magnepan 1.6 subwoofer recomendations

try to find a panel sub, such as an enigma, or tympani 1 d bass panel.

i have a pair of 1.6s and am reluctant to try a sub. i also own quad unlimited quad 57s. i would be reluctant to use a sub with the quads, as well.

what i have found, is that a high powered class a amp will take care of your bass problem. you may want to bi amp asat that point, which creates other issues.

Harry Pearson likes the Nola Thunderbolts with the 20.1s. I suspect it might also be a good match for the 1.6s although it does cost as much as the speakers.

"Fast subwoofer"? Did you ever hear a fast 30 foot organ pipe? The instruments which generate the frequencies that the subwoofer handles are by their nature "slow".

A bass drum you say? Well, the leading edge of its sound may be steep, but that will be rejected by the subwoofer crossover, and routed to the woofer or midrange driver.

What do you need a sub for?I had mmg's and the bass was great clean tight.

IME,the issues with panels and subs is real, but unrelated to sub "speed". I'd guess that interaction between the dipole radiation of the main panels and the omni pattern of the sub is more complex than that created by conventional main speakers and subs. The result is more "peaks and valleys" in the combined response.

If you can get smooth response through the x-over region, you'll be okay. It can be difficult to acheive this, but I managed to do so in my room - after a ton of tweaking my SMS controller. The odds of success without room analysis and PEq strike me as low, since it took a lot of effort even with these tools at hand.

Since my pair of Velo SPLRs sounded pretty crappy with the Maggies until I got the integration nailed down - and very, very good thereafter, I tend to believe the choice of any particular sub is probably much less important than integrating that sub properly.

Marty

PS You might want to scan some of the "subwoofer" threads out there on this forum. There's a lot of good info available on different models.