Magnepan 1.6 Review (Part #2)

[bluetrain]

I wholeheartedly agree with the folks who recommend not to make unnecessary purchases like tube buffers or cables at this point, even though eventually you've gotta get good interconnects. Your speakers are good, save for a nice tubed preamp, and then you'll see what happens.

For now, if you can spend up to $200, try to get Cambridge Audio CD4SE (not 4 or 6). This is a really tremendous player, I still have it as a backup. Even though my current player costs ten times more than the Cambridge, it still holds its own, and I really enjoy it. The midrange is smooth and rich, and overall presentation is lush. I think that's what you need now, until your amplification upgrade.

[JoeE SP9]

manleystanley;
When I got my first pair of Maggy's (MG-1's) in 1976 the awful sound of many recordings became immediately apparent. When you have revealing speakers it's something you learn to live with. Everyone that owns Maggy's, ESL's or Ribbons gets used to it. OTOH, good recordings sound truly marvelous. As another poster mentioned, the revealing quality may be the reason many "rock" fans don't like Maggy's. A lot of rock recordings demonstrate just how bad some recordings are.

You might note the two main ESL supporters (me and E-Stat) use tubes or recommend them to drive to drive our speakers. When I had the MG-1's 60WPC of tube power made me quite happy with them.

Before I started thinking of replacing amplifiers I would get rid of the monoprice cables. I have heard nothing good about monoprice cables from anyone. The Blue Jeans line seems to be much better received and reviewed for not much more money.

Yes, learning the in's and out's of speaker placement is a different process with panels. However, it's worth the effort to get them positioned properly.