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In Reply to: RE: Magnepan 1.7 or 3.6 -small room! posted by FX35 on August 05, 2021 at 08:13:28
Thanks, that was really helpful! The room has wooden floor and stone walls and ceiling. It is closed and not dedicated for listening. Unfortunately speakers can only be positioned on the long side, slightly asymmetrical. The room has a natural good sounding acoustics with other speakers I've had, including Elac FS409 which despite the two 18cm woofer did not produce invasive bass at all, rather very controlled bass.
The thing is I will be changing of place in about 6 months but I don't know we're exactly, but so can assume listening room will be as big as this one or slightly larger but not by much, and most likely it will not be a dedicated room.
Definitely realistic soundstage is more important to me than clean bass. Given your feedback I would tend to go for the 3.6, but the visual impact of such a large speaker in a small non dedicated room has to be considered as well.
Follow Ups:
Ok, that clears things up a bit, it doesn't really matter what room you end up with, for optimum depth + 3 dimensionality you need room behind the speakers, you also don't want to be sitting close to a wall, to avoid room reflections.
My experience is that most small to modest sized European rooms benefit most from the 1/3, 2/3 distance set-up( say the room is 15ft long, place speakers 5ft from front wall, listening position 5ft from back wall, leaving 5ft in between) This provides maximum cancelation of room influence and a nice deep soundstage. Funny that Norman M referred to a "near field" set-up, I totally agree, it's the only way to go in small rooms. I've always preferred the intimate, detailed, uncolored sound of a near field set-up as compared to sitting further away in a larger room.
I know a set-up like this is hard to realize in a small family living room, the best solution is to leave the Maggies close to a wall and slide them out and in for serious listening, and if you can't leave your sofa/chair in place then move that out and in too.
It may seem like a lot of hassle, but if positioning is not optimal, forget it, it's just a waste of time and money.
Oh yeah, if your worried about the dominating presence of 3.6s, get the off-white cloth, up against a white wall you won't even notice them.
Thank you very much for your advices. Unfortunately the 3.6s I'm hunting come with the dark cloth, but I guess it could be changed if needed.
At this point given all the feedback received I will just listen to them and if I'm convinced will get them without worrying too much about my room.
By the way, I'm also considering as an alternative the Tuscanini Augetta, a planar speaker from a small Italian company based in Tuscany. They have the same technology as the Magnepan, just with better materials, neodymium magnets, two separate mylar membranes for mid-bass and mid-highs and better crossover components. No ribbon tweeter by designer choice.
I had a chance to listen to the smaller Idillia (as big as the Magnepan 0.7) and they were impressive in the bass, they went lower than my ELAC FS409 and were extremely dynamic, nothing Magnepan can compete with. Looking forward to listen to the bigger brothers.
Yep, the Tuscanini's are a serious alternative for you living in Italy, (repairs, parts, etc). Prices are comparative to Maggies in Europe.
If you consider the craftsmanship, materials and quality of finish, It's a no brainer, Maggies look like crap compared to these guy's........... unfortunately, I have never actually HEARD them, so I have no idea how they compare to Maggie's sound wise.
I always wanted to hear them, just never got round to making the road trip. Outside of Italy, hardly anybody knows of their existence.
Funny story......The designer actually only decided to build isodynamic speakers after he had repaired and listened to a set of Tympani 1D's, he had never heard of them and was blown away by their sound!
That's great that you know about them, are you Italian?
I have only heard the smallest ones, the Idillia, in a non-optimal setup. I can say the bass is impressive, they are extremely musical and make you enjoy music without even worrying at any audiophile stuff, which I consider a great quality in a speaker. Compared to the only Magnepans I heard (2.6 and a heavily modified/upgraded pair of 3.3) I missed a little bit of clarity and detail in the upper registers, but it's hard to say if it was the equipment/setup or not. I will be in Tuscany later this month to properly hear both the Idillia and the Augetta, and will be able to get a more precise idea about them.
Well, no, I'm not Italian LOL, but I wish I lived in Italy! been on a few holidays there........ love the food, coffee, weather, shops, designers, cars, women.........(you get the idea).
I live in The Netherlands(a major shit-hole), 9 out of 10 people here go to Tuscany when they visit Italy.
Have fun auditioning Tuscanini's, let me know how they sound, Might have to take that road trip someday!
You might want to consider 'near field' listening, where room size is not very important. That Mr. Cardas brings it up is strong recommendation in of itself: http://www.cardas.com/room_setup_near_field.php
(However it could be a problem in a room which serves for other purposes.)
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