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Much like the mysterious monoliths in 2001:A Space Odyssey, the Magneplanar MMG is an enigma. On one hand you have people raving about the sonic performance of the speaker for such a small price tag. On the other, you have cone-speaker die hards ridiculing the lack of bass, small sweet spot, fastidious room placement and power hungry inefficiency.

The aforementioned sonic performance kudos are, IMO, well-deserved for the price tag. The brutal clarity these speakers possess is a common characteristic of planar speakers. However, getting planar transparency at this price tag is uncharacteristic.

The finickyness of placement and room conditions is the major sonic achille's heal of this speaker. Placed incorrectly and w/o damping the rear sound output (the speaker is dipolar), you will wonder why magnepan charges so much for this speaker. After careful placement and room treatment, you will think that you got away with highway robbery.

Product Weakness:	Lack of bass, small sweet spot, picky room placement and power hungry inefficiency.
Product Strengths:	Clarity. (i.e. solid imaging, realistic musical instrument presentation, soundstage recreation, spooky vocal replication)

• I hope they don't Stephen 12:35:00 4/16/99 (3)
  In Reply to: REVIEW: Magnepan Magneplanar MMG posted by Tom S. on April 16, 1999 at 12:29:41:

  pay you by the hour!

  > > Time Period/Length of Audition: 1 Year 8 months
  
  

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  • What can I say? Tom S. 12:43:11 4/16/99 (2)
    In Reply to: I hope they don't posted by Stephen on April 16, 1999 at 12:35:00:

    That's how long I've owned them.

    Have fun,
    Tom S.
    
    

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    • Re: What can I say? A BIT MORE ! TAZSMONN 19:06:01 4/16/99 (1)
      In Reply to: What can I say? posted by Tom S. on April 16, 1999 at 12:43:11:

      A set of mmg's and a panel sub woofer all on low powered SE tube amps, the best sound for a couple thousand less then I had expected to pay. Tom I'm in disagreement about the power used ! My measurements do not agree with them being power hungry. .25w on tweeter and 1w peak rms. My amps only put out 4.6 w. they do fine.
      
      

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      • Measurements, taste in music, relativity........ Tom S. 09:40:16 4/17/99 (0)
        In Reply to: Re: What can I say? A BIT MORE ! posted by TAZSMONN on April 16, 1999 at 19:06:01:

        The MMG have a rated sensitivity of 86dB@2.83V/500Hz/1 Meter. Put in another format: 83dB@1Watt. Of course, that is a clinical measurement under controlled test conditions.

        I'll get to the real world application of that figure later. First, let me point out the significance of that figure. The MMG is inefficient when compared to similarly priced cone speakers. You can pick up a decent pair of coned bookshelf speakers (stands included) for $500. Under similar conditions, the cone bookshelf speakers will measure 89db/1Watt (some are more efficient, some are slightly less, 89dB is a safe estimate). Doing the math, it takes 4 times as much electrical power for maggies to acheive a similar spl. The finer points of this hypothetical situation (i.e. sound quality, freq response) can be disputed endlessly but, the fact remains, the maggies are nowhere near as efficient as cone speakers.

        Taste in music and the volume at which music is listed too are factors in this discussion of power usage. If you listen to mostly acoustical music, jazz, classical and other types of music that are not as bass heavy as rock n' roll, pop, rap, and heavy metal, then power usage is not as much of a concern. If you listen to this acoustical music at a low spl (like you would in a small room), then power usage is low; usually using one watt or lower. However, not everyone listens to acoustical music in a small room. Some people listen to classic rock n' roll in a large room. I'm not saying that my room is large but, I regularly went over 4 watts of power usage while listening to music. Also keep in mind that amplifier and, more importantly, speaker distortion increases with power usage. You can rate a speaker to take 150 Watts, but when the MMG has 9% bass distortion @ 80Hz/2.83V/5 Ohm, it can be reasonably deduced that the less power you use to reach a certain spl, the cleaner the sound will be from the speaker. It can also be inferred that more distortion is created when more power is used.

        When I wrote the review, I had to take into consideration that not everyone listens to music in the same manner and in the same room. I had to provide some balance to my bias of how wonderful I think these speakers sound.

        Have fun,
        Tom S.
        
        

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