Magnepan Owners & Discussion Thread

[Guest Music monster]

Is there anyone out there that biamps there Maggie’s, or is it true that you Cart, bill seems to believe the 30.7s can be biamped. Gary the music monster

[DMax]

 
Here's the old Maggie database, DMax:
 
http://www.integracoustics.com/MUG/MUG/articles/speakers.html
 
Andy
 

Nice! Thanks for that link...history of the Maggie line up!

So the Tympani IIIs have the 8 panels. They look pretty awesome haha...

Any experience or opinion on the mini Maggie's@andyr? Do you reckon they would be any good for desktop usage? Worth the $$$?

[Big Dog RJ]

1 hour ago, ghost4man said:

@Big Dog RJ

 

Just to keep things in perspective there are a multitude of people who have used maggies for a very long time and have much experience particularly when it comes to the type of 

amplification that is required.

I am somewhat surprised by your response which I can only characterise as being confusing. What you say in terms of the manual is correct BUT you are losing some translation here.

Maggie speakers benefit from big current delivery. Typically this will come from big SS amps who are well beyond the stated specs that you have stated and along with what is indicated in the manual.

Have you ever considered why this is the case?

 

It comes down to the selling point.

Think about it in the following manner.

I heard a pair of .7s driven in Bill Mcleans shop with a Sanders Magtech amp which can deliver 900wpc of serious controlled power.

How many people out there do you think would come back and tell you that the Sanders is too much for those maggies or any maggie for that matter??

 

What do you think?

I would wager not one person would consider this coupling to be a negative.

Those figures that you state and what is presented in the manual is misleading. Amplifiers which are correct to those specs is what I would consider to be the bare minimum for maggies.

 

And further I would say that to make them really sing you require a lot more than that. 

 

But Magnepan would be committing commercial suicide if they told their customers that they could purchase a pair of .7s for 2-3k but would need to spend an additional 10k on an amplifier 

like the Sanders to make them sing.

How do you think that would go down?

This is one of the reason why maggie owners will go active and source 3 lesser amplifiers which quite often are cheaper than purchasing one really good one.

 

The suggestion that Bill Mclean has no clue is just plain arrogant. How many retailers out there do have a clue in relation to the 30.7s. Do you realise that Wendell has been on an extended

North American tour travelling from city to city trying to introduce them? There would not be that many people comparatively speaking who have any idea what these speakers are like.

 

You are once again selling these speakers to be "fragile" when that is not the view that is shared by many maggie owners. I have 4 pairs of maggies. I understand very well how these

speakers work, what makes them tick and their limits. Of course every speaker is not bullet proof.

Cheers.

Ozzie

OK mate, I need an education on driving Maggie's and how to match Maggie's with the right amplification... Tell me all about it, I'm listening. 

 

I've used my first Maggie pair in 1986, MGIIIa, went all the way up-to 2001, and used the MG20.1's, alongside the Apogee Diva's. Closed the dealership in 2004 & migrated to Aus, also due to a lot of ribbon tweeters having to be changed.

 

Like I said we're on a tiny tropical island, so far away from Minnesota, hence repairs & service was done by the dealers, that was us and my good mate in Spore. And now thanks to the fantastic rich Asians, their blowing their tweeters because they're overdoing it with huge amps from Boulder and Solution Hercules, 1000w class A! Oh yeah Maggie's can handle no problem LA... 

 

OK, Maggie's can be driven with 1000w amps, yeah sure no worries, hence the reason why we ended up changing over 16 tweeter ribbons... No, RJ doesn't know what he's talking about...

 

Stating power handling for someone experienced is one thing but stating those figures for the novice is another thing! Believe me there are a lot of "first timers "who have no idea about power handling but they can afford a hell of a lot! These are ones that you need to be aware of, so amps rated within that zone is safe! Anything above is excellent as long as you don't over-drive them. Sure you require the extra headroom but use care when listening, these are not meant for blasting, rather for reproducing fine recordings, am I correct? 

 

Hey mate, I really don't want to get into a scuffle with who knows what and all that BS. If you think you're the expert, so be it, cheers to you bud! 

 

I'm still learning, although I have achieved a great system and delivers the truth in sound. After all it was my good new mate Gary, who took the time to come over for a listen and at once pointed out the weakness in unleashing that final Dynamic power, and it happened to be that useless Thor power conditioner!

 

Thanks to him, my system is now in a different league. It would be interesting to experience something new like this 30.7, but that's as far as it goes.

I'm off, will report back Feb end. 

Take it easy, RJ 

[andyr]

3 hours ago, Gary janezic said:

Is there anyone out there that biamps there Maggie’s, or is it true that you Cart, bill seems to believe the 30.7s can be biamped. Gary the music monster

 

I've been tri-amping my Maggies (first IIIas, 'Frankenpans' for the last 7 years) for 20 years, Gary.

 

Can 30.7s be bi-amped?  Given they have series XOs (not the parallel XOs of earlier Maggies) I would be surprised.  Sure, there might be some wires going from the bass panel to the mid/ribbon panel - which might suggest bi-amping is a possibility - but generally series XOs are all inter-twined ... so taking the mid/ribbon part of the series XO away from the bass part ... will 'break' the XO.

 

2 hours ago, DMax said:

Any experience or opinion on the mini Maggie's@andyr? Do you reckon they would be any good for desktop usage? Worth the $$$?

 

Sorry, never heard them, DMax.  But when Wendell did the first demos of them around the US, AIUI he had them behind a curtain ... people listened ... thought they sounded good ... and then were amazed when the curtains came back and they saw these tiny panels! 

 

Andy

 

Edited December 28, 2018 by andyr

[Guest Music monster]

Thanks Andy will c when they arrive . My Mac 450 rms should be enough I hope .the only reason 

 

 

I would biamp them if I thought one amplifier is not sufficiently capable of driving  them probably. Gary the music monster

[aechmea]

3 hours ago, Gary janezic said:

Is there anyone out there that biamps there Maggie’s, or is it true that you Cart, bill seems to believe the 30.7s can be biamped. Gary the music monster

I had 3.6R speakers which were bi-amped with a digital XO (DEQX).  If you removed the big silver box on the back there were access sockets to the bass panel and the rest.  The manual even had a page to advise how to do it.  Amp-wise I finally ended up with a pair of stereo Magtechs to drive them after I wasn't all that happy with a few brands before that.  I'm not sure that very much was gained by bi-amping either performance-wise or cost-wise which involved doubling the cabling and doubling the power amps.  Was all good fun and educational though.

 

In the x.7 series, Magnepan changed to a linear XO (is that the word?).  It means that there is no obvious separate access to the drivers.  I suppose one could take an axe to them and remove all the passive XO bits that are built in to the speaker and DIY the active bi or tri amp.  I won't be doing that to my $20k speakers.  In any case I don't do DIY anything.  So now I have (sort of) a spare Magtech.  I run them bridged, just to use both amps.

 

Moving on to the 30.7s.  The 30.7s come as 2 separate boxes per side.  Presumably these boxes will be connected by speaker cable with appropriate sockets.  With a socket that leads directly to the woofer panel I can see no reason why that can't be a bi-amping access point.  However it is possible that the woofer panel has its own passive low pass filter and that the other high/mid panel will certainly still have all of its passive XO stuff with multiple hi and lo pass filters, fuses etc.  So even though it may be possible to bi-amp 30.7s there seems little point since you are still feeding into the same passive electronics just like before.  The whole point of bi-amping is to avoid that.

 

If one thinks that with bi-amping you can better select an amp for the lo and hi panels, that is unlikely to be the case with Maggies as the XO to the bass panel will be at about 250 - 300Hz (a guess).  This also happens to be the halfway point of the freq spectrum power-wise. ie. the amp for >300 needs to be just as powerful as the amp for < 300 ie two bigguns.

 

Edit: "series XO" yes, that's the term.  Thanks Andy.

Edited December 28, 2018 by aechmea

[andyr]

47 minutes ago, Gary janezic said:

Thanks Andy will c when they arrive . My Mac 450 rms should be enough I hope.

 

I would suspect - as a ss amp - it will handle them fine, Gary.

 

Andy

 

[aechmea]

44 minutes ago, Gary janezic said:

Thanks Andy will c when they arrive . My Mac 450 rms should be enough I hope .the only reason 

 

 

I would biamp them if I thought one amplifier is not sufficiently capable of driving  them probably. Gary the music monster

Watts are a reasonable measure to see whether you can get from the 83dB/watt/metre (assuming the same as the 20.7s) to your preferred SPL at the chair, with enough headroom to avoid clipping.  I did a back of the envelope calculation a while back and it is pretty easy to get to 500 or more watts for not particularly loud.  Its not a macho thing, simply that dBs are logarithmic ie an extra 3dB needs double the power and that 83 is a bloody low starting point for speaker sensitivity.

 

The other question is how well do Mac's handle 4ohms.  The Mac manual/spec sheet should have this somewhere?

[Guest Music monster]

My Mac amps are designed to handle down to 2 ohms, so no problem there, and have a reputation of driving very inefficient speakers with ease, still I get the point that you can reach 500 Watts or more very easily when sensitivity is as low as 83 dB. As Andy said it should be fine , but more power would be better still. Gary the music monster

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Big Dog RJ]

Overall, according to my other very senior mate, whom I first met in 1990, the legend himself, Kondo San, founder and chief designer of Audio Note Kondo, mentioned that watts means nothing! He then demonstrated using the Ongaku 1's, rated a mere 55w/ch pure Class A, it drove the Diva's no sweat! Then used several mega watt SS amps, they just ran out of steam...  current. 

 

Hence, most so called high powered SS simply cannot drive panels with varied impedence curves. Tube amps have no issue with the impedence, mainly receive their added current from the big transformers, and of course tubes being high voltage devices, no sweat driving panels whatsoever. 

 

At the end, it's just a preference, where I prefer tubes simply due to their marvelous texture, tonal density and pure musicality in the mid-range. Tubes driving Maggie's are just wonderful to listen to for endless hours. That again, there's nothing quite like listening to stats with tubes for endless hours either, they're both marvelous! 

 

The last pair of ultra-highend tube monoblocks I had the pleasure of listening to on the Diva's were the Kondo Kagaru amplifiers, 250 grand a pair! But just to experience this once in a life time, that sound was spectacular! Have no words to describe it, and I'm glad I got the chance to experience this before my hearing ends... 

Cheers, RJ

[Big Dog RJ]

8 minutes ago, Gary janezic said:

My Mac amps are designed to handle down to 2 ohms, so no problem there, and have a reputation of driving very inefficient speakers with ease, still I get the point that you can reach 500 Watts or more very easily when sensitivity is as low as 83 dB. As Andy said it should be fine , but more power would be better still. Gary the music monster

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, I thought as much, hence the reason why I didn't buy the Mac, I almost did though!

 

I'm affraid that Big Mac won't do justice on stats Gary. Full range stats drop to less than 1 ohm! Somewhere around 0.7ohms and suddenly peak to around 20+ohms in a blink of an eye! You're better off sticking with ribbons & Maggie's for that matter.

 

Hence, the majority of high powered SS aren't capable of driving stats full range. But if they're rated pure Class A, then no issues here whatsoever. Kostas is using just one stereo power amp from Pass Labs XA30.8 rated at just 32w/ch pure class A, drives his CLX's unlike anything I've heard, absolutely stunning and awesome! It's an experience to listen to such a system just to get an idea of what natural sound should be like on fine recordings.

 

I sincerely think your Mac amps will be better suited to the Maggie's. Good one mate, RJ 

[Guest Music monster]

I’m not sure raj on that one just to say it says in the manual it’s capable of driving the most difficult loads weather it’s ribbons,stats,or moving coil designs, but if you think the macs are better on ribbons that’s good. I won’t require the 30.7s to play loudly so I should have enough power to drive them.tubes are not for me because every time you use them the sound quality on the tubes deteriorate, it’s slow slightly worse sound every time they are used , i cart live with that and changing and buying them all the time,life is to short for that in my opinion anyway. Thanks for your suggestions. Gary the music monster

 

[Guest Music monster]

Hey raj try this,put new tubes in,use them for a few months even if there lifespan is 2 years ,take them out put new ones in again and I think you will find the sound better on the ones you just put in, tubes are like vinyl every time you use them the sound is slightly worse. I did this with my audible illusions preamp and it was a big difference.from than on I never had interest in tube equipment,excellent sound definitely but to many problems with the tubes wearing out slowly every time you use them. Cheers mate. Gary the music monster

 

 

 

 

[Big Dog RJ]

Yes, very true mate. Tubes have a typical optimal lifespan of 2000-3000 hrs at best. Also depends on how high you listen to and for how long. In my case only twice a week, they'll last for long. But in your case, listening to music everyday for an average of 6-8 hrs a day, definitely be changing tubes too often. 

 

However, the most expensive top of the line amplifier designs are mostly tube. It's that lush mid-range, tonal density and timbreal texture and complexity that tubes can deliver are on a completly different platform.

VTL, Manley, ARC, Aries Cerat, Kondo, CJ, Jadis, Rogue Audio, BAT, VAC and some other heavy duty top of the line SOTA gear are all tube designed. It makes SS looks it needs to step up to the plate, and SS does with CH precision, Boulder, Dan'D Agostino, Pass Labs and similar lines. 

 

I heard the Magico's top of the line Q7's driven with CJ's top of the line reference ART300's, wow! I didn't know such an awesome sound even existed! These are 300w class AB fitted with the new power house KT150's. The bass on these exceeds SS. They are extraordinary and a total game changer for tube output capability. 

 

At the end of the day, when age catches up... I might just as well settle back to SS, or a small tube integrated driving a pair of Klipsch horns as a retirement package! What do you reckon? 

Cheers mate, RJ

[Guest Music monster]

Ha ha that’s a good idea mate. I just hooked them up and they sound good ,truly impressive bass. I love the sound of tubes but as I said it doesn’t matter that they have a lifespan of 2000 hours with in 2 to 3 hundred hours use the sound quality of the tubes has already degraded,that’s the problem . If the sound remains same up to to 2000;hours that would be great but it simply does not,yes they continue to work but deliver inferior sound quality. Mine were perfect working in my tube preamp but I became unhappy with the sound I was hearing,the tubes were still good for another year,but I changed them and the difference was big , they simply lost the sound quality in them. Cheers bud.gary the music monster

 

[Big Dog RJ]

Hey Music monster, here comes the slam dunk... 

 

Just like tubes deteriorating, guess what? So does our hearing! 

Read it up, as we age each year, we begin to hear less and less of lower and high frequencies, only the mid-range remains for a while at least longer. 

 

Thus, this is why Eve Anna Manley, Bob Carver, Arnie Nudell, Kevin Hayes, Lew Johnson, William Johnson, Luke Manley, Vladimir Lamm, and the great Kondo San claim one simple thing "tubes rule!"

There's no denying it. 

 

But not everyone likes Murray Salted caramel ice-cream... Ha! As for me, tubes - stats & turntables rule. Again another topic for debate, digital still cannot match analog. Ask JV he'll tell you all about it. Just being honest and having fun Gary... 

 

I'm now off, listening to some pristine recordings on the finest stats and of course the best speakers in the world, the Martin Logan CLX Art. 

Cheers and bless you all, RJ 

[DMax]

Amp-wise I finally ended up with a pair of stereo Magtechs to drive them after I wasn't all that happy with a few brands before that. 
 

How much current do they produce? I think current is more important for Maggie's instead of watts?

[DMax]

Hence, most so called high powered SS simply cannot drive panels with varied impedence curves.

True... That's why most of the current stats are not provided by the manufacturers.

Do tueb amps produce higher current than ss amps?

[DMax]

Pass Labs XA30.8 rated at just 32w/ch pure class A, drives his CLX's unlike anything I've heard, absolutely stunning and awesome!

Wow... 32w pure class A is powerful enough?

[aechmea]

6 hours ago, DMax said:

How much current do they produce? I think current is more important for Maggie's instead of watts?

Don't know, Max.  Never been published as far as I know. 

 

Its one of those enduring mysteries like why Maggie measurements are never published.

[I did find one German magazine that published some 20.7 measurements.  They wrote that the 20.7 sensitivity was 77dB/watt/metre.  Yeah, really, could that be right, surely not, maybe, heavens.  No wonder monster amps are the only ones that need apply.]

 

[Guest Music monster]

Hey big dog no worries ,a lot of people would agree with What you said, just make sure you replace tubes often,clean your styles after every side of a record,and enjoy the finest stats in the world which they certainly are . Gary the music monster

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest Music monster]

I to believe magnapans are lower in sensitivity than what  magnapan state. My 1.7i I had sucked the power out of my 450 watt mac amp ,I have never seeing the meters go so far to the right and stay there, they certainly are the most current hungry speakers I have owned.

Gary the music monster

[aechmea]

6 hours ago, DMax said:

Wow... 32w pure class A is powerful enough?

Say 83dB/watt/metre, with a chair at 3m, allowing for 10dB of crest dynamic range (probably not nearly enough), with a 32 watt amp, all adds up to ...

 

78dB SPL

 

Hmmm, OK for some genres, but many would say that is not nearly loud enough for different styles of music.

More watts required too if one prefers to run their amps at 50% capacity rather than 100%, or if the music has a reasonable dynamic range, or if "party" mode is ever a possibility or if the speakers have markedly less sensitivity than published numbers or if the amp gets ragged if pushed out of its comfort zone or ... insert long list of caveats

 

Monster amps seem to be the way to go which ever way you look at it.  Of course the monstering needs to be done with elegance and panache.

 

[Has anyone tried a Sanders ESL amp on stats?  Specifically designed for stats so may be better than the Magtech in that role.]

[Guest Music monster]

I also don’t believe 32 Watts is enough for any stat or ribbon speakers , only for very efficient speakers like 100 dB plus. The more power available the better. Gary the music monster

[Guest Music monster]

is anyone out there considering getting a pair of 30.7s., I would like to know. So far only myself  .. Bill McLean will also be getting a pair . Gary the music monster