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Planar Speaker Asylum Welcome! Need support, you got it. Or share your ideas and experiences. |
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In Reply to: RE: Yet another problem room.. posted by deilenberger on March 4, 2012 at 16:12:20:
People do the mods because Maggies are amenable to them, not because they don't sound good out of the box. I think you'll find that the general consensus, both among audiophiles and reviewers, is that Maggies punch way beyond their selling price. And this has been achieved by making the changes that have the most bang for the buck, as vouched for by blind listening panels. It's as much about what they choose not to do as it is about what they do.
Take my own favorite mod -- lifting up the MMG so it's vertical, and off the floor. It makes the speaker much better, yes, but basic physics also means that if you do that, bass output is reduced, meaning that you need a sub. So while this mod is useful and many of us have done it, it isn't something that Magnepan is likely to incorporatein a retail version. If they make a model that's vertical, it has to be taller to maintain bass response, and that means it has to sell for more.
Or take the fuse bypass mod. Sure, bypassing fuses can improve the sound in any speaker -- fuses are by their nature extremely non-linear when current is high. But then, the speaker is running without protection. Not something you can do in a commercial speaker.
Heavier or exotic wood frames? They makie a difference, but again, it's a question of price/performance: for the cost of these frames, Magenpan has concluded that they can do more sonically by doing other things instead -- more woofer area, true ribbon tweeter, three-way crossover, etc.
You can rebuild the crossovers if you like with better caps, but the .7's already have improved caps. Davey has measured PG's series crossover and found that when combined with the acoustic response of the drivers it introduced a significant midrange boost. So keep in mind that not all improvements are uncontroversial. (And that Magnepan knows how to design crossovers.)
As far as I know, all manufacturers of large planars have chosen to glue the foil rather than use an evaporative or etched coating. It's just more economical that way. Small planar drivers are generally sputtered or etched. There are good reasons for that: they need fine traces, the necessary process equipment is economical, and they require higher currents, which generate more heat and make it difficult to find a suitable adhesive. There's a white paper on the Bohlender-Graebner site that goes into the economics of planar manufacturing. If it were more economical to use a different process, I've no doubt that Magnepan would.
My feeling on this is that you should use your ears rather than analyzing it. If a speaker sounds better than the other speakers in its price range, and it fits your needs, that's the one you should go for. And that, in my view and that of many others, is the department in which Magnepan excels.
Anyone can use silver wire and 750 pound cabinets made out of machined aluminum and rosewood. Some very fine speakers are made that way. But unless you're in the quarter-million dollar range, compromises have to be made, and choosing the right tradeoffs is, arguably, more difficult than saying "Hey, diamond looks like a good cone material, let's use it" -- and more ethical than doing what some manufacturers admit they do, and putting in fancy components that do nothing for the sound because audiophiles expect them.
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- RE: Yet another problem room.. - josh358 17:24:36 03/04/12 (0)
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