I've owned a few sets of Maggies over the years. In the late 70s I owned a pair of MG1s, then a second pair running side by side. Double Maggies were all the rage then. I was driving them with a diy class A amp that delivered about 80 wats per channel and they sounded pretty good for their day.
I switched to a 3 way dynamic speaker because I wanted better bass and better slam.
A few years later {early 80s), I bought a pair of Tympani IVs along with a pair of Entec servo controlled powered subs and was driving them with a Levinson ML3. This was pretty state of the art in those days and they sounded pretty impressive. I was literally using them as room dividers between my living room and dining room so there was about 15 feet behind them and they were firing into a 18 foot wide by 23ft deep room with a two story cathedral ceiling. With this much room to breath, Maggies do quite well.
They are very low distortion since there is very low intermodulation, and they are very fast, particularly in the mid-range and high frequencies. Where they fall short is in dynamic slam and imaging precision. The image they present is unrealistically large with not as much specificity as speakers that acts more like a point source. More like a wall of sound.
A few years ago, after owning several different dynamic driver speakers, I bought a pair of 3.6Rs for my home office, driven with a Krell FPB300. The room is 13' x 14' with 8' ceilings. I was never happy with the sound in this room. I couldn't get the speakers far enough from the walls and from the listening position to get then to sound as good as I'm sure they are capable of. I think if I had more flexibility with acoustic treatments on the side walls at the first reflection points, I might have been able to get a little better sound, but I think my room is just too small for these relatively large panels.
I replaced them with Goldenear Triton 2+'s which do a lot better in this room. I think in the right room, I might have preferred the Maggies, but in this room, the GEs were a big improvemennt in almost every way except maybe top to bottom coherence.
I switched to a 3 way dynamic speaker because I wanted better bass and better slam.
A few years later {early 80s), I bought a pair of Tympani IVs along with a pair of Entec servo controlled powered subs and was driving them with a Levinson ML3. This was pretty state of the art in those days and they sounded pretty impressive. I was literally using them as room dividers between my living room and dining room so there was about 15 feet behind them and they were firing into a 18 foot wide by 23ft deep room with a two story cathedral ceiling. With this much room to breath, Maggies do quite well.
They are very low distortion since there is very low intermodulation, and they are very fast, particularly in the mid-range and high frequencies. Where they fall short is in dynamic slam and imaging precision. The image they present is unrealistically large with not as much specificity as speakers that acts more like a point source. More like a wall of sound.
A few years ago, after owning several different dynamic driver speakers, I bought a pair of 3.6Rs for my home office, driven with a Krell FPB300. The room is 13' x 14' with 8' ceilings. I was never happy with the sound in this room. I couldn't get the speakers far enough from the walls and from the listening position to get then to sound as good as I'm sure they are capable of. I think if I had more flexibility with acoustic treatments on the side walls at the first reflection points, I might have been able to get a little better sound, but I think my room is just too small for these relatively large panels.
I replaced them with Goldenear Triton 2+'s which do a lot better in this room. I think in the right room, I might have preferred the Maggies, but in this room, the GEs were a big improvemennt in almost every way except maybe top to bottom coherence.