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In Reply to: Maggie 20.1 or SoundLab A2/M3 for small room? posted by ssamer on November 8, 2006 at 08:14:52:
Like Brian, I peddle SoundLabs - so you are invited to take what I say with as many grains of salt as you wish.The largest Maggies I've owned are 3.6's, and I think they'd work fine in your room assuming you can place them pretty much however you want.
I hesitate to post here an unsolicited comparision of the two, but you can shoot me an e-mail if you'd like. Or, you can ask me questions here and I'll answer them.
On image size, apparently some people hear overblown image size on line source speakers and some don't. If the Maggie 1.6's and Martin Logans sounded okay to you in this respect, I think the bigger Maggies and SoundLabs will also. I would suggest that you make sure you have the speakers both at the exact same vertical angle (usually straight up and down), as if one is tipped forward or backward a bit more than the other that can screw up the imaging. It is possible that those who hear six foot tall lips are hearing line source speakers that are tilted back a little bit so that all of the sound along the height of the line is reaching the ears at the same instant.
Now with tall line source speakers you will notice a strange phenomenon: The image height will seem to be at your ear height! You can sit on the floor or stand up - in either case, the image seems to come from ear height (or maybe a little bit above ear height). This is because your ears are judging the vertical height by the first-arrival sound, and the first sound from the line source to reach your ears is that which originates at ear height. It's simple geometry.
As suggested above, it is possible that the image height can seem to come from slightly above ear height, particularly with music that has a lot of high frequency information. This is because the ear has a tendency to mis-judge the vertical location of a high frequency sound source as higher up than it really is. This phenomenon has been observed and documented numerous times by researchers. My recollection is that this tendency varies somewhat from one individual to another, so it's not guaranteed that you'll hear it.
By the way, your characterization of the Maggies and Martin Logans above matches my experience. The things the SoundLabs do well are along the same path as the things the Martin Logans do well, but (in my opionion) the SoundLabs are a bit further along down that path. The relative bass balanc of a hybrid like the Martin Logans can vary significantly from room to room and even within a room because the line source panel propagates differently from the point source woofer. With a fullrange dipole, there are no such propagation discrepancies.
One minor detail: The SoundLab A-3 and M-2 are the same (medium) size; the M-3 is their smallest fullrange electrostat.
Like Brian, I know of people who have been quite happy with larger SoundLabs in smaller rooms.
The good news is, between the big Maggies and SoundLabs, I don't think there really is a "wrong" choice. One may better suit your priorities or setup or listening style than the other, but I doubt you'd be unhappy with either one.
Best of luck to you,
Duke
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- Re: Maggie 20.1 or SoundLab A2/M3 for small room? - Duke 12:41:22 11/08/06 (0)
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