great demo.....

[TroyD]

Yesterday I was cruising the local pawn and thrifts and decided to stop in to our local Magnepan dealer and get my demo on. Armed with some good demo material the owner let me have my way with his demo setup which consisted of a Conrad Johnson tube amp/preamp (the model #'s I forget, the preamp was a PV14b) and a Marantz cd player (again I forget the model #) hooked up to a pair of Maggie 3.6's and a pair of 1.6's, mostly though I listened to the 1.6's. I ran through some Chris Rea, Dave Matthews, some Telarc sampler material and some Peter Murphy...

Let me tell you folks, these are just FUN speakers to listen to. They image quite well. Incredibly transparent. Soundstage is very good but not on par with my DQ-10's. At times the soundstage doesn't QUITE have the depth that I am used to. Moreso with the 1.6's than the 3.6's. The high's can be a little on the bright side but not unpleasantly so.

Bass, as is always the bitch with ribbons, isn't of the chest thumping type but I find it very tight and accurate. What I do like about the Maggies is that the sound is VERY cohesive from top to bottom. My DQ-10's (and I've also noticed this with ML designs but my experience is fairly limited) have a slight discontinuity between the high's and mids, which operates in an open enclosure and the bass which is handled by a 10" sealed driver. It's not distracting but it is there......with the Maggies, that isn't there....

For around 1500 a pair, I think the Maggie 1.6's are VERY tough to beat.......and 550 for a pair of MMG's? They are on my short list for Christmas this year...


BDT

[tonyv1]

Welcome to the Maggie world.
I have Polks for my HT, but my stereo setup is Magnepan MG12.
Just make sure that your amp can handle 4 ohm loads.
Checkout the MUG website http://www.integracoustics.com/MUG/MUG/

[TroyD]

thanks for the link tony......

Amps I got.....I've listened to the Maggies before, every few months I go into that shop and listen to his 3.6's. Yesterday I just happened to be lucky and the owner had his 1.6's in there to demo....

I've been wanting some ribbons for some time now. On the whole I prefer my DQ-10's but I can employ some maggies on a part time basis. I mean, what could be better than a mancave and a 2ch rig? One with multiple options, that's what.

BDT

[RuSsMaN]

Good link.

Man, I NEED some ribbons. $550 shipped, I'm gonna fire my whole family if there isn't an oak/off white pair under the tree this year....

EFF em, if I end up with some nasty plaid shirts again, I'm gonna be pissed.....

Cheers,
Russ

[Aaron]

I'm interested in your comments of the 1.6 vs. 3.6. There is supposed to be a fairly significant difference between the two. There should be considering the 3.6's cost over twice what the 1.6's cost. The 1.6's are a good speaker, especially for the money, but it is definitely a compromise speaker (but hey, most are). You're absolutely right about their transparency: it's amazing (especially for the money)! They're pretty detailed, too. The last time I listened to them I found them lacking in soundstaging and imaging. This could have something to do with the setup, but the guy did spend some time setting them up, so who knows. I just wasn't getting the stereo "panning" effects, and the center image was just average. Also, the soundstage definitely didn't extend beyond the edges of the speakers. I still suspect that a lot of this could have been solved with different placement. They looked like they were too close together and too toed in to me. My final complaint with the 1.6's is their bass. While there's a good bit of it with decent extension, it's not very tight. It's definitely loose and a bit muddy. In the end it's as you say: it's a fun speaker to listen to.

Aaron

[TroyD]

Aaron,

Yeah, the 3.6 is CLEARLY superior, and your are correct, for the price, it ought to be. the big differences, IMO are detail and bass extension. The soundstage on the 3.6's has more depth to it, more like the DQ-10, but still give the nod to the Dahls. Lastly, the upper end brightness that I noted in the 1.6, not found on the 3.6. I would attribute this to the different ribbon, probably.

I think placement has a LOT to do with it, especially in the imaging department.......also, the sources that he used in the demo are far ahead of anything I have so that my have something to do with it as well.

I still maintain, that under 2K the 1.6's are tough to beat if you have the proper power and space for them.

BDT

[mantis]

I once straid from the driver tweeter liking.Maggies are nice and Martin Logan Prodigys blew my face off.I was in love with them for Quite some time.Running them with sweat Audio Research warm tubes made me get goose bumps......then It happened,
Dynaudio Confidence C4's came into the picture.Mated with Krell 300 mono blocks sound came from them like I was there.Deep deep way deep soundstage,soundstage bigger then the room as if it was trying to penatrate into the next listening room.Breath taking they are, now my very favorite speaker money can buy,not mine of course as they are way out of my league.But it's nice to have Dreams isn't it????
Nice post by the way TroyD.I enjoyed reading it.And posts to follow.