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In Reply to: RE: Zen and the trade offs of Maggie maintenance. posted by Swamis Cat on May 31, 2015 at 10:39:08
Mye stands can help tune a listening room by tightening the mid-bass and improving focus. The stiff supports reduce Maggie frame vibrations that can blur the image slightly on more complex music. The best way to describe it is as an unveiling of subtle inner-detail. These well constructed, heavy gauge stands allow modest tilt control through adjustment of the threaded spikes....Digression (unsolicited plug): I wholeheartedly recommend Grant's stands for optimum Maggie enjoyment! That said, given the additional weight these may not be well suited for those who move their speakers around a lot. This caveat is offered in the same spirit as nine out of ten doctors prescribing Advil for back pain. Now, back to the regular program...
Some owners prefer their Maggies perfectly vertical. From an aesthetic perspective I get it. There's a psychologically seductive aspect to the near invisible footprint and 90 degree angle; it's the nostalgic appeal of Stanley Kubrick's obelisk popularized at the dawn of Maggiedom. In fact, I've read negative comments about current production Maggie feet being tilted back a few degrees, as if it's a QC issue. IMO, the tilt is intentional; I suspect Magnepan's R&D department discovered an acoustic benefit to introducing a few degrees of backward tilt.
While the slight tilt on stock feet probably produces a tangible benefit in most rooms, the lack of any vertical adjustment makes experimentation with repositioning the speakers attractive. Due to the acoustic reflections this would be even more appealing in listening rooms with typical 8' to 10' ceilings. I come at this from a slightly different angle. Based upon my home listening environment (with 20' ceiling) I've discovered that having control in the vertical plane (adjusting tilt via the Mye stands threaded floor spikes) has greater impact on the Maggie sound than repositioning the speakers.
I prefer keeping things relatively simple via adjustments that don't complicate other elements of home and lifestyle enjoyment. I'm sure that everyone posting this forum desires the best sound possible from their planar speakers. Armed with the knowledge that everything affects everything else it's gotten easier to make choices and narrow down which adjustments are worth my time and energy.
Maybe it's just laziness on my part, but I'm satisfied with the emotionally moving musicality I've achieved through modest system changes that clearly make a difference. That's why I've chosen to limit my system tweaking to easily adjustable areas that provide long term benefit (tube rolling, speaker tilt, room treatment, upstream gear, best music masterings, etc.).
Sorry about the length of this. I hope it isn't too boring of a read.
Cheers,
AuPh
Edits: 06/01/15 06/01/15Follow Ups:
Audiophilander,
Thanks for the informative post... I think you are bringing up some important points which add to the discussion.
First, a question, how would you rate the improvement of adding the Mye stands vs the improvement of FW diffusion? I am sure the gains are quite different, but does one make a bigger difference than the other? If you could only do one, which would you choose? Please do share.
Second, I am glad someone else brought up the leaning stand issue on the latest models. I too have always assumed it is either a QC issue or an issue related to me using my speakers in heavy carpeting. I have experimented and I prefer the sound in my room totally vertical (it has various effects, including raising the image height noticeably). What have you found you prefer on the vertical adjustments with your Mye adjustments in your room?
In respect to your first question if I've understood correctly, FW diffusion was already quite good in my listening room. Very little room treatment was needed. Where the Mye stands made a very noticeable difference was in tightening the bass and image focus (due in part to the rigidity of the stands). Toe-in also made a difference in keeping the soundstage cohesive.It's probably worth mentioning that my listening room is on the lively side with absorptive materials to balance the reflective surfaces (cushioned chairs, blankets, etc.). Not much else was required. I did treat the glass in my media storage cabinets along both walls with blu-tack to eliminate a tricky upper-midrange resonance, but that's about it.
Secondly, with Maggies perpendicular to the floor (90 degrees) on the Mye stands the upper-midrange can be a little on the bright side, especially if there are any issues with preamp tube glare. Adjusting the threaded spikes to tilt the speakers back a couple of degrees tamed the brightness and locked everything into place.
With a 20' raftered ceiling, lively wood paneled room (with wall sconces & projector screen surface to break up standing waves) and the Maggies slightly toed-in three feet from the FW, everything fell into place. At this point the walls seemed to vanish completely, replaced by a concert hall with incredible depth and rock-solid soundstage.
I'm sure that I could continue tweaking, moving the speakers around or adding more diffusing materials to the back and sides of my listening room, but I honestly don't think it would improve my enjoyment much more than I've already achieved. I have no special knowledge or expertise when it comes to the engineering side of this stuff. Maybe I've just been very lucky with this set-up or just easier to please having owned less satisfying speakers prior to my Maggies, but I'm definitely a happy camper.
Cheers,
AuPh
Edits: 06/02/15
You can use little spike cups or moving discs to make re positioning easy or get rounded feet instead of spikes.
Swami, the benefits of bracing are at the source, and once you have optimized positioning to a couple of locations even having spikes is not that much of a problem. The improvements in bass dynamics and image specificity are major, not minor. These will carry to any position you choose. The vast majority of the improvements is unrelated to the spikes so neutralizing them with rounded feet or cups/discs to facilitate easy movement will allow as much repositioning as you might want to do. Mye stands do it very conveniently and well.
I don't subscribe to the backtilt and it is not beneficial in a Limage setup, where straight 90 deg is best. The backtilt is something PG introduced into the maggies he mods and was done by Apogee and in the old SMG. It moves the soundstage height to make it sound more like box speakers. Where there is either a tall ceiling or absorptive floor and ceiling (rugs and acoustic tiles) there is more room for experimenting with tilt. Generally I set up for plumb every time I move the speakers.
Thanks Audiophilander and Satie. This is what I was looking for. Setting the Mye stands up on sliders would work great.
Like you, I prefer perfectly upright. I do question the comment that the leaning back in the new models is intended. I assume it is NOT because the amount of leaning isn't even consistent between my two speakers. Perhaps the new revised round bases will improve matters. I didn't notice any lean back at the AXPONA demo with the new stands.
Without Mye stands I have adjusted vertical dimension by using quarters (under the rear of the feet) and/or by reversing the feet.
I've got money saved up, maybe I should give Grant a call...
The slight tilt on my Maggie stock feet looked the same side by side, but I didn't make any precise measurements as to the degree of tilt beyond eyeballing the results. The set screws and washers on the stock feet were tightened to similar tolerance, so perhaps tightening the screws makes a difference in respect to degree of tilt on stock feet. I'm still persuaded that the subtle back-tilt on recent upper end models may be intentional, but I have no evidence to support that theory and Magnepan is pretty cagey about sharing R&D design changes.Additional Note: The Mye stands started at a 90 degree perpendicular. Using bubble levels while raising or lowering the threaded feet can incrementally adjust the tilt forward or backward with precision.
Cheers,
AuPh
Edits: 06/05/15
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