Maggie Dismay

[PeruvianSkies]

First perhaps I was not clear because I was aiming comments more at the original poster who complained about the sound for give music.

First to get one thing out of the way -- I HIGHLY RECOMMEND the Magnepan 1.6 as one of the best values in the entire audio industry. Let me be very clear that I LIKE them a LOT. That said all loudspeakers are imperfect devices no matter what design or how much you pay. And none of them are even close to perfect designs.

Every designer - well the ones who care about music reproduction and not stamping out products for market share - make their design choices on preference and what they believe is the proper pursuit of sound reproduction. And contrary to what ALL of us on forums and in the magazine press like to believe no one speaker is the ultimate at everything -- not even the MASSIVE Sound Lab that you need a gymnasium sized room for.

The fact is planars and stats have some advantages over boxed designs namely the membrane in a Stat is faster to start and stop than a conventional dynamic woofer. The downside is they do not move nearly as much air so in order to get the bass and "macro" dynamic ability of even an average woofer the panel must be quite large. The 1.6 is a fairly large loudspeaker and it's bass response is on par with a number of two way standmounts using one 5 inch woofer per box.

This is NOT a knock on the maggie or Quads but it is a simple reality if you go that route. This is the number one reason for WHY, and even panel owners must agree, that there are BIGGER panels made by the same company. If the 1.6 was already a full range loudspeaker then there would be no need for the 20.1.

ANd this applies to boxed speakers as well - the Paradigm 100 exists because the Studio 20 does not have the bass or the volume capability to satisfy ME. Now it may satisfy many customer sand that is why the Studio 20 is there but for those of us who want more of everything you have a Studio 100. With Magnepan you have the same thing - some people desire more bass, more volume capability and more refinement -- so you go from MMG to 1.6 to 3.6 to 20.1 etc for your needs. With Quad you buy two sets and stack them.

Now going back to the excellent musically rewarding 1.6 it still nevertheless has shortcomings that other loudspeakers for the same price or less do not have. And it is important to note them when a specific person comes on a forum - especially one who has acknowledged the dissatisfaction with that aspect of sound. Rock, POP, Dance, Trance, Hip Hop, RAP, Country, Jazz/Rock etc are not the strengths of small panels. And while audiophiles can talk about classical and Jazz - these genres make up by far the LEAST amount of music sales. So right away you have loudspeakers that really don't do a great job or often even a good job with the vast majority of music listening tastes.

I was in a pub last night with massive dual concetric Tannoys with two 15 or 18 inch woofers in a massive box. There is just no way that I would be wanting to spend an evening listening to Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Scorpion, Aerosmith, Velvet Underground, The Verve, etc etc on the 1.6 or 3.6 because the experience simply would be a disaster in sound reproduction compared to the Tannoys. Now for acoustic classical and at low volumes the story would be different because the Tannoy does not possess much in the way of finess and this particular model is more about pound -- but it is one of the best speakers I've heard in a bar so kudos goes to the owners for choosing something that does's knock your head off with bright treble and boomy bass.

Let's pretend that the only two speakers on the planet are the 1.6 and the Tannoy I mentioned:

So what you have is two entirely different loudspeakers both of which have advantage and disadvantages -- I suppose Ideally you could buy both and listen to the music it does best on that speaker. If you listen to Rock and you like to listen to it with some scale then you will buy the Tannoy and it is not even a horserace. If you listen to acoustic music to relax to with a glass of wine then it's the Maggie and it's not really a horserace.

Now if you are like me who cuts music fairly evenly down the middle - where I listen to say 10 genres at about the same amount of time for each musical genre then I have a FAR more difficult choice to make. I have to determine which is going to make me happier long term playing all my musical favorites. So does the Tannoy do a more reasonable job with classical than the 1.6 does with rock. So if the Tannoy gets 9/10 for Rock reproduction and the Maggie gets 2/ for rock and the 1.6 gets 9/10 for classical but the Tannoy gets 6/10 then overall the Tannoy would win. On the other hand if I listen to 80% classical and only 20% rock then the Maggie would win.

I bought speakers that take a balance between the two extremes and for me that is the best approach. I would rather the speaker that is a little less capable than the extreme technologies of the Dynamic and stat worlds but crossover to the other well. So if a Quad scores 10/10 for acoustic classical but 2/10 for amplified music and Klipschhorn scores 10/10 for scale and macro dynamics (amplified music) but 2/10 for classical I would rather the speaker that gets 8.5-9/10 in both kinds of music because it is better able to produce all kinds of music at a very very high level if not State of the Art at one thing. Balance over specialization. And some of the speakers from Tannoy exhibit this kind of advantage.

Being in Korea it is quite fun because they are not about new is better - you can listen to old VOice of the theater speakers directly against B&W Nautiuls Diamonds and Wilson Watts with any big name amp you can think of from Levinson, Parasound, Edge, Levinsonce Classe McIntosh of all era's, various panels, Avantguarde horns etc.

Ultimately I have learned some things over the last few months and it really does boil down to your own priorities and what you listen to. I believe in a speaker that can do everything well over specialized loudspeakers but if you take a guy like Art Dudley of Stereophile here is a guy who covers a pretty good variety in what he considers to be the best loudspeakers from panels, to HE/SET systems to Lowther single drivers. I have a gained a huge new appreciation for panels when I listen to them in the context of what they do well and boxed speakers with rare exception are capable of. Interestingly it is the boxed speakers on the fringes of the industry like the big hornsand HE/ SET systems, and panels that hold my interest than stuff in the mainstream like B&W.

The 1.6 in many ways I would say should be at the top of the audition list and I would not spend $2000.00 Cad on a loudspeaker until I heard the 1.6 in a decent set-up. I can;t think of any higher praise than that for a loudspeaker -- despite it's problems for $2k other speakers have problems too and often far bigger ones than Maggie.

That said I hated the sound of the SMG -- But used loudspeakers that are quite old have a lot of wear and tear so even judging that sound is not entirely fair because who knows if they were on their last legs or not or if there are problems with the drivers, caps etc.

Put it this way -- I intend one day to follow someone like Art Dudly and purchases a few different kinds of systems -- I will purchase a panel based system probably from SOund Labs and a single driver system probably around the CM 4 driver.

I have been asked to write for a magazine and as such I need IMO to have references of differing technologies to be credible - to myself or for readers. When I get panels I will have the engineers set-it up properly - especially for speakers that are extremely sensitive to rooms

Wow, what a short response...lol

[RGA]

Yes being succinct is definitely something to work on. Still sometimes I write things quickly on forums with rechecking and I get taken the wrong way which leads to spiral threads -- I figure if I write one big post I can avoid some of the flames.

[GMichael]

Wow, what a short response...lol

That was nothing. Keep watching.