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In Reply to: Can conventional speakers soundstage like maggies? posted by Mike in NJ on April 14, 2007 at 21:31:24:
Any system with time alignment of the drivers, lack of front panel diffraction artifacts, and proper placement to avoid early coherent reflections, can out-perform Maggies in creation of a spooky-real 3-D sound-stage. Maggies have too much distance between the driver sections to achieve this kind of alignment.The all-time best speakers for 3-D sound-stage audible anywhere in the listening room are the Beveridge Models 2 and 2-SW. The Dali Megalines come close.
However, there are always trade-offs. I can't stand the midrange distortion present in the Vandersteens, for example. The Beveridges are limited in loudness. The Dalis are out of my price range. My sideways MG-20s create a nice sound-stage, and are more revealing than I can determine, after years of experimentation on amplifiers and AC noise.
Follow Ups:
Hi Al,
Interesting idea you have come up with, no doubt influenced by the Beveridge concept. However; I was standing next to my Acoustats the other night and there is DEFINITELY a deep null on the sides of the speakers. When I stood directly inbetween them the Highs are essentially gone. Ok, this is truly 90 degrees off axis from the tweeter "section" of the speaker.Are you putting the speakers exactly parallel to each other or have you played a bit with angling them a bit? Did you put the tweeter section close to you are further away from you? I am curious to see what it will do with my electrostatic speakers.
How do you have your 20's positioned "sideways?"
This technique was developed by Liz Hare at Stereo Unlimited in Walnut Creek, CA.It works because the treble dispersion of the Magnepan ribbon is almost 180 degrees. I get as much treble by listening with the tweeter-side edges of the speakers facing forward as I do with the speakers facing forward in a normal setup.
I've got a polarity-reversal switch on my Wadia CD player that allows me to listen to most music with inverted polarity. Since I hear the rear wave first, this is the correct polarity position for my setup.
"It works because the treble dispersion of the Magnepan ribbon is almost 180 degrees. I get as much treble by listening with the tweeter-side edges of the speakers facing forward as I do with the speakers facing forward in a normal setup."The magnepan tweeter is a dipole radiator. As such, it radiates sound forwards and backwards equally. However, at 90 degrees off-axis the radiation pattern forms a deep null.
Your claim that you get as much treble energy with the tweeter-side edges of the speaker facing forward is precisely the opposite of what you would expect to hear. The direct energy radiated by the tweeter would be greater than 20db attenuated in the topmost octave. OTOH, the reflected energy from your room boundaries would be significantly higher than in a conventional (i.e. proper) setup.
The other problem with your recommended orientation is that the offset between the tweeter, mid and bass panels relative to your listening chair would be as far from ideal as possible. The crossover was designed with a time constant delay such that the arrival of signals from each panel reach your ears at roughly the same time. Rotating the panels 90 degrees off the design axis guarantees that you have effectively "undone" what the magnepan engineer designed the crossover to do. That said, the effect of the first problem will swamp the negative effects of this second problem.
It never ceases to amaze me how audiophiles and "experts" often muck up what physics (and common sense) dictate.
:)
It seems awfully nutty, but it DOES work if done properly. Also, it is physically impossible to sit 90 degrees off axis to both speakers (unless they are truly back to back). It works magic for near field listening. This is NOT how my Maggies are configured, but I DID try it and I was AMAZED.
in both Tim's observation and your reaction to the side-facing orientation is just how much influence--for good or ill (and that, I suspect, depends to some degree on personal preference)--reflected sound, particularly the range of audible reflected frequencies and their dispersive pattern, has on what we hear--and maybe want to hear--in our listening rooms.
Yep, you are dead on here.One of the reasons I dig this set up is that the imaging is more realistic than a normal setup.
When you go to the symphony, it is one big bowl of sound. All the ingredients are there in that bowl.
In a normal setup, it is if there are a lot of seperate bowls of soup on little silver platters, with each of the bowls having a different performer.
In a sideways setup, it is one big bowl of soup, and to me that sounds more like live music.
It is not the "hifi" sound that some people like, but IMHO it is more real.
Hey Wazoo,There will always be ones who hide behind theories as an excuse to be lazy and dismissive.
Be glad that you are not one of them.
I thought the idea was crazy - until I tried it. I found myself eating crow when I listened to my MMGs setup this way. For lack of a better expression, I was simply blown away (just never expected to hear anything close to what I heard). I decided I'd better be more open to different ideas (and to forget the things I thought I knew). At some point, I intend to give them a good listening test turned around with the pole pieces facing me - I need to know which way I like them before proceeding with rev2 of my framing project.
Yeah, I like your attitude. I am the same way. It just floors me that the smart science types are so damn close minded. I kind of thought that science was about being open minded and doing experiments, but so much of the time it seems like just the opposite.One would think that they would be actively looking for crazy things that didn't make sense but were true. Isn't that how science really progresses?
Anyhow, on my stand (which will be months away) it is fairly simple to reverse the orientation.
FWIW, I haven't done any direct comparisons, but when I went to a sideways setup, I was listening to the backs, and maybe THAT has something to do with why I like it better? I'll listen both ways and figure out what is more important.
You don't need to toss a toaster into the tub to know it's not a good idea. OTOH, some people swear by their Bose speakers. Go figure.
To be fair, the idea sounds like shear lunacy. It violates so many principals that it has to sound like crud. That's precisely what I thought I was going to hear when I tried it (had read about it numerous times and just chuckled).It sounds quite different, but the only tonal characteristic I could lay on it was a slight decrease in midrange forwardness - a good thing with my MMGs. The amazing thing was the soundstage - it just sounded more like live music. Ultimately, however, this arrangement is unworkable for me because mine are in a system that doubles as a home theater (the space between the speakers needs to be empty).
BTW I owned a pair of Bose 901s for about 2 weeks in the early '80s. I could never get satisfying sound out of them - tried dozens of placements to no avail. They had pretty awesome midrange though.
Waz,Exactly. My listening biases are for soundstage, and this is the most realistic presentation I have found.
And yes, that it works at all is quite amazing, and another reason I dig it.
And, it is a way to get mags out from the front wall in a small room, without killing the room.
wouldn't you want to know why?Or would you just assume that the guy was dead and the whole thing was made up because the theory says it is so?
The fact is that you haven't tried it, and you really should before dismissing it.
Hence the "closed minded" comment.
So are your Maggies both in front of you the standard 3-4 feet or so apart and facing each other? How far back do you sit? And what are the room dimensions? You've got 3.5Rs right? That's an amazing setup, if I understand it correctly. But if it works, it works.
My MG-20s are seven feet apart and I sit seven feet from each tweeter. This means my listening angle is 60 degrees, not 90 degrees. There is also quite a bit of baffling done by the speaker body, so the polar plot presented above is worthless.The room is 15 by 19 by 8. The bass panels are centered in the recommended Cardas positions, which give the best overall bass response. However, the unfortunate near-overlap of the height and width cause a bass dip along the center of the room.
Due to cable lengths, I was constrained to a smaller triangle. I found that I needed to be slightly nearer than would produce an equilateral - but ONLY slightly. As I moved a little closer, I started getting the feeling I was wearing headphones. As I moved outside of the equilateral, the tonal balance started getting objectionable. Inside that sweet spot, which was actually a little larger (relatively speaking) than a more "normal" orientation yields me, magic happened.To the nay-sayers: Don't dismiss this concept out of hand, but don't judge it from a half-assed experiment either. Give it a go, and be serious about it. Just prepare to be surprised. PG, if you're reading this, they don't beam in this orientation (common ground after all).
Al has some ribbons, and from what he says, you don't need to listen nearfield with the ribbons, but with the quasi ribbons it may HAVE to happen nearfield.
It does work, even on my MMgs although, I think on the non ribbons, one has to have a nearfield setup.I had mine set up about 7 ft apart, sitting 3ft back from the speaker plane, with the tweeters closest to the listening chair. THe phase needed to be changed, since I originally was listening to the backs of the speakers.
It is IME better than the normal straight forward set up....more realistic
Anyhow, here are some links about it:
http://www.integracoustics.com/MUG/MUG/tweaks/facing.html
http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.mpl?forum=mug&n=108703&highlight=dawnrazor+wazoo&r=&session=
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