Planar Magnetic Loudspeaker Aficionados!

Darren

You might want to take a look at these if your room is big enough for ML and Maggie. They would eliminate the need for subs and they include sophisticated room correction. If my main room was big enough I would have ordered a pair already.

If my memory suits me right, PS Audio did a demo with Legacy Audio at one of the LAOC Audio society shows. Not the ideal room but they dial it in as best as they could and it was a glorious sound.

According to Anthony Cordesman one of the great speaker bargains out there especially with the ability to dial in the room. Similar in concept to my Nolaā€™s with OB mid-range and tweeter with sealed cabinet woofers except in this case amplified and equalized.

Hereā€™s my maggie quasi-tri-center experiment.
http://www.magnepan.com/tri-center

Mini maggies + MMGs. Forte 1A (class A) driving the minis, Stellar S300 driving the MMGs. Oppo transport into TEAC UD-501 DAC. Audioquest splitters on the RCA jacks. Wide soundstage with much better center than stereo can offer.

Nice!

Wonderful fun! I bet this works superbly.

Found another guy running double pans:

To me, Apogees always sounded better than any Magnepan ever has, and the only area in which they fell short (due to their nature) was impact - traditional cone drivers can present that impact from a drum hit or such that planars can only dream about.

But soundstage, and even bass - Apogees had it all.

The best sounding speaker Iā€™ve ever heard - and Iā€™ve heard the Wilson Alexandria XLFs - remains for a variety of reasons the Apogee Full Range. Holophonic and transcendent in a way Iā€™ve yet to hear any other speaker duplicate.

But even they canā€™t give you the ā€œkick in the chestā€ from a song like Pink Floydā€™s ā€œRun Like Hellā€ like conventional drivers can.

They also have some issues where certain frequencies cause harmonics within the ribbons - they just do. I visited True Sound Works and I had a buzz in a certain song at a certain point on my Apogee Caliper Signatures and wanted to check if it would occur on Apogee Duetta Signatures, which I was considering, and it did not.

However it did occur on the same note on what Iā€™ve long considered my dream speakers, Apogee Divas.

Thatā€™s the other truth about speakers - there are technological imitations to them all.

(No, the Full Ranges did not have the issue, but I would also need to purchase a new house with a room large enough for them, which raises the net purchase price significantly. :joy:)

did you listen to Maggies with ribbons?

Iā€™ve never heard Maggies that had any kind of bass to speak of except for a pair of the original four panel Magnepans.

Every Apogee has had excellent bass, even the Stages (though they needed occasional help down low.)

Calipers, Duettas and Divas all had amazing sound throughout the frequency range.

I agree that Maggies just donā€™t have the clarity and imaging of the Apogees.
I have Duetta Signatures, modified and upgraded by Graz, the guy in Australia who makes new versions for a bit over $50K.

Check out: http://www.analysisaudio.com/

A lot like old Apogeesā€¦

They look quite similar but sonically they are disappointing by comparison.

Conceded that Maggies arenā€™t great for bass. Thatā€™s why Iā€™ve been experimenting with stacking panels to move more air. Iā€™ve not yet listened to 20.7s (let alone 30.7s) but I imagine that they can push more air for better bass. And the amp matters-- for example, pairing a Stellar amp with Maggies suddenly changes their bass response. More current and control.

I havenā€™t heard Apogees so I canā€™t opine. In terms of clarity, Martin Logan was damn good, but there was that coherence issue-- the bass didnā€™t quite mesh. Of course, Stax headphones skip all the problems and deliver electrostat clarity right into your ear, with no room issues either, and no crossover.

Very nice - I have new main speakers but have never been able to part with my Graz re-ribboned Caliper Signatures, which I retain as part of a second system.

I agree with you regarding the headphones I use Stax L-Professional and I have them more than 25 years. They are my reference and still sounding grate. Especially with binaural recordings.
My Mggies 3.7i sound in my room very close to the Stax headphones

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I got rid of maggies for GE Triton 1s, mainly because they do double duty (2ch and HT) ā€¦but I really miss the Maggies. The new ones with all ribbon drivers are wondrous. And I disagree about the supposed lack of bass. They play bass the way itā€™s supposed to sound.

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Thatā€™s Hedley!!!

I ended up doing a double Maggie setup as well. 3.6R (full range) w/ IIIA (bass only) panels. Although it took some experimentation, I ended up crossing the IIIA bass panels at 90Hz (6db/oct). The end result? Glorious Maggie bass in a fairly large room ā€“ clean response down to 30-35Hz.

Itā€™s bass I can actually feel without the bloat of a typical subwoofer ā€“ please note that I said the typical subwoofer. I know there are very expensive subs out there that do not add bloat, but a second pair of used Maggies is much cheaper!

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Very interesting! Neat approachā€¦ something to think aboutā€¦ you may have acheived your objective by simply blocking out the rear waves that cause the Magnepan bass problems. Not a criticism, but but having owned two set of Magnepans over the years, I found that bass issues can be addressed with maniacal fixation on placement and room treatments.

Peace
Bruce in Philly