Maggie 1.7

[_Scotty_]

richidoo,All of the Maggies produce a near life size image scale which takes some getting used to when compared to the image produced by most conventional cone driver loudspeakers. Large loudspeakers with WMTMW configurations will produce similar image scales. Most conventional design speakers with a single driver allocated to each frequency range don't produce as big an image. I enjoyed how my MG IIIs did did imaging and their midrange neutrality,their strongest point in my opinion was the ribbon tweeter. I have not heard that tweeters performance equaled by anything yet. I wound up moving to a new house without enough room for them and I decided to sell them. I didn't equal the image scale the Maggies produced until I purchased the speakers I currently own. I have to agree with rollo,the maggies must be setup correctly for a proper demo of what they can do. They are a garbage in garbage out speaker and will tell you if you have hooked up inferior equipment to them.
Scotty

[richidoo]

I'm looking fwd to hearing Rob S' Maggie 3s soon.

[Rob S.]

Richie,  you're welcome to fire up the IIIa's in your guest quarters (our spare BR)  All we need is an extra preamp (preferably tube) to go with a spare set of Odyssey mono amps and you've got your bedroom system.   hell, their sitting in the corner of the room anyway along with a set of .6qr's and an old pair of JSE model 1's.

I have to admit it would be a pain setting them up in my 2channel room.  But with your help, I can be swayed to bring them in.  I really never got them to sing in my room ( I even biamped them, but really would have liked to hear that setup with great big tube amps)  , and I gave up on them after hearing a good Rick Craig floorstander.  Let's get my current setup dialed in

I got better sound than the big IIIa's with my maggie .6's.  The .6qr's w/ a sub were easier to place, sounded better, and worked well in the smaller rooms I had them set up in over the years (10).   I had high hopes of enjoying the ribbon tweeters on the big IIIa's, but they didn't deliver in my setup.  I thought the quasi-ribbons on the lower end models to be more natural sounding IMHO.    I have better equipment now, so maybe it's time to give the maggies another chance w/ tubes and vinyl and great cabling.   

Rob S.

[_Scotty_]

richidoo,Upon further consideration after reading between the lines of your previous post I think I know what you might have heard that put you off the Maggies the last time you heard them. I believe you may have heard what I call the Great and Powerful OZ effect. This occurs when you listen to vocals which are usually close miked and you hear a giant disembodied head which appears out of scale in relation the the rest of instruments in the sound-stage. If the information on the recording is faithfully reproduced you will get this distortion of vocalist image scale every time the vocalist on a recording is close miked.
Scotty

[richidoo]

That makes sense. Close miking puts their mouth right on your ear, at least the illusion. Which in some cases can be enjoyable.


If I remember correctly, and this was a long time ago, they were powered by Quad 909. There were Quad classic 15W tube amps there too, but I think the dealer would not have even attempted that, but you never know. Henry do you remember those used baby Maggies Alex had right before you bought the Spendors?  Anyway they were kinda small, maybe 5ft tall. Just sounded like they were really trying to impress and going way overboard. It was not a proper setup, just a quickie.

Thanks Rob, we'll figure out something. I can make a big mess then leave you to clean up.. hehe. You got a lotta stuff I'm dying to hear. Sol's amp should be interesting on them too. I read Cordemans review from 86.

Guys, how do Maggies differ from Quads? I had 2905s and had to bail out after 2 months. Plastic tone and no dynamics, limited SPL. All left brain, no balls. 2805 is the proper Quad essence.

[_Scotty_]

Bearing in mind that my experiences were with earlier Maggies:SMG ,1.0,1.2, MGIIIs .
The 2way speakers were characterized by good to very good coherence,good image size and low coloration midrange. The MGIIIs were a little harder to setup and their top to bottom coherency was not quite as good,this was contrasted by the magic the ribbon tweeter delivered. I changed the entire crossover in the MGIIIs to a 12dB/oct Linkwitz-Riley crossover with the best components available in 1986. This helped out the integration a lot and sweetened up the ribbon. All of the speakers at that time were limited to 105dB peak output and showed signal compression starting in the low 90spls. The imaging was also not characterized by the tight focus exhibited by many good cone speakers. They also have a horizontal venetian blind effect. It is not apparent unless you move laterally out of the sweet spot.They do many things well and for some people their strengths far out weigh their faults. Their peak loudness capability and compression behavior may be substantially improved compared to my nearly twenty year old experiences with the earlier models.
Scotty

[richidoo]

Awesome, thanks Scotty, as always. Gotta hear 20.1 sometime this year. Local dealer doesn't stock them.

Do the maggie crossover typically use 2nd order COs? Or your mod from 4th to 2nd?

[_Scotty_]

At that point in time the 2 way loudspeakers were first order designs, the MG III was a second order Butterworth network.
All of the 2way loudspeakers had nearly perfect impulse response at the listening position if care was taken to time align their output by locating them properly with respect to the sweet spot.   
Scotty

[bmr3hc]

  " If I remember correctly, and this was a long time ago, they were powered by Quad 909. There were Quad classic 15W tube amps there too, but I think the dealer would not have even attempted that, but you never know. Henry do you remember those used baby Maggies Alex had right before you bought the Spendors?  Anyway they were kinda small, maybe 5ft tall. Just sounded like they were really trying to impress and going way overboard. It was not a proper setup, just a quickie."

Rich, those were not set up properly. Alex place was too crowed with other stuff and just not enough room. And they were the earlier version, prior to 1.5 Maggie's. I agree with what has been said about proper setup and the need for a good amp with plenty of power to drive them. Otherwise you will be sorely disappointed. IMHO there is no other speaker that can match the transparency, image height, vocals/midrange of the Maggies, when properly setup and powered by a good amp. Base is low enough not to miss the lower region. To be honest I still those Maggies and may well have to go back to them if the 1.7 are as good as they seem.
Henry

[richidoo]

Thanks  Henry, I thought you'd remember more specifics. The 1.7's being new just might appear at our local dive soon. Maybe we can meet there for a listen, but setup is not always great there.

Not too many 1st order designs anymore but some are coming back to it now that drivers FR is getting large enough frequency range while maintaining modern linearity at the same time. Do you know if modern production Maggies are LR2 or LR4?

[bpape]

The Maggies will still have a limit on pure SPL unless you go for the big boys.  That said, the 'limit' is much greater than it used to be.  If you have a huge room and want 'balls', they still might not be the cat's meow for you.  

I have a friend who has 3.6's with some serious mods, external xovers, MYE stands, etc. driven by 4 tube amps (2x160WPC bottom, 2x70 on top) and the VTL 5.5 preamp.  Room isn't huge though.  Plenty of juice to make them get up and boogie.

Just as an aside, I had the big Korato Anniversary over at a reviewer's place a few months back.  He runs 1.6's in a room that's probably 20x28 with an 8' ceiling.  It can, however, be closed off from the rest of the house with solid doors.  We were both absolutely floored at the bottom end that combination was capable of.  Seamless imaging, no 'OZ' effect, great depth, etc.  In all fairness, he has them about 6-7' from the wall behind them and his seat is WAY away from any boundaries.  Lots of room in that space to tweak them and get them just right.

Bryan

[BobM]

Yeah, the new Maggie sound is a bit different and far better than the old Maggie sound. There are more dynamics per watt now and better extension on the low end. I've got a craving to hear some 3.6's in my room. ... Maybe if a pair shows up used in my neighborhood.

Hmmm, my birthday IS in April.

[hometheaterdoc]

ok... I demo'ed them... if you can call it that...

It was the stupidest demo I've ever been to.  They *REFUSED* to play the 1.7s by themselves.  They played 3 channel stereo with their reference center channel doing most of the work.  I have absolutely no idea what the speakers sound like and they admitted that was the entire goal.  They don't want you to be able to tell anything at all about the speakers at the show other than to look at them in person and determine if the overall sound of the entire system was ok or not.  They want you to go to a dealer and hear them........ which would be fine if this wasn't a trade show to show your wares to people in the industry.  Truly idiotic...

I have absolutely no idea if the 1.7s are any good.  They weren't real open to playing any other source material than their own.  If I pushed the matter, they likely would have played my test disc.  But it was a non-forceful "no" to the idea of playing source material with which they weren't familiar.  What source material I did hear sounded veiled up top.  It had the larger than life, exaggerated soundstage thing going on moreso than the 3.6 speakers in the PS Audio room.  Was it bad?  No.  Was it my favorite sound at the show?  No....

The better half was along with me today.  She kind of summed things up for me when we left that demo:  "Why are people selling speakers so arrogant?  Isn't the whole point of the show to sell you products?  Shouldn't they be swapping things around since you asked?  You do that all the time when people come over to listen at our place.  Have they never heard of the concept of customer service?" 

I tried to explain the elitist attitude in high end audio and how they don't necessarily send sales people to these shows.  It's often more engineering types that are wrapped up in their own product "babies" being the best thing ever and everything else is garbage.  Plus, since there are so many people attending, it's just not feasible to change things around for everyone every time they ask.  She didn't get it....  I was told I'm never allowed to buy any Magnepan speakers.

[bmr3hc]

Bummer! I suspect that whoever was there from Magnepan had strict instructions not to play the 1.7 because they did not know how best to set them up for two channel, or something went wrong with the planned set-up. Still it does not make any sense to me that they would not have the right set-up for the new speakers! Hopefully, some  reviewer will find out what the real deal was and spill the beans.

Hc

[Carlman]

CES is THIS week? oh crap.. we better get started!