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In Reply to: RE: Placement of Tympani's for HT posted by RPM-MACHINE on June 23, 2015 at 02:38:15
That is a difficult task. First, congratulations to some nice speakers! The ID and the IIIB are similar, I think the only difference is that the IIIB have dedicated midrange drivers. Tweeters and basses are identical, aren't they?
You will get maximum bass with the basses towards the side walls. I am not a HT person myself but if you want ot use a center speaker, the Tympanis will be difficult, strange loobing, especially from the ID where all drivers have directional information. I dislike the vague imaging of the ID, IIIB is slightly better but far from being up to recent standards of Magnepan speakers. The tweeters and midrange drivers need to sit much closer to each other in order to give a sharper fokus of the soundstage. If you have two ID as center speakers, you will get a blurred sound out of them. I know, some peoble like that diffuse and big sound but it will be more difficult to follow the voices from the center channel. The "wide mouth" effect will be quite pronounced (often noted as the problem with older Tympanis).
I see that your room is large. That is good as the Tympanis need space behind them, at least 3 feet. To me, it would be a waste to use the ID as center speakers. You should use them for bass duties (together with the IIIB basses), that is what they do well. The tweeter and midsections of the would be okey if angled towards the listen seats, not facing straight ahead. If you need a center speaker, maybe one of the recent Magnepan center speakers below the screen (but Magnepan centers speakers are not very sturdy). There will be two tweeters left over from the ID, you can sell them to me... (mine are out of order).
Follow Ups:
Thank You Roger! This is very helpful. This is now my 8th set of Maggies and I loved the MGIIB's that I had. The Tympani's create a massive sound stage but I get what you are saying with the panels being spread across too wide with regard to mid and tweeter.
The IIIb's and 1d now have the same push pull tweeters and I am assuming that the midrange panels are similar. I am contemplating the idea to gut them up to create identical LCR's that would bring the tweeters closer to mids and combining the bass panels. How would you do it to create LOCR speakers using either of the existing crossovers?
BTW, I am in South Africa, so selling them to you would be crazy in shipping :-)
regards
Reenesh
Hi Reenesh,
For the information, there are no midrange drivers in the ID. There are a tweeter and two bass drivers, both operating up to 1.1 kHz. One of the bass drivers, a low bass driver without tuning buttons, the other with tuning buttons and a dividing strip is differently tuned. The IIIB has a "real" midrange driver. I have "slaughtered" a pair of Tympani tweeters. Originally they are 8 inch wide, can easily be cut down to 100 mm. I placed them right next the midrange drivers of my IIIA. Really bettered the imaging! Still, they are certainly not top notch. Took them apart and wanted to reuse their magnets in a different shaped tweeter, longer and narrower. Thinner Mylar and foil conductors too. Never had the time to finish that project... Still have the IIIA in storage in my garage.
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