Please help me to interpret these charts.


Hi. How does the Maggie 1.6QR measurement chart of frecuency response compares to the Revel M20's chart? What I can interpret from both charts is that the Revels response is much flatter than the Maggie's. Am I correct? Or how would you interpret and compare both charts? The stereophile web pages for these charts are the following:

Figure 2. (Magnepan 1.6QR)
http://www.stereophile.com/showarchives.cgi?595:6

Figure 3. (Revel M20)
http://www.stereophile.com/showarchives.cgi?492:5

Thanks for the help,
jorge_err
jorge_err
No, the measurement system is very flawed when measuring dipolar pannel speakers. It's very hard to get the mike far enough away to have the differences in surface response average properly and still window out the first reflections of the room. If you move the speaker and mike outside you still have to move far enough that ambient sounds come into play as well as not averaging the frequency response of the back wave. The revels frequency response curve is probably a broadly accurate reflection of the speaker's frequency balance as it is basically a point source that is measured by a mike that is likewise a point source. Don't sweat this stuff though. What matters is what the speakers sound like to you. The Maggie is just fabulous and extremely well designed and excellent value for money as well as the Revel.
To my eye the area in the Revel about 15kHz is of concern, it shows a nice peak there - which to me is often heard as annoying. Also the Revel has something of an impedance rise at the midrange crossover point as well as an overall rise as the tweeter goes higher, indicating no use of a zobel there...

On the other hand the Maggie has some wierdness in impedance in the middle of its range. It also has better extreme HF when looking at the waterfalls, but more ick in the middle, although not bad ick - in as much as most of it comes where that impedance rise sits, it leaves me wondering what they are doing there.

Both credible performers that will likely sound as different as you can imagine. Neither is a bass monster, and yes the freq curves on the maggies are a bit ragged looking.

Listening is the key - with quality source material and quality components to drive it with. The really good speaker can sound really BAD with less than good signal chain before it, whereas the not so right speaker *can* sound better in some cases!

IF you asked me which one I would want, IF I only had a choice between the two, I would chose the Maggies. I do prefer larger source dipole speakers over smaller "mini monitor" types in general because of their overall presentation of sound.Of course, that is a subjective preference.