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In Reply to: RE: An observation posted by Green Lantern on May 03, 2017 at 03:05:56
Green Lantern,You are absolutely correct. I will move the chair with its back to the glass slider for serious listening, so what I am working on is a "best fit" for casual listening with the chair in the corner.
I tried the long wall approach, which put the speakers 6 feet away from the chair. This presented several problems. First, the speakers felt physically intrusive being that close. Second, it potentially exposed the speakers to the morning direct sun that comes through that slider. While the blinds can be closed, it makes the room dark and spoils the morning sun effect in the room. Such are the trials of living in your sound room.
The doorway to the master bedroom is 70" from the glass slider. I have positioned the MMGs in the limage (am I spelling that right?) layout (speakers 9' from the slider and 10" from the side walls) when I had the audio cabinet and the TV back to back in the middle of the room as a sort of room divider. The sound was good, but the speakers were an obvious source of sound. I will try that arrangement again if I can figure out what to do with the loveseat. It seems like leaving it where it is would have the right channel firing directly into the side of it.
My current consideration, given the room, is whether used 3.3Rs or used 1.6 QRs (both $700 - $800) might be better suited to the room. That might allow me to sell my MMGs and upgrade my amp. Alternatively, I could acquire the 1.7is for $2000 less the value of the MMGs but then I will have to stick with the Adcom. It has also been suggested that I have the MMGs (or 1.6s) "gunned". That, too, would require sticking with the Adcom.
Your thoughts on these alternatives would be welcomed
Edits: 05/03/17Follow Ups:
'Jesus H Christ', it all boils down to personal preferences AND trial and error. How much of a fuss can be made over this simple situation?
Good background info.Now regarding the 1.6 vs 3.3 I was in the exact same boat as you back in 2002. I ended up going with a brand new pair of 1.6's since I didn't want to deal with delam potentially occurring with (even back then) older 3.3s and/or having a under powered amp to push them.
If your interested in the 'Maggie sound' in that part of the room you may consider a secondary system with Mini Maggies which would fit right in that corner by the window.
Edits: 05/03/17
Any 3.x model is a better speaker but for the seamless coherence of the all wire maggies. For most people it is not as important as the great ability of the ribbon tweeter to give you detail and extension far out beyond most people's hearing..
If you do get an older 3.x that has not yet been refurbished (same for the 1.6) then consider starting to save towards a rebuild of at least one panel within a few years. Unless you can DIY a delam repair..
It is an advantage of the 3.x series, till the current 3.7 that they can be biamped. If you want to you can keep your Adcom for biamping and use it on the bass panels and get a nicer amp for the top end. A good high current 100 watt amp should do fine. The older Theta Lexicon and Proceed multichannel class AB amps are remarkable for biamping. The Theta Dreadnought is a legend. Another favorite choice for the top end is the Classe DR9 or model 10.
When using the stock crossovers, or stock xo points, Magnepan recommends amps of equal power when biamping the 3 series. At least they do for my MGIII's.
Regards,
Steve
I have looked at that but I think the current demands for bass can only be met when you have a higher power rating than that of the top end amp. The ratio would be at least double. If you were doing deep bass with a subwoofer then I would agree. While the energy content in the signal might split evenly over time at a midline of 3-400 Hz, the peak momentary energy draws on your amp in most music are in the midbass and deep bass. Choral music is the exception where peak sustained power is in the midrange.
In short, statistics are not physics.
I believe aggressively hit (hard!) acoustic piano notes require a lot of power too. "Shattered" piano notes, from mis-tracking cartridges, power amps clipping, and even recording microphone capsules being overloaded, are not unheard of.
Well, pianos can do real forte. I can say that one of the things I got from swapping the mids for a line of Neo8 was the jump factor from well recorded piano transient. Particularly with amps having ample transient peak power. One of my favorites on the mids is the modified NuForce Ref. 8 as it has only a 100W rating but can swing 600W for a few milisec. Which is what the piano calls for. Despite the low 90s db sensitivity of the line array, about 6db and change more than the maggie original I did run the little switching amp hot, But the 60W mod. Dyna III do just fine.
Before that the piano did not come off right. it was rather obviously compressed on loud transients. But then I only expect a piano come through with full power on large horn systems like the laScala or Altec VOT models. Despite their steep price tag I was surprised to hear how close to that the Focal Nova Utopia managed to get.
Yeah Satie, piano is one of the hardest instruments for a system to make sound real, their transient nature one major reason. The same is true for drums, and for the same reason. One of the most startling things about Direct-To-Disc LP's is their transient response---it makes percussive instruments like piano and drums sound much more alive than does a recording made on a tape machine. Digital I won't even mention!
Yes, I wish direct to disc was cheaper, but it just produces limited runs. So any sought after recording would never be cheap.
Based on my experience biamping with a pair of 200W amps using the crossover settings recommended by Magnepan, I would say a 100W amp for the mid/highs is too low. And I don't listen at a high sound level.
Regards,
Steve
Well, there are 100W amps that are spec'd above what they can deliver, and then there are those that deliver more.
A high current design spec'd at 100W, e.g. Classe DR9 will output 200W into 4 ohms and have better than 3db dynamic headroom. That is what I had in mind.
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