Dredging this thread up as I’m starting to mull this over in earnest now.
So, this is the space with the Magnepans. Audio system is in a closet behind the orange couch, and speaker wire and RCA’s for the subs run under the rug. I don’t have little kids or a lot of traffic in the room, so not worried about the cables getting stepped on or damaged under the rug. It works fine. Not true audiophile, but here we are.
They fit between the legs of the speaker riser, and when I’m having a listening session, I pull the speakers out from the wall. Subs stay where they are.
So, I’m thinking of getting some more substantial subwoofers, and they would remain in this location. They would be bigger than these little Cambridge subs, and wider than the Magnepan feet, so I have two options.
Build a little riser/base/pedestal for the sub so it straddles the feet. When I pull the speaker out, the sub would stay put.
Build some kind of riser that would ATTACH to the Magnepan feet. So the sub would be connected to the Maggies, integrated with the feet, and would come out from the wall when I pull the speaker out. Think of a sled. (I built those Maggie feet out of walnut, so I can easily fabricate something, also out of walnut.)
I could sketch something up but hopefully you get the picture.
So, two questions:
Which of those two options seem the most viable/desirable? Visually, to me, it’s a horse apiece. Sonically, I don’t know what’s better. Either option will raise the sub off the ground, but will coupling the sub with the maggie legs create some unwanted harmonic something or another? Is pulling the sub away from the wall favorable in the same way as speakers away from the wall?
Need a sub recommendation. Looking at REL T7i, SVS SB2000, others. Nothing bigger than 14-15" square. If something came in a walnut finish, that would be awesome. For connections, I could go either RCA (as there’s already cabling in place) or I could go from the magnepans’ speaker terminals to a high-level input on the sub via a jumper. (At least I think I can do this. I never really knew this was an option until seeing a thread here a while back that referenced it.) So, high-level inputs are fine, but not critical.
Amplification is a Parasound HINT6 integrated, for what it’s worth.
Subwoofers typically couple more efficiently to the room when loading into “quarter space” up against a wall. My vote would be for a solution that left the subs stationary back there.
If you have suspended floors beneath the hardwood I see in the pics, siting the subs on soft isolation footers or a rigid platform with said footers beneath it will offer sonic benefits. Capable “true” subwoofers (Sorry, your little Minx mid-bass boxes wouldn’t qualify! ) with all drivers situated on one face of the enclosure have a propensity for making suspended floor construction sing along with heavy low frequency music content- like a gigantic droning kettle drum. Not a good thing. So the addition of isolation footers to whatever subwoofer you decide on will likely provide the clearance you need to slide the Maggie stabilizer feet beneath the sub when domestic harmony requires.
Yeah, if I go with the “subs stay put” option, I’ll likely rise them up on some kind of massive platform. Not massive sizewise, but massive in that it should cut down on resonance to the floor below. (For what it’s worth, It’s right next to an exterior wall, as well as a fireplace, so there’s lots of foundational support/deadening. I’m not too concerned.)
Forgot, also looking into Rythmik subs, along with REL and SVS.
I would go the route of keeping them separate and lifting them off the floor at least 6 inches. I have all sorts of tube traps and acoustical treatments in the room. The most valuable treatments are sub traps that lift my subs 18 inches off the floor to minimize room nodes vertically. Also isolate the sub from the floor.
Since you say this solution has sorted out your dilemma, I assume you’re pleased with the results. I’d be interested in any impressions you care to offer. I have .7s as well, and have been augmenting them for almost 3 years now with a single, old (12-15 years) Hsu. It does the job, but I feel like it could integrate better, and it’s prone to producing peaks and nulls around the room, so I’m kicking around the idea of upgrading to a newer unit, either singly or, preferably, a pair. Like it did for you, the REL website’s “sub selector” routine said the T/7i (and now T/7x) was the appropriate match, but the cost of a pair of them puts me off. I sent a note to REL, describing my room, equipment and intended use (music only), and asked their opinion which would be better - a single 7 or a pair of the 5s, and they answered, perhaps predictably, that I should get a pair of 7s.
To their credit, they had practical reasons for recommending a pair over a single sub - primarily centered on the fact that I have M700s and would have to use the line-level input if I got a single unit. Still, I was a little disappointed that they didn’t address any sound differences between a pair of 5s and a single 7 in their reply.
ah, well, a few things have changed, and so I guess I should update this.
The listening space in question now has (as of Jan 2021) Harbeth 30.2 XD’s, amplified by (as of Sept 2021) a Luxman L509X integrated. The subs are very subtle. I don’t need too much bass, frankly. I could probably get by without the subs.
The REL’s are fed by the speaker cable directly off the Harbeths. I have the crossover on the sub set very low, and the volume set higher.
I’ve moved the Magnepan .7’s downstairs, and there I have a pair of T/7i’s. Very small space, and I don’t really need the REL’s down there. In fact, the Cambridge Azur integrated doesn’t really like them set up for high-level. Goes into protection after about 10 minutes. Could go back to low level, but I’ve unhooked them for the moment. Need to sort that out.
Just for fun I might move the T/7i’s upstairs and the 5’s downstairs. That would be more appropriate to the room size and speakers.
Honestly, the only reason I haven’t already done that is because of visual aesthetics. I want white subs in the living room and black ones in the downstairs cave.
I am using a pair of REL T/5i woofers with my M700s driving Magnepan LRS speakers and I am very happy. Bass is low and tight and natural sounding and the imaging is superb.
The T/5i woofers were purposely chosen because the drivers were smaller to perhaps better integrate with the LRS panels. I’ve got the woofers sitting slightly behind and just outside of the Magnepans.
My recommendation for use with the mono blocks would be to use two woofers and pay strict attention to the REL guidelines on wiring to Class D fully balanced amplifiers.
Magnepan is working on their own subs. I heard them with the LRS+ and I was impressed with what I heard and didn’t see them. They were hidden in the room.
That shouldn’t be happening since the input impedance of the subs are very high. They’re drawing pretty much zero power from the amp. Theoretically, they should go “unseen” by the amp.
As for my setup, I’m running a pair of SVS PB-1000 Pro’s with my Maggie 1.7i’s. A flawless combo. The Pro’s have absolutely no problems keeping up with the Maggies no matter what music I throw at them be it chamber music, jazz or rock.
I’m actually extremely impressed with these subs. They just perform and for the most part, go un-noticed until something demanding comes along. Even then, they just seem like a natural extension of the Maggies and not two separate subs slightly behind the Maggies.
BTW, the subs receiver their signal via Wireworld Oasis 7 bi-wire cables straight off of the main amp powering the Maggies. The bi-wire cables feed both left and right input of the subs for max input signal. Zero issues.
Agreed. It’s very possible that it didn’t like the Magnepans, either. Although it never went into protection mode with them when I had the subs disconnected.
I’ve moved the Cambridge to a different system, and am now using a Freya+ and Vidar monos with the maggies. Seems much happier.
) with all drivers situated on one face of the enclosure have a propensity for making suspended floor construction sing along with heavy low frequency music content- like a gigantic droning kettle drum. Not a good thing. So the addition of isolation footers to whatever subwoofer you decide on will likely provide the clearance you need to slide the Maggie stabilizer feet beneath the sub when domestic harmony requires.
