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Maggie bass 'slam' (or lack thereof)?

209.239.207.122

Posted by Andrew on June 10, 2000 at 00:34:06

Hi all,

I heard my first pair of Magnepans today! Ironically, right before my purchase of the Vandersteen 2CE Sigs. I listened to the 3.6R's hooked up to a serious array of Mark Levinson equipment; I'm not sure what models of Mark Levinson stuff exactly, although the amp was not the monoblocks.

The clarity, imaging, soundstaging, 'disappearing act', etc. were all just as has been said. But so was the lack of bass =P I read the below tree on the subject so addressing some of the points brought up--

I think all the theories about Maggie bass make some sense (less harmonic distortion, dipole vs. point source)--in particular, Pam's mention of the theory about planar/electrostats being "more like a line source than a point source so the radiation pattern would be different and may not follow the inverse square law for intensity as closely as a point source so internal room reflections would have different patterns of interaction, phasing and instantanious pressure at a given sampling point" makes the most sense.

In simpler English, I think Maggies lack the "bump" factor my college buddies introduced me to. I.e., you go to a dance club, and if it's a good one, the room will be "bumping". I've a DJ friend whose main criterion for speakers is if they can get the room "bumping" (he uses Klipsch and Crown). What in the heck is a "bumping" room (and bass slam for that matter)?

I think it has to do with pressurizing a room as a fixed volume. But more than just that--I think it has to do with our body's subjective experience of the pressure waves. If you stand in front of a bass/typani drum, grand piano, or even a good acoustic guitar, you will definitely *feel* the sound waves on your skin and in your organs in addition to hearing the notes.

Unfortunately I wasn't feeling the "bump" with the Maggies. Which reassures me with my Vandersteen purchase. Vandys have much of the time/phase coherence of panel speakers in addition to frequency extension and that bump factor. Of course, they can't image, soundstage, or be as transparent, but to me they're close enough. At my price range I'll trade some transparency for some solid bass, since I need bass/the subjective bump/bone-rattling experience for emotional involvement.

Maybe in the future I'll try a Magnepan coupled to a subwoofer for the "bump". Soundstage recommends the MMG with the ACI Titan?

Thanks for reading; any thoughts/reactions?
-Andrew

p.s. With all this talk of "bump" you'd think I'm some ghetto blaster car stereo afficionado-- I'm not! I do listen to some rap, but also pop, rock, classical, trance, etc etc almost anything, in addition to having played violin, clarinet and piano. Before writing this post I hit some low notes on our grand piano to validate my thoughts =)

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