Perception of Maggie Bass response

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Posted by Socrates on June 2, 2000 at 20:33:42

Without me trying to reitterate the well known qualities of unbaffled Planar dynamic drivers, I wanted to pose a question about a bass preception quality, which in my experience is unique to Magnepan speakers. The bass always sounds "unconvincing" to my ears. Although the bass is clearly audible and seems more or less balanced to same SPL level of the rest of the frequency spectrum, there is no "Impact" or "percussive" feel to the bass. While the bass extension naturally improves as the size of the panels increases, this peculiar quality of audible bass which is lacking in percussive feel is consistent from the MMGs through the MG 20s.
The obvious expalnation is that the phase cancellation of the open baffle design just dramatically reduces level and extension of the bass but I think this explanation is mistaken. Using a tone generator and my SPL meter, I get bass frequency responses on the various maggies which are in line with what Magnepan publishes for the frequency response of the various units, yet using conventional baffled cone drivers at the same 50 hz test tone, I get an entirely different bass feel--so the difference is not do to a simple difference in Sound Pressure level. As truely wonderful as any of the Maggies are in creating the illusion of "being there" when listening to accoustic music instaments, I think its this very quality of bass without feel and impact which makes the maggies so uninvolving with Rock music.

Anybody who is familiar with comparing Magnepan speakers with conventional box speaker will be familiar with the bass characteristic I am referring to. Do any of you have some thoughts on the source for this difference in bass qualities?

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Topic - Perception of Maggie Bass response - Socrates 20:33:42 06/02/00 (20)

Re: Perception of Maggie Bass response - JMCIII 04:14:13 06/03/00 (0)

Re: Perception of Maggie Bass response - kevin 04:04:04 06/03/00 (0)

Re: Perception of Maggie Bass response - DrM 22:24:36 06/02/00 (5)

Re: Perception of Maggie Bass response - Dr.M 11:15:36 06/03/00 (1)

Re: Perception of Maggie Bass response - DrM 17:57:47 06/04/00 (0)

Re: Why is that? - Travis 08:58:01 06/03/00 (2)

Re: Why is that? - DrM 09:46:58 06/03/00 (1)

Re: Why is that? - Travis 14:54:31 06/03/00 (0)

Re: Perception of Maggie Bass response - martin 21:56:23 06/02/00 (11)

Perception of Maggie Bass response part II - Socrates 09:22:20 06/03/00 (10)

Re: maybe the movies here will give you some ideas: - Pam 22:53:26 06/04/00 (0)

Re: Perception of Maggie Bass response part II - kevin 11:14:54 06/03/00 (8)

Listening to distortion - BobH 15:02:10 06/08/00 (0)

Re: Perception of Maggie Bass response part II - Socrates 11:43:00 06/03/00 (6)

Re: Perception of Maggie Bass response part II - BFitz 06:05:55 06/07/00 (1)

Re: Perception of Maggie Bass response part II - Dave 21:41:14 06/13/00 (0)

Re: Perception of Maggie Bass response part II - kevin 13:35:38 06/03/00 (1)

Re: Perception of Maggie Bass response part II - Socrates 16:13:35 06/04/00 (0)

Re: Perception of Maggie Bass response part II - DrM 13:28:04 06/03/00 (1)

Re: Perception of Maggie Bass response part II - Socrates 16:40:29 06/04/00 (0)

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