magneplanars

Good value for money vis-a-vis performance. Their flagship 20.1 at $12,500 is just a mere fraction of today's top speaker designs under the $200,000 mark. I'm essentially 'glued' to my MG 2.7QRs for the last 12 years.

I have been looking around at speakers and have heard some great Magnepan setups. I went to visit a local dealer to hear the 20.1 but he had the 3.6. Major disappointment and I know it was the setup. NO magic. None of the virtues of the technology were demonstrated.

I asked the dealer to call me when he thought they were set up properly and that was about 6 weeks ago. He either (a) thinks they were already OK (b) doesn't know how to set them up or (c) doesn't want my business.

As I have stated many times elsewhere, the Maggies when driven with tubes do things no other speaker can but I want to hear them set up properly before I drop $12K.

His loss; maybe my loss.

I thought a pair of 20.1's with a great sub and a Tact 2.2XP would be a dynamite system. Guess I'll never know!

hifitommy said:

wouldnt i love 200-400wpc of ARC or VTL to drive some nice big panels. that is COSTLY but rewarding.

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I dream of this one day. MG20.1s and at least 200wpc of ARC amp driving it, in my own room. COSTLY but rewarding indeed.

About 15 years ago I listened to some 3.6's driven by some Audio Research tubes. The deep bass was odd, felt like it was not there but was there. The sales person assured me it was there and turned the dial up. I could feel the bass in the air and see it rattling the pictures on the side wall but still could not really hear it.

The CD I had playing was a live recording (outdoor) 1982 Frejus, France; Roxy Music - Heart Still Bleeding on Reprise Records. On the first track "India" the crowd cheering is enormous on the 3.6's. The audio sales person said something to the effect that the music most likely sounded better in his room than had I been hearing it at the show in France. I don't know about that, but they did sound super awesome.

kach22i said:

About 15 years ago I listened to some 3.6's driven by some Audio Research tubes. The deep bass was odd, felt like it was not there but was there. The sales person assured me it was there and turned the dial up. I could feel the bass in the air and see it rattling the pictures on the side wall but still could not really hear it.

The CD I had playing was a live recording (outdoor) 1982 Frejus, France; Roxy Music - Heart Still Bleeding on Reprise Records. On the first track "India" the crowd cheering is enormous on the 3.6's. The audio sales person said something to the effect that the music most likely sounded better in his room than had I been hearing it at the show in France. I don't know about that, but they did sound super awesome.

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As I have stated many times elsewhere, the Maggies when driven with tubes do things no other speaker can but I want to hear them set up properly before I drop $12K.
I am a serious tube lover. That being said Magnepan is a solid state lover.. .Just to name a few. Bryston, Levinson, CJ, ARC, Boulder...

Just for a kick... I once hooked up a Marantz 8B to the Maggie 20.1s... Other than minimal dynamics and loudness, what I heard was magically beatiful music. Instruments sounded more real than any other amps I had used. I tried to look for an EL34 type power amp with more muscle to satisfy the 20.1s but at the end the reality struck... the Maggies are now driven by a pair of old Bryston 7BSTs - very pleasing sound overall. But now and then I still use 8B for small scale music on 20.1s and the combo still brings smile to me.

HI

I am a Maggie Fan and Owner, I have owned few from the Tympani to the 20.1. Afew things:

The are rather dipoles, thus placement is not evident.
They require power and tend to require a higher SPL than other speakers to strut their wares.
They can, if placement and room treatment are not adequate,reproduce instruments a a tad bigger than real.

That said. Let me address a few things:

They are inefficient: the 20.1 for example is 85 dB/w/m To reach in the high 90 dB SPL requires at least a solid 200 Watts/ch. By that I don't mean solid state. We will come back later. As in many dynamic speakers they need some current and good damping factor to control the bass. THis is usually easier to find in SS than Tubes but some Tubes are extremely capable in these regions. The Highe POwer VTL and ARC among others ( VTL in particular are beautiful with Maggies, I have heard that some OTL do also a great job with Maggies). Once you have a Stout (Current and POwer Wise ) amplifer be it tube or SS you have a good starting ground. The problem is really a matter of efficiency, a 50 Watts SS will likely not be great with a Maggie in a modestly large room.. Not a Tueb or SS issue.
They are dipole and they are placement sensitive. CLose to the back wall and you will have some issues. You move them an inch from the wall and they go from bass-shy to overloading a room with bass (providing as we noted earlier adequate power).
Some room treatment is needed. There is somewhere in this forum a Thread about the back wave and in the case of the Maggies, it is important to tame it some... They radiate the same front and back the exact same, attenuating what comes back from the back wall is very important in getting the best out of these ( and all true dipoles).

Now let us suppose you have taken care of these issues, namely the adequate amplification ...
The treblke from the 20.1 is one of the best I have heard. Bar none. The competion in this area is with the Ion Tweeter found in the Acapella ... Most tweeters do not sound that airy or infintely extended.
The rest of the spectrum is also very good, often on a par with the most expeensive and talked about speakers. THe MG 20.1 does put to shame most speakers costing 3 to 5 times its price.

Now an issue which is quite an experience for most people the Bass of the Maggies. First the Maggies have one of the best mid bass one would experience ( again with proper amp power AND adequate placement) . Its superior in that region? the Dunleavy designs .
The Low Bass of the 20.1 is outstanding .. Pant-leg-flapping in its power. You will likely never hear that kind of bass at dealers... it requires more care than the vast majority of dealers would put but once dialed-in ... woah! Bass in an out of this world kind of way .. Powerful and low .. Clear and articulate, stops on a dime.

As you can tell I love these speakers... They are amongst the best value in high end and play music with a realism most other speakers don't even try to to... They thoroughly trash the notion of "Price Range" as I have said it earlier, to better the 20.1 be prepared to spend upward of 5 to 6 times its price..
Recommended if you have the patience , the room and the amplifier.

Frantz

Hi Frantz:

Can you describe further how you have your 20.1s set up and the dimensions of the room?
Although it is highly unlikely that I would ever achieve my goal of having similar experience as headphone listening with the Maggies, they brought me closest when it comes to imagining and soundstaging the music.

I had Rich Brown and John Brooks from this forum visiting me over the weekend and they helped me reposition my 20.1s to be more toed in and spaced closer - kind of going away from what I had been trying to achieve. It sounds better now that I have center fill and for large scale music, I have no void in the middle but do miss the vocal in the dead middle feel I used get when they were farther apart.

FrantzM said:

HI

I am a Maggie Fan and Owner, I have owned few from the Tympani to the 20.1. Afew things:

The are rather dipoles, thus placement is not evident.
They require power and tend to require a higher SPL than other speakers to strut their wares.
They can, if placement and room treatment are not adequate,reproduce instruments a a tad bigger than real.

That said. Let me address a few things:

They are inefficient: the 20.1 for example is 85 dB/w/m To reach in the high 90 dB SPL requires at least a solid 200 Watts/ch. By that I don't mean solid state. We will come back later. As in many dynamic speakers they need some current and good damping factor to control the bass. THis is usually easier to find in SS than Tubes but some Tubes are extremely capable in these regions. The Highe POwer VTL and ARC among others ( VTL in particular are beautiful with Maggies, I have heard that some OTL do also a great job with Maggies). Once you have a Stout (Current and POwer Wise ) amplifer be it tube or SS you have a good starting ground. The problem is really a matter of efficiency, a 50 Watts SS will likely not be great with a Maggie in a modestly large room.. Not a Tueb or SS issue.
They are dipole and they are placement sensitive. CLose to the back wall and you will have some issues. You move them an inch from the wall and they go from bass-shy to overloading a room with bass (providing as we noted earlier adequate power).
Some room treatment is needed. There is somewhere in this forum a Thread about the back wave and in the case of the Maggies, it is important to tame it some... They radiate the same front and back the exact same, attenuating what comes back from the back wall is very important in getting the best out of these ( and all true dipoles).

Now let us suppose you have taken care of these issues, namely the adequate amplification ...
The treblke from the 20.1 is one of the best I have heard. Bar none. The competion in this area is with the Ion Tweeter found in the Acapella ... Most tweeters do not sound that airy or infintely extended.
The rest of the spectrum is also very good, often on a par with the most expeensive and talked about speakers. THe MG 20.1 does put to shame most speakers costing 3 to 5 times its price.

Now an issue which is quite an experience for most people the Bass of the Maggies. First the Maggies have one of the best mid bass one would experience ( again with proper amp power AND adequate placement) . Its superior in that region? the Dunleavy designs .
The Low Bass of the 20.1 is outstanding .. Pant-leg-flapping in its power. You will likely never hear that kind of bass at dealers... it requires more care than the vast majority of dealers would put but once dialed-in ... woah! Bass in an out of this world kind of way .. Powerful and low .. Clear and articulate, stops on a dime.

As you can tell I love these speakers... They are amongst the best value in high end and play music with a realism most other speakers don't even try to to... They thoroughly trash the notion of "Price Range" as I have said it earlier, to better the 20.1 be prepared to spend upward of 5 to 6 times its price..
Recommended if you have the patience , the room and the amplifier.

Frantz

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Great review, Frantz. That makes me want to move the timeframe for my MG20.1 dream a little closer than my projections. Yeah, having owned the MG2.7/QR for more than 12 years, I have the same findings as youre re its sensitivity, power requirement and room placement. I tweaked the placement for about 6 months before I finally was not moving it back and forth anymore. My placement is now almost halfway into the room from the back wall (the back of the speakers) and I admit it is quite unorthodox but with that position I get the qualities I have been looking for re soundstage width and depth, tonal balance. focus, and yes, bass reproduction. On certain recordings, like Sara K's 'Waterfalls' on Stockfisch Records, the bass is deep and awesome, something I would not have believed coming from a pair of Maggies had I not actually heard it. Which is why I have come to the conclusion that my next upgrade would have to be the top line Maggie, whatever year that is.

Ki

Very busy so the reply will be sketchy. I no longer have my system ... nor the room . It was a concrete room with 25 x 16 x 12 ( L x W XD). The Room treatment was an adventure in itself as I learned how the use of Tube traps and other absorptive measured can mitigate the effect of standing waves ..., measuring (yes ) with a spectrum analyzer and listening, listening some more.
Now a few tricks.
First it is very important to pull the speakers a good distance from the walls... more so than you would with a box speaker. The reason is that while you may get some increase in low bass (<50 Hz) by being close to the back wall, you may get some strong cancellation in the mid bass ( 60~200 Hz) and the general feeling will be one of light, overly thin tonal balance. So 3~4 feet from the back wall if possible is a good start.
Now with the speakers facing straight away ( no toe -in , that'll come later) have them as close as possible almost touching each other .. Play a mono recording of a voice and start moving them away from each other until the center fill disappears .. Now bring them back slowly toward each other so that the center fill remains AND the tonal balance remains satisfactory ...
Now Pay attention to the level of the mid bass .. Playt some recording with good mid vass information, a piece with cello if you are into classical music or electric bass ... ( The cello range is better) ... Move the speakers from the back wall a tad more and pay attention to the bass ( I am assuming you would be some distance from the back wall ( preferably a good distance and not seating in a null ( I have seen many audiophile move the speakers to death while seating in a null or a through of wide frequency range ...)... You will get to a point where the balance between mid and Low bass is satisfactory, I repeat that with the 20.1 you can get gut wrenching surprisingly low bass . I mean the kind of bass most audiophiles have no idea of ... I digress but this is the kind of bass these speakers are capable of .. BIG, LOW and LOUD bass .. Wall shaking kind of bass.

Supposing the bass is good but not the rest, especially imaging you then start focusing on the midrange. First of all absorption AND diffusion of the back wave are important for image specificity. To get to the point where the instruments have body and their position in space is clear a 3-D kind of effect requires very serious absorption of the back wave and diffusion of the same to repeat myself. Tube traps help but also in my experience, The RPG diffusor, I lked what the fractal did in my system. You will be surprised how solid the imaging of planar can be by proper treatment of the back wave ( which should by the way be as attenuated and diffused as possible, the fake widening of the stage one obtains with too strong a back wave is not very realistic IMO) .
Now comes the toe-in .. it should be performed as lowly as possible with respect to the seating position. I am assuming that the back wave and side reflections are taking care of. I would quickly add that tside reflections are not a big problem with planars in general, yet it is important to provide some attenuation on the sides ..
Ok!! , Toe-in now. Turn the speakers slowly toward the listener maintaining the distance previously found for the distance between speakers ... The toe-in shouldn't be dramatic, else you have speakers too far apart. The things to pay attention to are: width of stage, quality of treble , center fill and overall tonal balance ... The Treble will become cleaner and cleaner, not grittier, it must be extended with no overt peakeness in the lower treble ...

Truly there is much more to than this necessarily short survey but do know that the 20.1 are indeed capable of the kind of bass that rattles windows, house structure and internal organs ... They also can take immense power (if it is clean) and are capable of performance only speakers costing5 times and more are capable of .. a true gem if you ask me ... One of the best speakers at any price

Frantz

P.S. PM for more ...

Thank you Frantz for your instructions. I have had a pair of 3.6Rs tri-amped with a pair of Velodyne subs using three Bryston 10B LRs and three pairs of Bryston 7BSTs...but I do like 20.1s in normal passive crossover setting better.

I did reposition my 20.1s from using long wall to short wall last night before reading your reply. I'll fine tune the setup following your instructions.

Thanks,
Ki

Ki Choi said:

Thank you Frantz for your instructions. I have had a pair of 3.6Rs tri-amped with a pair of Velodyne subs using three Bryston 10B LRs and three pairs of Bryston 7BSTs...but I do like 20.1s in normal passive crossover setting better.

I did reposition my 20.1s from using long wall to short wall last night before reading your reply. I'll fine tune the setup following your instructions.

Thanks,
Ki

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PMJI as I've owned MGIIIas (and major modded them) and reviewed the MG20s quite some time ago. My old room was a little weird (but sonically pretty amazing; the room was decently flat from 300 Hz to 15 K at which point started rolling off; below that, there were some spikes and dips due to dipolar cancellation effects) and the speakers were placed along the long wall so there was 8 feet or so from the side of each speaker to the room boundary; conversely, I sat close to the speaker so that also affected things sonically.

First the MGIIIs. One has not heard what the Maggie RIBBON or these speakers can do until the fuses are removed, the capacitors changed (at that time, they used a 12 uf mylar cap on the ribbon and a 160 uf electrolytic shunt for the bass; that was replaced with a bank of Rel polystyrenes for the ribbon and a bank of 10 uF Solen caps for the bass shunt-that surprisingly made a difference too), the xover is hardwired to the speaker, the chokes are replaced (the supplied chokes were Fe core; this was replaced with Solen 10 ga for the bass and 14 ga for the mid and ribbon -that at that time ran around $40 each and weighed a ton), the speaker rewired (at that time they used alpha wire and it was replaced with tripled up and specially wound MIT hook up cable from Michael Percy) and new binding posts added. At that time it probably cost me around $800 for the mods. Now I spoke to Wendell, etc. at Magnepan about coming out with a MGIIIa Super but they really didn't have any interest and it seems that Jim Winey is not a big believer in passive parts. Now the newer speakers employ better parts but I feel that the MGIIIs could still be improved - and conversely-a used pair rebuilt like the old Dynacos, might be one way to go for speakers.

I also had the MG20s (and my close friend had the 20.1 rebuilt the way I described above). The 20.1 can be amazing speakers but the one thing the can lack compared to a dynamic speaker is dynamics. One needs to hear a standup bass played back thru the 20s to really appreciate the speaker's low frequency resolution. There no smearing and the snap of the strings can almost fool one on occassion.

Now they were set up with the ribbons inside in all cases. My take is that these speakers -esp. the 20.1 - are best run biamped (and one needs to find the resistive value and not use the XO supplied box as that degrades the sound too). The problem is that the bass panel can slap if not properly controlled.

As far as amps, Maggies and tubes are a match made in heaven because of the Maggies easy and relatively constant 4 ohm load. Back in those days, I ran the Maggies with tube amps biamped horizontally eg. the left amps left channel was hooked up to the bass and the left amps right channel ran the mid/highs. That among other things improved the bass since there was less draw upon the amps power supply. I also ran a cj MV75A1 top/mid and a Perraux 2150 bass with nice results. (one amp though that didn't cut the mustard with the Maggies was the old Berning EA 2100.) The caveat is that because of the xover point and slope, one can hear the bass amps mid/upper mid characteristics; as such, if the amps on the bottom are bright, then that will add a hardness to the speaker. And as we know, that ribbon can be ruthlessly revealing as evidenced by the need for a selectable resistor for the ribbon.

If running with a single amp, I'd suggest a big wattage tube amp; my friends 220 wpc Rogue audio did a nice job and did a Premier 350 ss amp.

One of the room treatments I played with were ASC tube traps located between the speakers ( I don't remember how I set the absorptive/reflective strips any more). This markedly improved imaging and transparency but I felt it also compromised dynamics. Perhaps other rooms will respond differently.

Hi

I haven't tried changing capacitors and inductors in any of the Maggies I owned. I however had manufactured a clone of the Mye Stand ... It seemed to me to impart much cleaner midrange and bass to the system... Nothing revolutionary. The speaker character remained unchanged but it did sound to me cleaner ... I do however believe in getting my room and my speaker well integrated first , then tweaking ...
I also have thought about bi-amping but it seemed to not be worth the complexity and fiddling ... (Trying to find a transparent crossover, trying to mimic the crossover slope, a lot of cables, more amplifiers, matching levels ... )
As it is, out of the box, the 20.1 is a wonderful speaker, I repeat one of the best around regardless of price ... Making it work in a room is not however a given ...

Frantz

FrantzM said:

Hi

I haven't tried changing capacitors and inductors in any of the Maggies I owned. I however had manufactured a clone of the Mye Stand ... It seemed to me to impart much cleaner midrange and bass to the system... Nothing revolutionary. The speaker character remained unchanged but it did sound to me cleaner ... I do however believe in getting my room and my speaker well integrated first , then tweaking ...
I also have thought about bi-amping but it seemed to not be worth the complexity and fiddling ... (Trying to find a transparent crossover, trying to mimic the crossover slope, a lot of cables, more amplifiers, matching levels ... )
As it is, out of the box, the 20.1 is a wonderful speaker, I repeat one of the best around regardless of price ... Making it work in a room is not however a given ...

Frantz

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Thanks forgot about the bracing.

My experience with the Bryston Xover and Maggies wasn't really satisfying. Perhaps one of the other electronic xovers might yield better results.

Some people also take off the grille cloth to improve the sound too.

And getting the most out of the 20.1 takes some effort-but then again, that's true with most speakers

I use the best part of the Maggies, the bass panels (Magneplanar Tympani IV). I combine the bass panels with Martin Logan Summit electrostatic speakers (woofers disconnected). The Summits provide much better imaging (no xover between mids and highs) and the low level detail is exceptional. The Magneplanar Tympani bass panels I use are bolted together and to the floor (getting the panels rigid and not vibrating in unison with the bass is a big improvement. I drive them with an Audio Research D400MKII power amplifier (400 WATTS per channel @ 4 OHMS) All these speakers are placed on the long wall of my room and 6' to 9' out from the wall. There are many large tube traps behind the speakers to prevent comb effects) The entire room (29' long x 19' wide x 11' high cathedral ceiling is treated with 36 ASC tube traps. I use Eminent Technology's TRW-17 Rotary Woofer from 25 hz down to below 1 hz and this combination is stunning.

bwraudio said:

I use the best part of the Maggies, the bass panels (Magneplanar Tympani IV). I combine the bass panels with Martin Logan Summit electrostatic speakers (woofers disconnected). ........I use Eminent Technology's TRW-17 Rotary Woofer from 25 hz down to below 1 hz and this combination is stunning.

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I would have never thought of doing something like this.

An impressive effort towards reaching sonic bliss.

After my toddlers pushed in my Revel tweeters many years ago, I decided to go Maggie all the way until they were old enough to know what not to poke. I lived quite happily with SMGcs and a baby REL Quake in the bedroom and 1.6QRs in a mixed music/ht system.

People don't often talk about Maggies in HT terms. In my experience, maggies are fantastic with movies and curiously enough, integrate quite well with ordinary center speakers. To appease she who must be obeyed, my 1.6QRs were ordered in off white with IIRC rosewood trim.