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Discussion with Wendell

Posted by neolith (A) on August 27, 2015 at 10:17:53

I called Wendell to verify that the mid driver indeed was 8 ohms (it is). We had a really nice discussion about the 3.7 and biamping. First, Wendell said that he has "dropped in" on the forum and he was pleased at how well the inmates have been behaving - very civil and friendly with no of the tensions and arguments that were present a few years ago. He does not have time to actively participate in the forum but does peek in periodically to see what concerns and ideas members have.
Next, Wendell said that originally they tried a parallel crossover for the 3.7 and found that the series worked better but that they had to modify the drivers to get things to sound right. He was aware that some long time Magnepan customers might like to use an active bi-amp setup but the goal was a better speaker not necessarily one that is easily modded (makes great sense). In view of the difficulty the 8 ohm mid driver creates for a parallel crossover and the fact that the drivers were modified to work with a series crossover, I may give up on my plan to biamp. Time will tell.
Another thing he mentioned was that the speakers sound better with tweeters further from the ears and that putting the tweeters on the inside means that they almost invariably end up closer. I ended up with my tweets outside so I guess this is correct :). If the tweeters are inboard, try angling them in more.
Finally, he said that the acoustic response should not be perfectly flat but should slowly drop about 1 db per octave over 500 hz. Magnepan found that if the curve was flat, the speakers seemed off balance. I looked at my response curves (using REW 5.0) and indeed the output slopes downward about 5 db from 500 hz to 20 kHz.
Wendell stated the biggest impediment to sales of the 3.7's is their size and WAF (no surprise). We also commiserated about why our wives have no difficultly listening to loud live music but object to the same degree of loudness when listening at home.

"Our head is round in order to allow our thoughts to change direction." Francis Picabia

Edits: 08/27/15

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