Will Creek 5350 SE drive Magnepan 1.6QR?

I had Maggie IIIA's and 3.6R's(3 pair) and had awesome bass
with my Spectron digital amp. Tight & fast!! Never felt the need for a sub! (I did not do HT)

Define 'best'.


Define 'good'.

I guess you do not get it. The music that was recorded on the source cannot be changed, or made good, or bad.

You can aspire to a system that will reveal the condition and sonic quality of the recorded material, or, lets see, what is the alternative.. oh, yea, or not...and rather distort it further, as the 'connoisseurs of coloration' declare is audiophilia.

Any 'sound', whether characterized as 'good', or 'best', or bad, that is of any component is distortion and will only degrade and/or corrupt the source signal. Regardless of its specific quality.

It is enlightening to listen to the source with reference earphones (like the SHUR ER2 --$100) and compare to what you hear in your room. Then attempt to discern what is the room, and what is the system. Then which of the system is the culpret.

I recommend beginning with the speakers, the primary component. Then their setup. Followed by the amp, and its level of distortion (most are excessive, at least compared to the few relativly distortion free amps). A guide is <0.1% THD (and IMD) over a 5hz-50khz frequency range. The few I have mentioned are more like <0.005%

Once there, what can be done about the room. Its back to the speakers. Maggies are revealing, as are most ELS, and planers. Realistic and integrated bass is the issue with them. A solution is open baffle designs.

I do not see what any of that has to do with anyone's subjective interpretaion or taste in 'sound'. You either hear the source with some accuracy, or you do not.

Then you are left with selecting source material of some degree of sonic excellence, and compentent engineering, that has not been over mixed. Or, is 'true to the original'. Or not.



How about the not so great. Does your system go silent if you put in say mediocre music?

You are right, the truth is not for everyone: audio, or otherwise. In fact there is not even a majority, or the world would not be as it is.

Plese tell us where you come down on the issue. Oh, wait, you (and warrenh) have.

OK.

We are getting to know each other. That is good.

OK. I admit that my MG1.6 (set of three) rolls off at about 40 Hz (measured in my room). To play organ music with trouser-leg-flapping authority, I have an elaborate subwoofer system.

However, for most music, when driven with a powerful amp like the CarverPro ZR1600, the MG1.6 has subjectively excellent bass response, so that the 40 Hz rolloff would be hard to believe if I had not measured it myself. I think that the reason is the extreme smoothness of the bass response, and lack of room resonances: the result I think of the large area diaphragm sound source

You are right, the truth is not for everyone

That BLOWS my mind that you call it the truth. What are you using as a "reference" system? And you STILL have not shared your experience with magnepans with me- I asked a real question and you ignore it- that's in bad taste.

Would it be possible for you to make a post with out mentioning open baffles, <0.005 THD(which is INAUDIBLE, BTW) or any other components of "the truth"?

When distortion gets below about 1/2 percent, its significance is small compared with other amp specs. The kind of distortion matters too. IM is the worst, and is usually the one quoted. Harmonic distortion can be indistinguishable from the harmonic overtones that musical instruments produce. Any THD spec better than 0.1% is just playing a numbers game.

All equipment specs are insignificant compared with the characteristics of microphines used to make the recording. I have a test recording where Julian Hersch reads one of his columns using several dozen different microphones, all of them well-regarded models. The differences are astonishing. And it is really hard to say which model is "best".