Magnepan 3.6r's - are they to much for my room?

I think they would work, but not be optimal. My room is a compromise of sorts and my 3.6's sound amazing- so don't let that scare you away.. The biggest problem I think you may have would be with your amp- you may need more power to get good bass in particular in a smaller room. You can never have to much power with these speakers.

Tireguy-
Thanks for your response. My amp is 300 watts into 8 ohms and rated at 600 watts into the magnepams 4 ohm load. I know that the 3.6's take alot to get them going but I thought I had enough amp. Glad to here you like yours, I have the bug bad!

JKW1

Give it a shot with the classe and see what happens but DO NOT bypass the fuses until you have used the speakers for a while to make sure you don't blow a ribbon, also if you are not pleased with the bass output of the speakers you'll just need a little more power to really open everything up.

I don't necessarily agree with the philosophy that one needs more power for Maggies in a small room for bass reasons or, for that matter any other reason. On the contrary, I have been powering my 3.6s with a lowly NAD C320BEE for well over a year now with excellent results. Actually, I purchased this amp only as an interim amp while I searched out a high end amp that would become resident for the long haul. That was over a year ago and here I am today still searching. While I have tried amps that were, overall, better than the NAD, the differences have been fairly slight and ultimately for me, not worth the price difference - at least at this point.

In any event, your room is not too small for the 3.6s. The dipole effect, a minimum amount of side wall acoustic treatment and a bit of toe will all but eliminate side wall reflection interference which should be your primary concern. You will however need about 3' to the rear wall to somewhat even out the bottom end. There will always be some amount of lumpiness due to the unbaffled design in a smaller room but, I don't recommend going overboard trying to obtain small decibel deviations with frequency.

The speaker is fabulous for the most part. There are better speakers in one respect or another but, the soundstaging and realism obtainable with the 3.6s is remarkable. The ribbon tweeter produces a refined and delicate sound that is arresting. It will shine in your room. You don't need the white house to realize its strengths.

Your gonna need a lot of toe in to make that happen! Not the best situation- try 5 feet apart with ribbons to the outside and room treatment behind the ribbons.

How wide are the actual panels on this speaker as measured in inches? Sean
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PS... Tim, you'll need a tape measure for this : )

I agree with the above posts in the following respects:

Clear those babies away from the side walls or the tweeters are going to overwhelm the rest of the drivers.

Power to the people -- I had Bryston 7B-ST's putting nearly a kilowatt into the 4 ohm maggies -- and current is at least as important as wattage.

You will love them with jazz. I did. I only got rid of mine because I was losing my 24' wide room to make a couple of 12' wide rooms. And because my child is getting old enough that he posed a danger to their continued health and well being. Otherwise, I'd have kept them forever.

FWIW I always felt my Maggie 1.6s were too big for my 13 x 22 room, even with ficus trees to cut down the QR mid driver they seemed to have too much upper energy. Also the bass overpowered the room a little. I wished I had about 2' - 4' more width for optimal sound. I like my music loud so it may not be a problem in your set up if you do not feel the need for concert volumes, which the Maggies will achieve :)

I hope this helps.

Phil

Thanks for all your responses, although I believe the 3.6's will work, maybe I should consider the 1.6 instead.One thing that I have often thought is that I overpower the room with some of my larger dynamic speakers rather than using the brands smaller offerings. I don't want to keep doing the same thing.

Thanks for your comments! not quite sure what I will do yet.

You could also talk with your dealer about getting the 1.6 to see how well it works in your room and then possibly upgrading to the 3.6's later for the full value of the 1.6's, a lot of dealer will do this.

I think 1.6 will do the job better.

Jkw1: This type of speaker will probably work better on the short wall firing into a longer room. Don't know if you can configure them this way or not, but it is food for thought. Then again, this room isn't that much different in lengths and widths, so the results might not be as different as i'm thinking.

One more thing. This speaker will load the room differently than conventional "front firing" dynamic designs. Optimal performance / speaker placement might be very different from what you've had when all is said and done. Sean
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