Followup-Magnepan 1.7s in a 10x13' dedicated room?


Well I brought the demo MG12s home from the dealer for the weekend and they actually worked very well in my small listening room. Everything I love about Maggies was there with a couple of surprises. First, I ended up with the speakers fairly close to the side walls, though the walls are treated. Second, I obtained the best imaging with the tweeters on the outsides. I assumed they would work better on the insides considering their close proximity to the side walls. The sound stage was wide, deep and well defined. I was able to hear and feel bass in the low 40s, which was another surprise. I give credit for that to the 4 inch thick bass traps I made myself. It's amazing what those have done for a room that literally sucked bass out of the room without them. Some recordings were a little bright, but I think I could remedy that with resistors applied to the tweeters. The dealer didn't supply with resistors to take with me. The MG 12s worked so well in fact that I'm seriously considering the 1.7s. Especially since I hope to be moving to a larger room in the future.
linesource
07-23-14: Brownsfan
Bombawalla, thanks for sharing this info. I had not heard this idea, and I must admit it makes perfect sense....
Brownsfan, yes, what I'm finding out is that a lot of people are quite unaware (& perhaps even ignorant) about loudspeakers needing to be time-coherent. Time-coherence in loudspeakers ensure non-fatiguing sonics & a very realistic & natural playback of the music.
Time-alignment is just one small aspect of time-coherence in loudspeaker design. Time alignment merely aligns the acoustical centers of the drivers such that the sound from each driver reaches your ear at the same time but does not deal with the phase of the various frequencies that comprise a music signal. So, a time-aligned speaker can distort the phase of the music signal & destroy one's listening pleasure.
You get a time-coherent loudspeaker by using an acoustically insert cabinet, time aligning the drivers & ensuring that the phase of the various frequencies that comprise a music signal is not touched.
We are having a long discussion on this topic right now in the thread "Sloped Baffle".

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1403209611&&&/Sloped-baffle

It's got some 195 posts! If you start at the beginning of this thread, I have provided 3 links to prev threads on Audiogon discussing time-coherence in loudspeakers. Plus, as you go thru the thread concentrate on posts by "Royj" - Roy Johnson is the owner/designer of Green Mountain Audio in Colorado Springs & he designs only time-coherent loudspeakers. In this thread he answers questions from other members & clarifies the concept of time-coherence & why it's so important.
There are a few loudspeaker manufacturers that build time-coherent speakers & I think that these people are the smarter ones.....
"07-23-14: Bombaywalla

07-23-14: Brownsfan
Bombawalla, thanks for sharing this info. I had not heard this idea, and I must admit it makes perfect sense....

Brownsfan, yes, what I'm finding out is that a lot of people are quite unaware (& perhaps even ignorant) about loudspeakers needing to be time-coherent. Time-coherence in loudspeakers ensure non-fatiguing sonics & a very realistic & natural playback of the music. "

That's all great, but how does it help him in getting his Magnepan's sounding right?
Zd, yes we wandered a bit. However, if the OP is able to use stands that permit tilting the panels to achieve a perpendicular from the mid point of the panels to his ear when seated, it will improve the sound. Other than that, nada. Just an interesting observation I thought.
I didn't see where you mentioned the stands. I thought you were just talking in theory. The stands are an interesting idea. Have you ever tried anything like that with Magnepan? With traditional speakers, you can place the drivers at points that are most effective for time coherence, but with Magnepan, the ribbons run the full length of the speaker. If you pivot the speaker at its mid point, you move half the ribbon further away from the listener, but the other half closer. Since you get the highs from the full length of the driver, I don't see how that will help. If it were to make an audible improvement, I suspect that it will be from pointing the ribbon upward and not having it fire directly at the listener. The highs would be rolled off, but not necessarily time correct. You can probably get almost the exact same effect if you were to just tilt the speaker back. Try putting some type of spacer under the 2 front feet. Its a very good idea, though. Had I thought of it, I might have been able to live with my 1.7's.
That's all great, but how does it help him in getting his Magnepan's sounding right?
Zd542
Zd542, I believe the answer to that question is: he cannot! This seems to be mostly in-line with Brownsfan's post where he is suggesting (Mye) stands & if that does not work, then there's nothing else. And, this advice from a user who used Magnepan from 1991 - 2014. what does that tell us?
You are also skeptical of this suggested solution - I think what you wrote makes sense (firing at ceiling rather than at user & reflected sound might be less painful to listen to)
The speaker is inherently flawed by design & will never sound right. The user can treat the walls, toe-in, tilt-back, use stands, upgrade the x-over components quality, etc, etc to reduce the issue but it will never go away & it will never sound right...
If one buys this speaker, that's what one has to live with. Better for the user to buy with his/her eyes wide open rather than be surprised after the purchase like the OP....