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A friend is planning a HT room... Coupla tiers of seating, etc... I'm going to have room to stack a pair of MMGs on each side of the screen... This'll give me either a 2 ohm or 8 ohm load (pro amps in a closet), and hopefully provide a "smoother" picture of sound to the listeners. I want all the seated positions to be within "range" of the lines... There are cavities on each side of the screen which will provide rear area - Downside is that I'm going to only have a foot or so between the MMGs and the screen.
What do y'all think? Going to do MMGWs for sides and rears. No center. Subs will be behind screen, with the drivers/ports below it.
Follow Ups:
I stacked my one pair of MMG's a few years back. It almost prompted me to buy the second pair. With only mono playback, I was stunned.
The only thing that stopped me was that the speakers would completly dominate the room as my ceiling is 9' and the speakers would stand at 8'.
For another five bills, had I had a dedicated room, I would have done it already.
As Rod said, there would be a gap between the drivers top to bottom (and right about ear height as well). Would this be an issue, I can't imagine it would. May be an idea to fold them at the middle (top tilted down a bit, bottom tilted up a bit) just in case.
Are you placing a separate "screen" in front of the MMG's?
How much room behind the speakers?
Is the area behind/around them completely enclosed?
Have you considered used larger models instead?
Is the screen a drop down for a PJ or fixed for a PJ, is it a RP, plasma, etc?
I would place the top MMG on the stack upside down, that would reduce the gap between the two drivers (as baffle is wider on the bottom than the top) Just make sure the the tweeters are on the same side of the panel and are in line with each other.I would also think about biamping with that setup to take some of the stress of the amps. Although many amps are stable into 2 ohms, they generally have the lowest distortion at their rated power (as that was what their parts and design were optimized for). For example, UcD amps and some pro amps perform best into 4 ohms, most home amps perform best into 8 ohms, and some tube amps work best into 16.
So, the woofer panels (which measure over 5 ohms each) could be wired parallel and use a pro amp, as it needs the most power. The tweeters (which measure less than four ohms each) could be wired in series and use a lower watt tube amp with some adjustments to the gain.
I just got done doing a crossover upgrade to my MMG's and was thinking about stacking, but I don't have enough space in my current apartment.
TBH, I assumed that he would have done that.
Also agreed on using two amps (biamping or just one per pair), the pro maps may be OK, hard to say, never used any.
Yea, I assumed top-to-top also. Measuring mine, that makes about a 6.5" gap between the tweeters. I'm still a little concerned that this gap might be audible for critical music listening if a person's ears were near or on axis of the gap, but for HT perhaps it's not important.I'm curious enough about this to try it myself, but my ceilings are about 4" too low!
Rod,COuldn't you just take the panel out and build a frame around them.
THen there would be no gap, and you could better deal with the "staples" issue.
I bet you could easily shave off 4 inches with that approach.
I agree, that would be the way to go for stacking. I just measured and the tweeters would be a little over 3" apart mounting the panels like that. The panels themselves are about 41" tall. With frames perhaps the entire speaker could be made about 86" or 87" tall.
The idea just makes me wish Magnepan sold bare panels for DIYers.
Hey Rod,As we established a while back, I hav ethe OLD tweeter config.
DO you think stacking them wiht the new one would be a big deal?
DR:> As we established a while back, I hav ethe OLD tweeter config.
> DO you think stacking them wiht the new one would be a big deal?
Wow, I have no idea. Intuitively, it seems like it would be better to use the exact same speaker top and bottom. Whether anyone could tell they were different by listening.....? What makes it even more of a shot in the dark is that I've never heard of anyone who had done an
A-B of the two types. AFAIK they could sound almost exactly the same, or radically different.
Yeah, I know it is an unknown.I just can't imagine 2 extra traces making a difference one could hear....but I have put little sand bags on the timing crystal in CDPs and heard a difference, so who knows.
If I was to do this, I would have to either buy old ones, or buy 2 new sets...
them in series or get another 2-4 channels of amplifications depending on whether I bi amp or not?
You would be the pioneer on this! I suppose it would depend largely on your choice of amps.
Figuring on about 3-4' behind the MMGs, with the area open. Nothing in front of them. Maybe plants or a built-bookcase behind 'em... The screen will be painted/mounted (we're going to do some tests with the owner) on a 4' "bumped out" closet. I'm guessing painted will work - light control and he wants big...
This will house the subs underneath, with general storage above. Will not be rear projection. Subs are also not going to be IB - was suggested, and he wants to use the area as a closet too... Masking is probably going to be the hard part - I wish I could buy "black" window shades...
Guy was initially thinking Bose (after all, he wants to spend some $$$ on the home theater, and only wants the best...), and then listened to my living room, and immediately drove over to a Bose dealer, and listened there - instant changed mind...
He's spending more on the seating than he had planned for speakers, but hey... I'm figuring a decent AVR, a nice DVD player, and three pro-sound amps, and he's there... The gear is going to mounted in the rear of the room, at the entrance.
3-4 feet is great. I think I get the concept now. As long as the speakers have rom to breathe you should be good.
Seating's important too I guess. Gotta be comfy. :)
Post some pic's of the finished room when all is said and done if you can.
This has been brought up here before. The problem I wonder about is that there will be a tweeter "gap" when listening near the middle of the stacked panel. I assume the mid/woofer panel would be less critical. Where to position the ears vertically would be an interesting experiment.
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