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Hello all.
I'm trying to help out a friend who just got a pair of the Magnepan MG12 speakers. Problem is, I really have no experience with planar speakers, so my recommendations are pretty limited. Enclosed is a lot of information to give you for reference, so please bear with me.
The room he has them in is 12' x 19', but it's open to another room at about 12' behind the speakers, and after that, the remaining 7 feet or so opens up to the dining room behind it. My friend has no option but to place them along this long wall (the right speaker's outside edge runs flush to the end of this wall). That's the kicker.
Also, along the long portion of the room, his seating position is up against the back wall that runs the length of the room at 19', with a bay window behind the seating position. It has blinds that he closes when listening, and there's lots of pictures and books resting on the ledge where the window juts out.
His equipment rack sits at the midway point of this front wall (about 5' from the side wall on the left, and same for the other side before the right side of this wall ends and opens-up as mentioned before).
As it stands at the moment, for speaker placement, although not optimal, he has the left speaker 36" out from the front wall, and about 60" from the side wall; the right speaker is 36" from the front wall as well, but due to the wall stopping and opening up behind it to the dining room (it still reflects off the front wall because its edge is flush to it), it's edge is 7' from the corresponding side wall — hardly optimal.
So, his seating position is directly between the speakers, where he is across from the rack at about 10' from his ear in the seat; a little over 8' from where the center of slightly toed-in speaker centers are to the ear. The speakers are about 6' 8" apart when measuring from their centers, tweeters to the OUTSIDE, as recommended by the manual.
Okay, his equipment is a Rega Elicit, Rega Apollo, Well Tempered Amadeus with Dynavector 20X2-L and a Graham Slee Reflex phono/Cinemag setup. Speaker cables are Anti-Cables and Jumpers; ICs are all Mogami.
If you're still with me, the sound is really quite amazing for the most part. It has a very wide soundstage, solid imaging, great depth. They don't exactly 'disappear' as many have experienced, but I know we just need to keep working on moving them around. The only thing that either of us cannot rectify is that on many recordings (mostly on the turntable; but it is present on CD as well) the bass is pretty strong and has a tendency to overwhelm (maybe overload is more apt) or seem hidden at times on familiar recordings (by hidden, I mean harder to follow). It can sound 'bloated' or tubby, but then on upright bass is sounds quite good and well-defined. Strange.
Any recommendations after all of that? Speaker positioning...tweeter arrangement...sound panels (where?)...He's up for almost anything, other than changing seating arrangement because it's just not feasible. HELP!!! Since I really cannot.
Follow Ups:
JS, I am glad you both are enjoying your friend's Maggies. You already have a few very good pointers and as we get more familiar with the situation we should be able to refine the advice.
I wish we had a diagram of the floor plan. Your description is good but I am afraid that some people with promising knowledge may have a hard time visualizing. Besides, some of us just copy the drawing, add some suggested changes, and repost so that others can quickly evaluate. If you decide to do one, keep in mind that details count. A bushy plant, a piece of furniture, an off center sofa, cloth art on walls. etc. I never cease to be amazed at how little things can make such differences at times.
Symmetry helps significatly with planar speakers but it is hard to achieve it in some situations, like this one. It may be that we can find ways to "approximate" it.
Anyway, let me ask. Is the room fully, or partially carpeted? Wood or concrete/tile?
Pull the speakers out another 2 or 3 feet for 5 to 6 feet from the front wall.
Make sure the listening seat and speakers are in an equilateral triangle. Try the tweeters on the inside. This appears to be room dependant, I have a room basically like you describe and the tweeters are in. Difference is that I'm on the short wall. Be SURE the wall directly behind the listening seat is heavily dampened. If he can't do treatments, use HEAVY curtains or wall hangings, you may want to see if you can find Dunlavy's instructions for setting speakers on a long wall. Of course the further out from the wall the better for the speakers. Good Luck
Thanks Adriel and Atver for your responses. Both your recommendations seem reasonable enough. I'll go over this with him and see what he can do. It sure seems as though we're hitting a bass node. What I had noticed from sitting in the listening seat is that if I moved forward to where I was resting my elbown on my knees listening, the problem all but goes away (the BOOM, that is); it even cleans it up (you can actually hear the pluck on the strings where I never heard it so clearly before) by quite a margin as well. Only thing is that it does something that I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe the instruments within the soundstage aren't quite as expansive as when leaning back and relaxing...basically, we're talking about a foot-and-a-half here.
Anyway, I really appreciate your insights. I gotta tell you, the planar experience really is quite something. I've never heard music presented so wonderfully this way. It does quite a few things that no box speaker I've heard can pull off, that's why it's difficuly for me to try articulating what I'm hearing, as well as the issues...
I am guessing that at your friends seat, when you lean forward, your head ends up about 3 ft from the wall behind the seat. That would be roughly where the bass room mode null would be when the speakers are 3' off the front wall.
So I would suggest moving the seat forward by about 1' and a bit to place the seating in the null, and move the left speaker another foot towards the center. That should keep you within a good triangle, and help with symmetry against the open wall. The toe in and speaker distances will have to be fine tuned from scratch.
Another solution is to use heavy damping directly behind the speakers and/or really heavy damping behind the listening seat to prevent the bass mode there. Some damping on the left front corner will help with symmetry and avoid pulling the deep bass note images to one side.
Thanks sir, and everyone else for your suggestions. It would appear that everyone has included very similar solutions, of which we have partially addressed.
We ended-up moving the couch about a foot forward from the back wall, so that it is very close to 3 feet from the window. We also moved the speakers another 9" - 12" forward, so that it is approximately 46" off the front wall, with toe-in that appears to cross behind the seating position.
We played some bass-heavy tracks, and it did indeed clear up about 75% of the BOOM (if I were to put a number to this).
Ultimately, I think he is going to either try damping behind the speakers or perhaps purchase bass traps; he hasn't decided quite yet...but this is a great start.
Really, thanks everyone!
The Audio Physic method of placing speakers deals with this problem, if i remember correctly. It sounds like the problem is mainly placement.
If there is room for bass traps, try them.
I was putting in new insulation in the ceiling of another room. So temporarily I had around 4 big logs of fiberglass batts in the mg12 room, waiting to be put up. I was impressed by how much better I could hear the bass.
I don't have that much room, for now I have an equilizer -6db rolloff by 55hz. Haven't decided if I want to use any floorspace-hogging traps behind the listening chair.
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