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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
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
sean...I know what you mean about the bass of auto sound systems. In my rural location I can hear tham coming down the road from a mile off.

As the engineer who always looks for the analytical explanation, it's not easy for me to discount your comment, and simply say (what seams to clinch the argument on this site) "it sounds good, trust me". Perhaps the low "room gain" goes along with minimal room resonances, which I find to be very desirable. The very-smooth LF response of Maggies is what makes their limited LF extension acceptable.

IMHO the out-of-phase rear radiation of a diple speaker only becomes a problem when they are placed close to the front wall, so that the soundwave is reflected back with little delay, and therefore can cancel the front wave. Unfortunately the houses that we live in usually result in the speakers being too close to that front wall. The best way to hear Maggies is in a very large room, 40-50m feet long, and with the speakers set up almost half way. You need to live in a barn to do this right.
rooze's avatar
rooze OP
584 posts
 
Thanks DLSHIFI, I'm working on your suggestions and things are starting to come together. Certainly, moving the chair closer to the back wall goes against some of what I've read elsewhere, but in my case, as you suggested, it really works in warming the sound a touch.
I'm having a bit of an ordeal with amps at present.
I don't want to go through the loop of buying amps online, only to have to try and sell them before I can try something else. So I'm working with a couple of local dealers who are being very helpful and providing some loaner gear.
The Belles 250i was an incredible little amp, some of what it does sounds really top-notch, but still just a little too bright for my tastes.
I tried the McIntosh 6500 integrated yesterday and it warms the sound nicely but looses out on detail and presence, not to mention transparancy. It also lacks power, the overload lights flash on and off at modest SPL's.
Today I've been trying a Mac 252 power amp, which weighs an absolute ton and is built like a tank. It too is a little short of power, it has shut down on me twice at higher SPL's. This amazes me given the size and weight of the transformers on this thing, it ought to have better current delivery, particularly having the 'autoformers' which everyone seems to rave about.
Anyway, I like the sound and presentation of the Mac (before it craps out on me!)..though it seems somewhat lacking in detail and resolution compared to the Belles?
I'm kind of getting backed into a corner with amps, I want to buy from one of my local dealers, but any models further up the range than the ones I have tried are out of my price range.....problems...problems.
Thanks again for the feedback on this thread.

Rooze
frogman
7,389 posts
 
Is the Mac 252 a tube amp? If not, I don't think you will ever hear what those speakers are capable of until you hear them with 150+ tube watts. If you are in the NYC metro area, I would be glad to bring my Manleys over for you to experience the dimensionality and amazing staging that conbination is capable of. Good luck.
tjmarsh1
1 posts
 
my 252 is dgital with 250 watts wpc and i'm usin a tube pramp the mcintos 2200 what do you think?
agimperolli3141
1 posts
 
rooze, i think your problem is easy to understand (but not necessarily easy to fix). on the top end, i don't think it's the speakers -- those ribbons are so sensitive that any component in the chain may come out sounding bright -- look for digital jitter as a big potential culprit, as well as noisy power. the fact that recordings previously thought to sound great lost stature, and some previously thought to sound less-than-great gained stature, bears out that those ribbons are getting more of the recording to your ears -- i found a similar result when i got mine. especially some older recordings i considered uninteresting, especially live tracks, sprung to life. and over-produced, over-compressed, over-crisp stuff comes out sounding like that -- those types of recordings are voiced for boomboxes and car stereos, so they don't sound so great on revealing equipment. the solution, get some refined, sweet-sounding (tube?) equipment for playback -- try a monarchy (or other) jitter remover. how do they sound on vinyl?

next, on the bottom end, no one seems to be mentioning the cause -- namely that the dipole panel cancels out out bass frequencies, depending on proximity to the wall behind the maggies. solutions are tough -- move them out from the wall (but can they be moved far enough is the question); get rid of the wall ;-) or think of other ways to prevent the bass cancellation (may require modifiying your walls). in my case, i run the maggies full range and augment with a m&k sub crossed over low (50hz) and place optimally according to room dimensions for non boomy sound (at the 1/2 width and 1/2 length position) -- then i use digital eq to get rid of any remaining resonance problems. the results are non-bright, crystal clear, non-boomy full bass maggie sound.
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