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All of it. MaggieLover's post below summarizes the issues.

Posted by Al Sekela (A) on December 9, 2006 at 11:03:26

In Reply to: Thanks for the advise. Do you feel the 3.6 is a better option? posted by maxzimum on December 8, 2006 at 20:50:48:

I will only add that you should at least try the Cardas positions for your speakers, as an experiment. George Cardas' design philosophy is to use the Golden Ratio (do a Google search, or see for example

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/GoldenRatio.html

for a complete discussion) as a way of distributing resonance modes to minimize their overlaps. His formulas for speaker placement have to do with minimizing the overlaps of the resonance modes that result from proximity of the bass driver to the various reflecting surfaces in the room. They work wonderfully well in my rectangular room with an opening to the side of one speaker similar to yours.

Be sure to listen to a number of well-recorded acoustic bass instruments.

This experiment will save you a lot of trouble. It will reveal the 'best' (smoothest) bass that your speakers and amps can deliver in your room. That bass may be adequate or not, but MG-3.6s will not deliver such bass if they are not in the identical positions.

If the bass you get in the WAF-friendly normal positions is not much worse than what you get in the Cardas positions, then you will likely enjoy the improved performance you would get with MG-3.6s.

Room treatments to reduce early reflections do not affect the fundamental resonances addressed by placement, but they are necessary in some cases to get good treble balance and sound-stage. The true-ribbon Magnepan tweeter is one of the best available. Its dispersion is greater than the quasi-ribbons, so you may need additional treatments with MG-3.6s. These may also raise WAF issues.

The true-ribbon tweeter reveals problems with electronics, and may contribute to them by acting as a radio antenna. Some amps respond badly to RF noise picked up by the speaker and/or speaker cable. Many users complain of excessive "brightness" with true-ribbon Maggies and try to treat it by adding series resistors to the tweeters. The problem may be one of RF noise and intermodulation distortion (especially if early reflections have been treated), and the resistors only make things dull and colored. There are specific treatments for RF noise, but time does not permit me to review them here.

• Cardas Insights; "Room Setup"   (Open in New Window)

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Kimber Kable

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