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Bought my dad some Magnepan MMGs for Christmas
#122237 12/29/05 09:05 AM
Joined: Feb 2005
Posts: 325
TNTguy Offline OP
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Some initial thoughts.

I got him the off-white color with the natural oak. Some think Maggies look unattractive but I wouldn't. I think they look nice. Magnepan has changed the feet on them. Now they have adjustable small "flippers" where you can change the angle and get close them close to 90 degrees. You probably can't go to 90 without them tipping over, but you can get close now. The maggies do sound better when they are perpendicular to the floor vs. tilted back. The MMGs themselves are 48" H, 14.5" W, and 1.5" D. For someone who has never seen them before, there is some wow affect when looking at a "mini-door" that's actually a speaker and only an inch and a half thick.

Placement took a bit of work though I wouldn't go as far as to say it was difficult. The room we tried them in was roughly 14'x14' with a sloped ceiling. We tried them with the tweeters facing in and facing out. We thought they sounded better with the tweeter facing out. I was worried they would have non-existent bass. I was pleasantly surprised. While they will never be mistaken for a full range speaker, they did fairly well on their own. From reading reviews I was under the impression that rock music would sound unsatisfactory on them due to the lack of real low end. Again, I was surprised. Put in some Styx "Too much time on my hands" and it sounded very nice. Pink Floyd sounded great too. Most people will want a sub with them though. Considering the low sensitivity (86) I was fearing they wouldn't go very loud. Again I was surprised. Simply driving them with an HK 635 we could get them to fairly loud volumes even at -10 on the HK. I was also surprised that the HK was only slightly warm (MMGs are 4 ohms) even after 3 hours of music listening.

While in other parts of the house or outside of the sweet spot, I would say the MMGs sound nice. Very good clarity as you would expect from a quality speaker. However, in that sweet spot.....WOW! It is a real treat. It's a sound I have never experienced before. Listening to a piano concerto in the sweet spot was great. I actually didn't want to go home after 3-4 hours of music listening.

When I got home later that night I decided to do a quick listen to my MA Silver S8s for a comparison. It was a couple of hours later but here are my impressions. The clarity on both speakers are excellent as well as subtle details. The S8s sound more forward and have a better dynamic range than the MMGs. The S8s can go extremely loud, but the MMGs do fine unless you want really high volume levels. The S8s have moments where they have a boxless sound quality, but not consistently like the maggies. The 3-D sound of the maggies in the sweet spot is the home run for this speaker. It is truly amazing. I love my S8s and will be keeping them, but I would like to own some Magnepans some day. The MMGs do have some limitations but for a $600 speaker they are a real bargain. I can only imagine what the upper Maggies can do.

Oh yeah, my dad loves them.

Re: Bought my dad some Magnepan MMGs for Christmas
#122238 12/29/05 03:57 PM
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 7,463
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axiomite
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Thanks for the mini-review, TNTguy. One of my favorite things to read up on is down-to-earth impressions of speakers. I have often looked at those MMGs because the price just can't be beat. Always in the market to try new things. The only drawback looks like the MMGs are a fairly tough load. Good to know the HK can handle it.


***********
"Nothin' up my sleeve. . ." --Bullwinkle J. Moose
Re: Bought my dad some Magnepan MMGs for Christmas
#122239 12/30/05 12:26 AM
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 164
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Thanks for the review. Maggie's are speakers that are high up on my list of speakers to audition.


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