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Magnepan Owners - Need Your Thoughts Please

Spent some time recently auditioning the Magenpan 12's and 1.6's; I was very impressed with the sound, especially when you consider their modest cost.

I've always had highly sensitive horn speakers so a Magnepan is a totally new direction for me. I will keep my Khorns and consider adding the Magnepans for even more fun! Here are some questions that I need help with. Of course, I will bring them home for a personal in-house listen before I buy but any thoughts that you Maggie owners could add will be greatly appreciated! Questions:

(1)Will a pair of 125 watt VTL monoblocks (EL-34's) be enough juice to drive the Magnepans to reasonable listening levels in my large room (17.5w x 26L x 9h). By reasonable levels I mean 85db - 90db (at the most). I don't want to 'blow-up' the VTL's! They are rated at 130 watts in Tetrode mode into 4 ohms.

(2)I assume that the larger panels of the 1.6's would be harder to drive overall than the smaller 12's?

(3) Setup advice: where do I start on placement? How far from the front wall and how far from the sidewalls? How far apart? Also, are Magnepans designed to be faced straight-ahead or with some toe-in? And, what about the ribbons, placed on the outside or inside?

(4) What are the appropriate listening distances? How far do you sit back from the panels?

Would love to hear Magnepan owners' comments and advice on these questions or any other Maggie issues that I am not thinking about. Thanks!
stickman451

Showing 2 responses by macdadtexas

macdadtexas
1,794 posts
 
will the VTL's drive them, yes, will they sound great? No.

I keep marveling at the answers to the questions about Maggies and power amps.

It has nothing to do with volume, it has to do with low level resolution actually. The more power, clean, and undistorted, the better the speaker will sound especially at low levels, and the more base you will get.

The best sound I ever had with the 1.6qr's was with an Innersound ESL amp (600w/ch @ 4ohm). I think you should look at SS or digital amps that have at least 400w into 4ohms.

Parasound A21
Wyred4Sound 500's
Innersound ESL amps
Bel Canto's

There are many, but unless you are looking at some really high powered tube amps, I would really stick with high powered solid state.

I have currently own the 3.6R's and have for years, more power is almost always better.
macdadtexas
1,794 posts
 
In audio, as in life, there is no free lunch. Great high sensitivity speakers that can use nice flea powered amps, many of which are very reasonably priced, are usually very expensive. To the other extreme, there are Magnepan speakers, which although univerally praised for thier performance and price point, really don't sound anywhere near their best until you put some pricey high powered amps with them.

The digital/ice amps have mitigated that somewhat, and do sound really good in most instances, but with the exception of the BelCanto's and Wyred4Sound amps, even digital (Sanders Sound, Spectron) amps have gotten expensive at anywhere near reference levels. Also, really good Pass, Bryston, Cary and Parasound (sort of reasonalbe, used) sound the best with Maggies and they are not cheap at all.
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