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Newport Planar & Dipole News 1

Posted by josh358 (P) on June 6, 2016 at 15:35:09

[EDIT -- Since I wrote this, I've learned that I managed to miss two planar rooms -- Roger Sanders' and Roger Modjeski's.]

There were only two full range planar manufacturers exhibiting, Analysis and Magnepan: King Sound had a room, but only to show their eletrostatic headphones (which sounded nice, but I can't say more than that since they were playing pop recordings that didn't tell me very much). However, there was an interesting planar midrange driver and a number of point source dynamic dipoles, so I think I'll cover those as well.

I went from bottom to top, so the first planar room was Magenpan's on the second floor. Here I am with Wendell (center) and his lovely wife Galina, who was doing the ticketing for the show:

Magnepan is doing something unconventional this year -- showing a system that he doesn't expect to sell. The idea is for dealers to do something fun and interesting that will bring customers into their stores -- in this case, to demonstrate the potential of three-channel audio at its best, using the new Bryston-Magnepan processor, a five-channel box that has been tuned to work optimally with three full-range Maggies. Wendell has tried the system with speakers as large as the 20.7's, but for purposes of the demonstration, he used three MMG's (apologies for the exposure, but the front of the room was intentionally darkened so I had to use the flash on my phone):

Bottom line: the improvement in imaging is spectacular. We're used to thinking of three channel as improving the off-axis imaging -- useful in a theater, but not so much for a single listener. Magnepan's solution does have the usual three channel improvement in off-axis imaging, but its main purpose is to create a holographic image for the listener in the sweet spot. I tried moving my head around and found that the effect did suffer if I moved it too far out of the central listening position. but location wasn't tweaky, in the sense that I had to make a conscious effort and move my head unnaturally far off axis to do that. So I'd say it's suited to comfortable single-person listening.

I found that the image takes on a solidity and palpability that one just doesn't hear from the phantom image of a two-channel system, which is always slightly ethereal. And it has it without the compromises that are inevitably present when smaller or suboptimally-placed speakers are used for the center, as in the typical home theater setup. At its best, the sound was spectacularly holographic, as in reach out and touch it solid. At its less than best, I could hear the image becoming slightly phantomy in the region between the center and sides -- but still much less so than in a two-channel setup.

The sound also had the tonal rightness of three chennel -- interference between the left and right speakers creates in a two channel setup a peak and dip of several dB in the midrange region.

The MMGs were also punching way above their class, filling a big room with orchestral music with very little compression. But of course, there were three of them.

As I said, Magnepan doesn't expect to sell the system to consumers -- at $9000 for the processor, it's a demonstration tool for dealers. However, it will be available as a special order item for people who want it, and Wendell told me that a customer wno heard it had already ordered one for his 20.7's. He also said that, unfortunately, other processors don't perform the magic of the Bryston.

More later, plane is landing and I'm afraid that if I don't post this now it will be eaten . . .

EDIT -- Rather than making new threads I've continued this in some subthreads below.

Edits: 06/07/16 06/09/16

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Kimber Kable

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