Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Magnepan MG1.6

At the medic8r Memorial Day Bash (TM), the husband of an ex-coworker mentioned that his uncle has some Magnepan speakers that he is interested in selling. They are the MG 1.6 model, in black finish.

Based on what I have read about this company and their speakers, I am going to audition them ASAP in my HT. I'll be able to listen to them with and without my EP500.

From what I can gather with web searches (MSRP is not on the Magnepan web site), if new, these would be ~$1700 for the pair. Dan says his uncle would sell them for $1000.

Will keep you posted. Just had to share the news that I may soon get to audition/purchase some Maggies!

i love the maggie sound, just dont have the room for them. doublecheck on the price, that seems a bit high though.

I hear from my friend that there is probably some haggling room. Apparently this guy buys things one month and sells them the next quite often.

If nothing else you will be able to give us a review of them.

Nah. Sounds like too much work.

I have seen some recently for $900 on Audiogon, so that price is OK considering you don't have to pay for shipping. Check them out!

I want them I have always like the Maggie sound. It will be interesting on what ya think.

I have always wanted to hear some Maggies. From what I've read about them they love strong amps and are finicky about placement. But half of the fun of this hobby is trying new things so go for it. If you don't like them you can use them to stand behind when you are getting dressed.

I've never heard them either, I understand they have a very clean sound but a sub is a must for the lower fq's.

Look forward to hearing what you think of the Maggies! What speakers do you currently have?

I have the Epic 80 package in 5:1 = 2 M80, 1 VP150, 2 QS8, 1 EP500, purchased in early 2006. I think they are all v2.

I have a 16'x14' HT with 7.5' ceilings. Prepro/amp are the Outlaw 990 and 7125.

I'm eagerly awaiting the release of the new 997 preamp so that I can appreciate the new HD codecs. I am also being tempted by the low prices on the Denon 3808 ...

Maybe if I get the Maggies, I can get the 3808 to power the HT set-up and use the Outlaw components in my home office/study with the Maggies in stereo. Hmm, might need to get a new sub, ch-ching, ch-ching. This hobby is fun but goes through the bucks. Time to pimp more Rx!

Many two channel guys have mentioned the Magnepan's are great for two channel setups and work especially well with live recordings, giving a almost being there aspect. I have never heard of people setting these up for home theater use. What do you guys think?

- Nick

Hi all,

Magnepans are planar dipole radiators, so the back wave is out of phase with the front wave (that's why they don't have any bass from the flat planar driver, because the back wave and front waves cancel each other out at low frequencies). Like other dipole and bipole speakers (the old Mirages), depending on the room setup and speaker placement, they can generate a big, diffuse soundstage that can be very flattering, especially in stereo. Imaging tends to not be as precise but it doesn't matter at first---the big wide soundstage is very seductive.

It's a quite different presentation from conventional direct-radiating speakers. Some love it, others find it overly large and unrealistic. I don't think they are suitable at all for home theater because you want precise imaging across the front soundstage. The Magnepans, like other planar speakers, have serious limitations in dynamic abilities at loud listening levels. If the mylar/plastic diaphragm moves too far, various unpleasant-sounding things may occur. Still, it is fun to explore the different presentation of a planar flat panel.

Regards,

Alan

OK, now I'm really looking forward to the audition.

It's set up for Saturday at 2 pm.

Magnepan, the company, has some cojones, it seems: on the web page for their MG 20.1 model, they call it "The Finest Speaker in the World."

At 2", they are close to be the finest!

HA!

My system includes axiom and magnepan products so I feel qualified to comment.

My front speakers are heavily modified MMG speakers. The sub is an EP500. I had MMGW rears but have ordered QS8s to replace these. For a while I had M22s and a VP150 in the system. I preferred the MMGs for music and the M22/VP150 combo for HT. In the end, music won out. I would have kept the VP150, but I couldn't get it to blend well with the maggies. I use a phantom center.

You will probably want to use a subwoofer with the 1.6s for most applications. That said, maggies aren't bass shy. The mmg bass extends to 50Hz. I have the xover set to 60 Hz. 1.6's will go lower.

Maggies require power to sound their best. I went from 120 W to 1000 W (ICE class D) and there was a big improvement in dynamics.

Maggies respond well to modification. These range from the simple (bypassing fuse, more rigid stands) to the complex (complete wooden frames, new crossovers, bi-amping). This can become a hobby in itself.

Maggies have low WAF. They need to be placed away from the wall and are fairly huge.

The optimal setup for me would be a dedicated magnepan stereo room and an axiom home theater. Unfortunately I would need to buy a new house to have that.

That's an interesting perspective. Just quickly looking around and they would seem on first blush to be the ultimate in WAF. I wonder how many people bought them with that in mind and then were disappointed in the sound due to improper WAF friendly placement.

Has anyone compared Mag's against comparable Martin Logans?

Is there a doctor in the house?? Helloooo! It's reviewin time!!

Those interested in my thoughts on the Maggies (and somewhat on Martin Logans) i heard recently, can tune into the following thread.

In brief, i would tend to agree with many comments here.

• Power hungry (and hence a limitation for SPL as Alan mentioned, distortion comes into play).
• Imprecise direction but amazing soundstage.
• Low WAF because although they are flat, they are big, often just black, and cannot be wall mounted (i.e. must be away from the walls).
• Need a subwoofer. No bottom end.
• Diffuse sound is wonderful for music presentation.

Chess, did you get to hear the PL300's you mentioned a while back?

I did not.
I was slated to head back to the store the next weekend and we had a detour and time got too late.
Hopefully in the next few weeks i will take the time to go again. However based on my assessment of the PL100s, i think the tweeter wouldn't work in our house very well. It really has a localized precision that could make it very hard to setup a wide sweet spot without alot of distance from the units.
Beautiful detail though.

OK, listened to the Magnepans for about an hour yesterday, and my friend left them with me for a couple of weeks for further trial. His uncle isn't using them any longer. My friend thinks that the uncle is using smaller Magnepans now. We're not sure if this is WAF-related...

First visual impressions - these things are HUGE! They are 5' 5" tall.

So, I unhooked my M80s and put the Maggies in a stereo configuration for music. I listened to Mark Knopfler, Pink Floyd, and Jenny Lewis.

First impression - they sound pretty good, but they aren't the leap ahead that I was hoping for. The M80s sound very good in comparison. The diffuse sound from the Maggies is actually a little bit off-putting to me after being used to the M80s.

I wonder if my room isn't big enough to show off the sound. I did make sure to give them at least a foot from the wall.

More info as it happens. Maybe later today I can listen to some Blu ray concerts and movies with them.

I certainly don't want to bias your thoughts, but a common recurring opinion i've heard about Maggies is you either love the sound or hate it.

The diffuse sound presents an amazing soundstage and personally i found the sound to be detailed, but it was presented in a recessed manner, again due to the dipole effect with that back wall. Instead of having a singer sound like they are in front of you, the sound is more immersive like you are in a concert hall but a few rows back.

If you want to test an interesting comparison to the M80s, listen wayyyy off to the right or left (off axis) and then see what you think about a magneplanar vs a direct firing driver system.

I think you need a lot more than a foot from the rear wall. Try moving them out into the room more (at least three feet).

It takes a while to find a good placement and the speakers can sound bad until you do.

As a starting point I would recomment 3' from the wall with the speakers pointed directly at the listening spot. If the speakers sound "thin" then try moving them closer together.

Thanks, I'll try those things.

I'm hoping that some adjustments can get me the "Wow factor" that I didn't get in the first go-round.

I love the maggie sound, but just about everyone has captured the key points, both pro and con. For placement, many maggiephiles recommend using the Cardas Placement as a solid place to start.

Once you do the calculation you'll quickly realize why they have low WAF in the end. I did find the recommendation to help tremendously over what you typically start with using a more traditional speaker.

Have fun!
Rich

A new Magnepan thread made me realize I never followed up on my audition. I listened to the Maggies a little more over that next week, but didn't purchase them, as I preferred my M80s for the HT, and I didn't have any other area of the house needing gigantic speakers.

You mean, your wife didn't have any other of the area of the house that needed gigantic speakers. . .

Wow Rich, using the Cardas placement guide you can definitely see where the WAF would come into play ... compared to where I have normally have our 80s placed the 60s really do start to take some real estate using the guide.

Using our room width of 14' and the suggested Cardas placement guide the 60s are 3'10" from the side walls and 6'3" from the back wall measuring from the center of the woofer.




Oh, can't forget to give a shout out to my helper....



BTW ... Rich, seems like you've been MIA from the boards for the past few months.

My turn off from the Maggies were bass and power requirements and a distant third, aesthetics (not a fan of all black stuff).
Would have to look for some possibly uglier options like the somewhat white fabric and light wood trim Maggies which didn't really work for us either.

Nice pooch.

Love the ears.

Oh, that's neat. In playing around with my speaker placement, trying to find what imaged best, they ended up nearly in the position recommended by Cardas.

Beautiful dog, Rick! Is that a Weimaraner?

Thanks for the excellent pictorial representation of the Cardas formula. I live in the real world, so it's just "interesting" to me.

Take my word on it, that dog is super spoiled He is a good ol boy too.

Are we talking about Rick or Boomer

Boomer was awesome. My favorite part of visiting coastal Florida.


Yes, I'm kidding Rick!

Tom, yes Boomer is a very spoiled Weimaraner who we acquired from the humane society just over eight years ago ... he's certainly priority number one on the health and welfare list in our family.

Chris I thought the Cardas placement had the 60s a little too close to the listening position, almost seemed a little too much sonically in my face but the narrow width between the speakers (5'6") did provide nice imaging so I ended up moving the 80's a little closer to each other (from 10' to 8' apart) but kept the 5' distance from the back wall. I didn't did get a chance to listen to any music after I moved them last evening but will listen to some 2 ch music today and see how that works out. I think speaker placement is an under rated part of fine tuning the system and that is the one area where I really like to experiment with.

Can I have it Dad? Huh? Can i? Can I?

How could you see to take the pics with Boomer wearing your glasses

Mark if you only knew how many times Boomer has either fallen or jumped off the boat while chasing a caught fish still in the water, that dog loves to fish!

I think Jan took that picture Rick, had to have.

To given credit where credit is due, the Cardas recommendations are based on the long known mathematic principle of the Fibonacci sequence and the "golden triangle".
Heaven help us if Cardas were to take credit for devising that!
Their marketing machine would run into overtime.
Angstrom put out a similar pamphlet on the arrangement decades ago.

Those dimensions are indeed hard to match given that they place the speakers a huge distance away from the walls. I've found the best imaging sound simply comes from trying to form the triangle and worry less about the immediate wall interactions & distances. Most people just don't have the space for such a placement.

Oddly enough, the best stereo image i have of the three main systems in our house is my office.

Do you often have fish laying out on the driveway?

Well, that's where I had the benefit of a long room. While my speakers are a Fibonacci progression from the rear and side walls, the distance between them ends up being just slightly less than the distance to my listening position. So I still end up with nearly an equilateral triangle there too.

There's enough room left for my surrounds and rears to also be the same distance from the listening position. Even my center is in an arc with the fronts, being exactly the same distance. Sure the receiver can correct for time delay, but I like getting things as close as possible to need less correction in the processing.

Awesome Dog, Rick. Julie's parents have had Weimaraners for about 15 years now.

I have the book, how to raise and train a weimaraner, but I've never owned one. I just liked the Weimaraner in the Dobie Gillis book, I Was a Teen-Age Dwarf, so I picked up the book on impulse when I was in Connecticut, of all places.

Nice Weim. My wife had a Weimaraner named Bullet when we started dating. Not the brightest beast but had a great personality and was a sweetheart. I felt guilty kicking him off her bed when I stayed over.

Bullet was a great dog. You two seem to find good 'uns.

Love the dog pics. He's one great looking fella!