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In Reply to: Maggies edge on posted by ahendler on September 27, 2011 at 19:02:07:
Good info......but you set is better..
Magnepan MG1.6QR Speaker – James Tanner, Bryston:
Hi All
Below are my comments on the Magnepan MG-1.6QR loudspeakers in one of my demo rooms. There is a preamble I gave (room acoustics, my history and bias’s) with my review on the MG3.6’s and Thiel 3.7’s earlier this year which you can refer to if you wish.
Thoughts on the Magnepan MG-1.6QR speakers:
I have 3 different soundrooms but eventually chose the smallest of my rooms for final auditions. The room is (16x12x8)The speakers are on the LONG wall and are 2.5 feet from the front wall – angled in at about 30 degrees – tweeters on the outside. They are 2.5 feet from the side wall and 9 feet apart center to center. I am sitting about 9 feet back. As I stated in my earlier posting the speaker/room interface has to be considered in totality when evaluating a specific speaker in a specific room and the Magneplanar 1.6QR is a very good example of why that is. The speaker is a Dipole so the radiation pattern looks like a figure ‘8’ pointing at the listener. As a result there is NOT a lot of reflected sound energy bouncing back from the ceiling, floor and side walls. The energy is concentrated to the front and rear of the speaker. With tons of reflected, though delayed, energy from the back wall.
The technical aspects of the speaker I will pass on as they are readily available in full at http://www.magnepan.com/model_MG_16
To start with I would also like to put to rest some myths about dipole panel type speakers:
They are hard to place --- Wrong!
In fact, given the dispersion characteristics, as detailed above, the only concern you have with a panel dipole is the reflective nature of the front wall behind the speakers. Typical monopole (point source) speakers radiate energy in an omni-directional pattern at certain frequencies and a highly directional pattern at other frequencies so the reflective characteristics and the standing wave patterns of the listening room dimensions play a very large part in the final outcome of sound quality. In fact, I would say getting the room speaker interface correct is going to do more to providing you with state of the art sound than any other aspect of your sound system. Expensive speakers placed incorrectly can sound much worse than medium priced speakers placed accurately.
So the advantage of a dipole panel is that the wave launch from the speaker is such that the floor and ceiling and sidewall reflections and room nodes are acoustically discriminated against. There is no energy in the ‘plane’ of the diaphragm with a dipole panel. What that means is that there are no early reflections coming from the floor, ceiling, or sidewalls. Early reflections produce what is called ‘comb-filtering’ which generates dips and peaks in the in-room frequency response. So contrary to popular belief the dipole is actually much easier to place than a more conventional omni or point source speaker. All you have to deal with is the front wall reflective issue. Many people have to use their basements or spare rooms for their audio/video systems and typically these rooms leave a lot to be desired acoustically. Well, take a dipole and place it properly and that lousy sound room can come to life- reason --- the dimensions and surfaces of the crappy basement room are much less instrumental in affecting the overall sound quality.
You need a big room for panel dipoles----Wrong!
Obviously the size of the speaker has an effect on the room size required (MG20.1 for example) but the MG1.6 is not exactly a small speaker physically. So on first look it would seem a larger room would be a necessary requirement. I tried the MG1.6’s in my three different soundrooms and they definitely provided the best sound in my smallest room (16x12) So don’t be afraid to experiment with medium sized panels in smaller rooms. It is true that larger diaphragms and multi-driver loudspeakers take some distance to integrate properly but usually if your back a few meters all will be well.
MG1.6QR Listening:
Let me say straight out that this is a great speaker to audition if you want to move from ‘OK Mid-Fi’ sound to ‘excellent High-End’ sound at an affordable price. In my small room and placed on the long wall it was one of those magical moments when the speaker just works. The soundstage was huge and the tonal balance was superb. The speakers literally disappeared in the room and other listeners I had over for a test-listen asked. ‘Where the hells the sub hidden?’ I measured the speaker using my ETF system (the one we use in setting up recording studios) and I was getting 35Hz at about 2dB down. That’s pretty good for a dipole this size, but remember that most of the bass integration and capability is very placement sensitive (for both the speaker and the listener). If you want to ring out the last little bit of performance from these speakers please experiment with placement and listening position – believe me it will be worth the effort.
One point I would like to make here is that over the many years I have been a prisoner of this great hobby I have literally measured hundreds of speakers using the state-of-the-art measuring apparatus of the time. Everytime I measure a Magnepan speaker from the early days of Tympani IV’s to the tiny SMG’s they always measure superbly. The Magneplanars are, always have been and continue to be an extremely well engineered product which is not always the case with many of the more exotic and expensive speakers out there. Anyway – I digress….
The integration I refer to above is an important point. Think of a dipole panel (or any speaker for that manner) in a room like a pair of headphones on your head. What you’re attempting to do is to place the panel in the room so that it “COUPLES ACOUSTICALLY”. By couple acoustically I mean the speaker is interfaced into the room in such a way that it makes the room and speaker behave as one. The speakers acoustically disappear in the room and allow you to hear only the recording itself. Using the headphone analogy --- put on a pair of headphones and while listening pull the headphones away from your ears about 2 inches on both sides of your head. Sounds terrible – right? The reason is that you have ‘decoupled’ the headphones from your head/ears and the result is not very accurate acoustically (no bass or definition, etc.) to say the least. The same thing happens with a speaker in a room. If you can find that physical location in the room where the speaker ‘couples acoustically’ you will be rewarded with a fullrange and tonally accurate balance throughout the entire listening space.
By the way, a neat way to check and see if you have this coupling is correct is to go outside the room and listen from down the hall. If everything still sounds well balanced and coherent you’ve got it right! In fact one trick we used at audio shows years ago (please don’t laugh – a smile is OK) was to take a long cord and a pair of quality headphones and go outside the demo room and listen in the hallway with the headphones off – then on – then off etc. The closer you got to the headphones sounding like the speakers in the room the closer you were to finding the magic spot in the room where the speaker coupled acoustically.
The MG1.6QR speaker is of medium efficiency (86 dB) so you should use a stable reasonably powered amplifier to drive them. The good thing about the Maggie’s though is that although the impedance drops fairly low the speaker is a very ‘resistive’ (4 ohm) load over most of the frequency range. Speakers like electrostatics (Quads), on the other hand, may have low impedance loads but they are also very ‘reactive’ loads. They tend to behave like a capacitor and store energy which can play havoc with some amplifier output stages. So you don’t need exotic amplifiers to adequately drive the MG1.6QR’s. In my small soundroom I was using the Bryston 4B SST (300watt @ 8 ohms) with great success. In a bigger room more horsepower may be required.
Sonically I have to say this speaker, within its dynamic capabilities, is absolutely blowing me away. Everything is just so coherent as if everything is coming at you in the same time and space. Maybe it’s the simple 2 driver Mylar membrane crossed over at 600Hz but whatever it is it’s a strong argument for simpler is better sometimes. The soundstage is spacious and the instruments are very well positioned. It does not have the bloated image size of some of the larger panels out there so the point source crowd will not be too alienated with this Maggie. The midrange – especially voices – have a ‘you are there’ affect that I have truly only heard on the best systems out there.
The only area where I feel the MG1.6QR fails a little is unless you mate it with a good amplifier you may at times feel it sounds a little ‘plastically’. It seems like you are hearing the diaphragm material (Mylar) sometimes. It sounds a little zingy. One of the listeners I had over comment when using her own Class D amp that “anyone who likes ribbons will love these”. What she meant by that is that ribbon drivers have that ability to sound incredibly detailed but sometimes have a ‘ringing’ quality to them.
The other positive quality I found was the MG1.6QR’s ability to delineate very soft micro sounds. Small, and almost imperceptible sounds seem to materialize in space with much more definition than I am use to hearing. Not in the sense that they are calling attention to themselves but more in the sense that the sound was being hidden by other speakers I have used. I worry sometimes that this might be a diaphragm resonance which is exaggerating that particular frequency range but I don’t think so because it varies from recording to recording.
Also don’t be afraid to try some big amplifiers on these beauties. I tried a pair of our 28B SST Mono amplifiers (1000 watts) in my big room (23x16x8) and I have to say it was a match made in heaven. At a recent audio show Magnepan had a 3 channel STEREO system set up using three 7B’s and the result was just superb. So if you get a chance to hear a 3-channel STEREO setup as done by Magnepan at some of their demos run do not walk to hear this demo. The ability to hold the center image in place is scary. You can almost sit anywhere in the room and the damn vocalist is locked in the center ----really good!
Many people chose large traditional multi-driver dynamic speakers because the sound very dynamic, move a lot of air and provide a visceral impact to the listener at the expense of inner details and subtle rendering of micro dynamics. Others chose small point source nearfields because they provide a pinpoint image and expansive soundstage at the expense of limited output and no real low frequency capability. Others opt for electrostatic thin membrane planar type loudspeakers because they provide that last bit of detail and resolution in the sound but are restricted to a limited loudness and dynamic level. I think the Magnepan type of design (a planar dynamic) is a terrific compromise between these other types of loudspeakers. Here you have a planar dipole that gives you much of the speed and resolution of the best electrostatics but provides excellent dynamics as well.
One last point to be aware of is that the Mylar membrane used in all the Magneplanar’s are 'stretched' under incredible tension when the speaker is manufactured. It takes about 6 months for this stretch to 'relax' and as it does the lower end of each driver’s frequency response improves. With that relaxation comes an improvement in transient attack and integration. So the moral of this story is to not be too quick to judge the speaker in the first few months of use as things will change for the better as it matures.
So, all in all, I find the MG1.6QR speakers superb in a number of areas:
• Their ability to disappear and provide a huge soundstage with well- defined focused images floating in space is excellent.
• Their ability to respond to transient information is a major benefit in providing inner details and a ‘you are there’ presentation.
• Their ability to sound incredibly coherent and integrated, as if everything is happening in the same time and space.
• The ability to use them in smaller rooms.
So I am a bit surprised at how well these MG1.6’s performed. I mean these speakers were designed a number of years ago and in the past I really had not considered them – being into the bigger MG3.6 and MG20’s etc
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Follow Ups
- RE: Maggies edge on - tyu 11:53:14 10/06/11 (0)
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