Home Planar Speaker Asylum

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RE: Lovin my MMG's, except.....

First, thanks a million to all of you for taking the time from your schedules to help me work through this.

And to you Mr. Gunn....your reputation certaily precedes you so thank you very much for contributing your analysis and offering a bit of sage advice.

However, with all due respect Mr. Gunn I'm going to have to address your "shotgun approach" comment. Not that you're wrong for saying that... looking back over my posts I can see the manner in which I've described my methods certainly does make them come across as "shotgun". But the fact of the matter is my tweaks have been fairly systematic and empirical. At any rate, I've tried to perform my mods/tweaks one at a time when possible (some mods by nature address more than one issue simultaneously) and live with the result for a full listening session or two with my reference tracks before I determine which issue should be addressed next.

I agree, my room is one issue and still needs some fine tuning to optimize the dipolar radiation pattern and I'm getting there slowly but surely as it's a work in progress (and yes, I suppose I'm a little guilty of "racing to the finish" but I'm not one to "let the grass grow under my ass"...if you know what I mean :^]).

So, with that, please allow me to offer a chronologically accurate, step by step description of my methodology. My apologies for not starting out this way.


My room was intitially very well treated for monpolar cone/box speakers and when I first set the MMGs up I did'nt like them at all. First thing I did was remove the absorption panels from the front wall and this helped imaging and soundstage but fidelity was lacking. Next I located what I felt was optimum placement for my room and performance on all levels improved once again. I then built the diffusion panels and set them up as you see them behind the speakers and they made a considerable improvement in fidelity...almost profound, actually. After that I replaced the factory stands with the 90 degree bracket mod to get them upright. This helped with clarity as well but the overall presentation really took a turn for the better (bigger...in a good way) when I got them up off the ground and on top of the subs. Now, I won't argue with anyone that 16" off the ground and on top of subs is not optimum, but the improvement over ground level was undeniable and a second set of critical ears agreed enthusiastically. Next I bypassed the fuses and attenuators and realized yet another improvement in fidelity. At this point the improvement in SQ was so vastly improved over my first impression with them in my room that I decided to leave the room and speakers alone switched my focus to trying out the different amps and preamps I had sitting around (and even with that there is still no verdict but I've settled on the Emotiva USP-1 and Emotiva XPA-2 for several weeks now in attempt to stabilized that variable).

After living with that arrangment for the past several weeks and making note of what I felt were problem areas I moved forward with my latest tweaks to the front corners of the room (removing some absorption and creating additional diffusion) and the mounting/positioning of the speakers (prototype stands to get them off the subs, closer to the ground, and more rigid).

Generally speaking I think the speakers sound outstanding compared to what I've been exposed to. Now I'm getting down to really fine tuning them to the point that I minimize, or eliminate, those "acceptable compromises". Just about anyone that listens to them now thinks they sound incredible and only the most critical of ears understands how I can hear room for improvement. So here I am for help from all of you salty dogs.

So last night I set them back to vertical and realized an immediate improvement in clarity and, to some degree, dynamics. Next I pulled the sidewall first reflection absorption down. To my delight this widened the soundstage more than I've ever heard it before but unfortunately with a catch. The top end is a touch shrill now and can get uncomfortable on certain tracks. I'm still interested in trying diffusion on the sidewalls...perhaps in conjunction with absorption. I'm thinking of making up similar panels to the ones I have behind the speakers except drill lots of holes in them and place 703 panels behind the diffusion panel.

But ultimately I see I need to make a more serious effort with my stands and address the networks. Prepare to have your collective brains picked as I think I may pass on the 1.6's and move forward with (seriously) modding the MMGs.


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