to work them into a system before you can really tell how good they can be.

Glad it worked out, and you took the effort to make them sing! Any dipole speaker takes more effort to set up, but those of us who own them, love them.

I am running a pair of Rythmik F12's in my setup as well.

I need to call my magnepan dealer and have him notify me when he'll be getting in his demo 3.7's. I gotta listen to those. Has anyone heard anything about when they will start showing up in dealer showrooms?

my guy said he had talked to wendell diller a few days ago about that. said he was told that the first production run should be out at the end of march, but those have all been accounted for to satisfy other uses. my dealer is guessing they will be in sometime in early may

I've found that sealed servo subs seem to be the easiest to integrate with magnepans and work the best. The vented ones I've tried just didn't sound right with them. And I also prefer the MMG's raised up a bit and positioned vertically, rather than using the stock stands. I used Sound Anchor ones for mine, but if you're at all handy a diy solution shouldn't be that hard either.

Thanks. It appears that the roll out of the 3.7 will closely follow the pattern on the 1.7 a year ago. That was also unveiled at a show in January but didn't start hitting dealer showrooms until March.

My dealer got his 1.7 demos at the beginning of march 2010, and I ordered a pair right after that. My pair arrived on June 23rd.

cripes, don't they know how old i am? i could be gone any day now! i wish they'd hurry up

Any rumours about a 20.2 upgrade? Or does it already use QR mid/bass panels (I haven't looked recently)?

according to reply #36, wendell says no:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php...topic=91239.20

I bought a pair of JC-1s on audiogon to drive my eventual Maggie purchase, they come up pretty often so you shouldn't have to wait long.

I'm just waiting until I can hear the 3.7 before I determine if I want to go with that or the 1.7; my dealer told me he expects to have one mid-march for an audition.

I am very interested in hearing what you think. I originally upgraded from MG-I's to MG-IIIa's. That got me a ribbon tweeter and much deeper bass; the old II's didn't do a lot for me so I did not own them (though a pair lived in my system for a while). Now, the step from 1.7 to 3.7 would seem to be only a small increase in LF extension, but you do get that ribbon tweeter in the 3.7. Ages ago the ribbon was a big step up from the standard tweeter panel; I am not sure it is as a large a step up from the quasi-ribbon design. Especially with my older ears...

By all accounts the change to quasi-ribbon mid/bass panels is significant and has me thinking about saving for 3.7's instead of refurbishing my IIIa's as I had originally planned. I know they can't say, but I have to think a quasi-ribbon 20.x must be under consideration.

For now, my 20+ year old MG-IIIa's are still going strong.

Years ago, I went to the dealer to purchase the 1.6's but ended up buying the 3.6's. I didn't have the fortitude to realize how much the room makes a difference or the equipment driving them being a newbie. They sounded good in my room but don't think they realize their full potential because of my small 13' x 28' room so eventually sold them after 5 years for some Gallo 3.1's. Now I have the 12's and will eventually get the 1.7's. So make sure your room can accomodate the larger model.

I think there is a lot to be said for the 1.7's design where the entire design is quasi-ribbon; I think it gives a very coherent sound. The ribbon tweeter does bring additional resolution, but I think it is at the expense of some coherence with the rest of the range. I'm not sure if the 3.7 having a quasi-ribbon bass panel will help with this or not, hence my desire to audition the 3.7 first. Because of this I think the 1.7 will be hard to beat even if the ribbon tweter does give more resolution and treble extension.

Of course, the slightly increased surface area on the 3.7 (and 3.6) certainly doesn't hurt in terms of bass response; The slightly flabby bass of the 1.7 was really my only complaint. This however can be mitigated with the use of a subwoofer, I'm not really sure there is much you can to do help the tweeter of the 3.6 (and maybe 3.7?) from sounding like it is a separate element from the midrange and bass panels. Maybe room correction or tweaking the speaker placement can help?

interesting stuff. i went a different direction. i just put a pair of 3.7s on order. i've spent a lot of time auditioning the 1.6, 1.7, and 3.6. i found the ribbon tweeter to be better than the QR. and i've read posts from a lot of people that find a coherence problem between a ribbon tweeter and a QR mid, like you, but i just didn't hear it. not saying you're wrong, but i just didn't notice it. what i do hear, however, is subs/cones that don't keep up; they're always a nanosecond behind to me. i've never heard one i thought very much of. which is also a coherence problem. so having both the mid and the bass as a QR i find to be more important to me. both the 1.7 and the 3.7 have that. but considering the 3.7 will have an extended bass, one that i will use without a sub (because the 3.6 already is pumping out enough bass for me), and a better tweeter, made my decision not all that difficult

The original MG-III etc. were criticized for the ribbon tweeter not blending. Like go_sox, I never had a problem with that, at least once they were properly set up in the room. I'll admit they are not great "near-field" speakers though mine are set up fairly closely now. The complaints I heard more often (as a tech at a Magnepan dealer as well as an owner; the 'net wasn't really around then) were about the bright highs. 99 times out of 100 (at least) the system measured flat, but people were not used to hearing a truly "flat" high end with as much sound as that tall ribbon would put out. Magnepan added the extra resistor and a lot of people preferred that sound. Me, I liked mine flat! I do have my current system shelved about -3 dB at 12 kHz, but that's mainly because I find much of the music mixed today far to bright and harsh, and I can't hear over 12 kHz anymore anyway.

I do prefer the larger panels, not only for their greater bass and output, but also the greater soundstage they provide.

I will note that the pulse response of Magnepan's has historically been excellent, and a lack of blend would show up in that test. I have not measured (nor seen) impulse/step response testing of the latest models but I doubt it has gotten much worse.

Room treatment is a must, imo, for any dipole (Magnepan or other planar dynamic, electrostatic, or full-range ribbon, plus those few using conventional dynamic drivers).

IMO, FWIWFM, YMMV, etc. - Don

I am encouraged by the fact that at least some people find the treble on the 3.6 (and hopefully the 3.7) to blend well with the rest of the range. I'm hoping that it is just a set up issue and that proper placement does address this issue for me as well. I'll have to make sure to try the ribbons on both the inside and outside to see if I experience it better one way than the other.

I definitely agree though about the bass, I'd prefer to have the extended range of the 3.7 over the 1.7 to reduce (eliminate?) the need/desire for a sub. I also agree about subs typically being slow and not such a good match for the quickness of the maggies, but I do think this is not insurmountable.

Btw, anyone here using ficus trees, Soundlab SALLIE, etc. with their magnepans? On one hand I can understand why you would need to kill the backwave under certain conditions, but doesn't that kill the soundstage?

Set-up is time-consuming but critical; Magnepan includes notes to time-align the tweeter depending upon whether you have the tweeters in or out. I suspect small rooms and/or poor setup were/are a large part of the problem.

The difference in bass between the 1.7 and 3.7 is likely not large, at least on paper. I just like the bigger radiating area. From an MG-I to an MG-IIIa was a big step; an MG-II was much closer to the III in bass. I suspect the same is true for the 1.7 to 3.7.

I built my own servo sub in the early 80's because I couldn't find, or afford, a sub that worked well with my Maggies. My current pair of Rythmik's (also servo) work well with my Maggies.