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Verrry late lunch after long hours working on a project ... in need of a mental break....I must have a sugar low or someth'n...but the brain cell just cranked this out.Over the recent weeks, I've listened to more of other people's systems than to my own. Such variety within a short timeframe is unusual. I have heard a broad range of good speakers, both planars & boxes. For reference, mine are a set of [very ancient] modded MMGs. Luckily, the scope of achievable [room, equipment and speakers] integration at home is wide. So, I get away with an improbably decent-sounding 2-way system (and I love that I don't have to turn the sub).
Happily, this also a fact in many of YOUR own homes. Even when listening to much more expensive systems that have "ACTUAL superior virtues"...YOUR planars -- be it Maggies or others -- still charm you more often...and for longer hours. It is amazing that in most cases you can get 90% of the subjective satisfaction that planars can provide REGARDLESS of how basic your planar speakers are. So long as they are set up properly and fed decently, Nirvana may seem far closer than some "objective realities" may seem to warrant.
Against intuition -- and challenging speaker design paradigms -- with most Maggies this happens despite sharing the same piece of Mylar diaphragm for TWO or more drivers. Typically, it is a tweeter and a mid/bass driver config. The 1.7s even have the nerve to add a super-tweeter! Furthermore, most of these Mylar diaphragms have magnets on one side only. When you consider the potential impacts of this asymmetry together with the mechanical intermodulation distortion of using the same Mylar sheet...
...well, like I may have said already: improbable but real...or else many of us would likely not be here, LOL!
Listening to all these very expensive systems with all their specific virtues...I can catch a relative weakness that they have vs the drivers in many of our Maggies.
In these other ones (and on this I'll include some Maggies that have ribbon tweeters and/or DWM) as long as they don't share the same diaphragm, each drivers' reproduction SQ gains in some aspects. Unfortunately, they also lose in some SQ dimensions...perhaps of vital worth.
So, I invite your comments on an often-taken-for-granted reality: Given how much they can charm us, it must be a powerful thing that which "drivers on the same diaphragm" bring to the plate, don't you think?
Edits: 07/07/14Follow Ups:
'Ya can't beat transverse waves
Too much is never enough
Hey, Pix! No doubt they have an effect. I can't figure out that this would be in a positive manner. Then again, these things are never obvious...much less simple.
In single-diaphragm planars, one knows that some sound clarity is being lost, slightly tinged and/or colored. Yet, it is ALL colored the same way. Perhaps this is just a part of it. One aspect seems to be a certain kind of "oneness". It is as if the sound, top to bottom, is "cut from the same cloth". In such cases, the mind may process things in a more forgiving manner?
Discussing some expensive box speakers with a friend recently, I mentioned that inter-driver personalities are tough to deal with. In this multi-driver system, at times it seemed as if different venues or halls were used for each segment of the frequency spectrum.
"Hey, put the top registers of that viola in this room along with most of this violin's. The rest, all their lower registers, put them in this next room."
As a result, each viola & violin, for example, would appear to have two distinct tonal personalities (and other split SQ values also).
I have more examples of this but I am hoping that we can get more experienced input from others first.
One thing that Maggies have in favor of 'em is that the sound wave comes from a single PLANE.
Toe is used to adjust dispersion and also distance from listener to each 'way'. The last depends on crossover.
With my 1.6s having the bass and mid/tweet 90 degrees apart, you basically adjust toe for that distance difference between drivers and you are back in phase.
Too much is never enough
Thanks, Pix! Yes, the "same plane" most certainly is a large and critically important part of the integration. And, like you mentioned, other elements also affect the time domain interactions and alignments.
Yet, there has to be more at play. Let's consider this. With many true ribbon tweeter Maggies -- despite anything one may attempt -- the tweeter can easily disrupt the "oneness". Now, I must say that the 3.7 is a damn good integrated ribbon system...I don't easily lose the sense of integration when listening to them (though I still do at times depending on the program material). The 3.6R/20.1 and earlier never accomplished this integration for me. I have not really "listened" to the 20.7 yet.
OTOH, none of the single-panel/same-diaphragm Maggies has ever disrupted the integrated illusion for me (unless internally damaged). Of course, this better integration does not easily make up for other of their performance shortfalls. However, I am beginning to suspect that "better integration" means far more to me than I ever admitted to myself.
I have near-zero ribbon listening time, except for a couple brief demo listens of ribbon Maggies.
UNTIL, I listened to the 20s of GL.
This was a real eye-opener and was an amazing setup of near-zero compromise. While I may quibble about amps, crossovers or whatever, the net effect was quite amazing.
Too much is never enough
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