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I'm auditioning some Maggies...

cipriano

cipriano

Well-Known Member
...and I have an issue and was hoping to get some feedback. The MMG's are being powered by an Onkyo TX-8555 receiver and quite frankly they are getting blown out of the water by a pair of Human 81's (modern EPI 100's) in every possible way except for one area: background silence. The Humans have a background hiss or white noise that the Maggies do not. When listening to something like Stars of The Lid this becomes very obvious and it's driving me crazy because the Humans sound better but now I notice the white noise. I switch to the Maggies and get reduced everything (presence, sound stage, etc.) but the dead silent background is glorious and tough to abandon once experienced.

Any ideas on how to square this circle?
 
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I would wager your having the issue you are because the Onkyo has only 50wpc and probably doesn't like the 4ohm load of the Maggies.

The Maggies should easily blow almost any box speaker out of the water if positioned well and being fed enough juice.

Good luck

Eric
 
more power, much more, and placement is key with maggies.

the maggies are very inefficient, and that decrease in volume is translated to sounding less good then whatever you're comparing it to, it's how Bose sells speakers.

Gain match the two speakers make sure the maggies are ~1/3d or more in the room (surprisingly, they sound VERY good just inside halfway if your room is a box or a rectangle) and try again. Maggies will not match in bass impact a box driver speaker, but they do have fabulous bass.
 
I thought the Onkyo would be fine. It's 100 wpc at 8 ohm and 148 wpc at 4 ohm.

Is the dead silent background a feature of the Maggies? Or is that coming from being underpowered?
 
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I think that what you're hearing as silence is simply that the less-efficient Maggies are not letting you hear the inherent noise of the Onkyo's power amp (which would not be affected by the volume control setting). Nobody's specificallly said this, but it's important that your comparison be with the speakers at the same volume, which will require different volume control settings (higher for the Maggies).
 
Having owned MMG's I felt they needed power to bring out their best. I'm sure there are experts here who give some technical answers but I have been told that one thing to look for when looking at power is to see if the power output doubles or nearly doubles when going from 8ohm to 4ohm. The fact that the Onkyo doesn't do that makes me think it is probably struggling with the MMG's which I am sure dip below 4ohms at times. When I had my MMG's I first started out using a Adcom 545 which went to 150 wpc at 4ohms and it struggled when playing above moderate levels.
 
Are you just switching between speakers or are you adjusting the volume to be equal when you listen to the other speaker?

what are you looking for in sound? the MMG will not punch you with sonic power, but they will set up a very nice soundstage. Playing a jazz band, close your eyes and see the performance with the different instruments in different locations. Female vocals and you can see the singer right there in front of you. Not so much with monkey coffins. But each person has their own preference for speakers. What is yours?
 
maggies are almost ruler flat impedence @ 4ohms, it's one of their benefits. There is very little deviation or dip, unlike most conventional speakers.

I drive my 1.6 QR's with 350 wpc rms @8 ohms Carver pro amps.(and yes, I've had the amps on a bench tested and they output what they say they output plus a bunch more for peaks) I hear no hiss at all, but I also have a completely balanced signal path from my source (computer) to pre(Bryston) to Amps.
 
Maggie's need to be out from the wall behind them at least 3 feet or preferably more. Are yours set up that way? Point them at your nose. As everyone says, it is important to do comparisons at the same volume. My MMGs sounded fantastic, and yours should, too.
 
Having owned three different set's of Maggies (MMG's included) I can tell you two things you need to do besides getting a high current amp to run them. First you need to get the MMG's standing straight up, what I did was bend the angled stands to a 90 degree angle and to keep them from tipping forward I hot glued 2 ft long oak strips to the bottom of them. Next find something very heavy to place on the backside of the stands (I used 40lb solid dumbells) and you'll see a whole level of bass and impact appear that the stock setup is missing. Without careful setup and fine tuning Maggies can seem thin and lifeless, but give them proper attention and they will sing (pun intended)!
 
Every magnepan owner that loves their Maggie's remarks about how the magnepans sound better with as much power/current you can throw at them.
 
I ran my MMGs with a 110 watt Hafler DH-220. I've run the 1.7s with a 12 watt Heathkit tube amp.

It depends on how loud you want to listen.
 
cipriano said:
I thought the Onkyo would be fine. It's 100 wpc at 8 ohm and 148 wpc at 4 ohm.

Is the dead silent background a feature of the Maggies? Or is that coming from being underpowered?
Click to expand...

A. The web says it's only 50wpc

B. Those are skinny watts at that.

You need serious mosfets to get what you want out of those Maggies.

Good luck

Eric
 
legalalien said:
Having owned three different set's of Maggies (MMG's included) I can tell you two things you need to do besides getting a high current amp to run them. First you need to get the MMG's standing straight up, what I did was bend the angled stands to a 90 degree angle and to keep them from tipping forward I hot glued 2 ft long oak strips to the bottom of them. Next find something very heavy to place on the backside of the stands (I used 40lb solid dumbells) and you'll see a whole level of bass and impact appear that the stock setup is missing. Without careful setup and fine tuning Maggies can seem thin and lifeless, but give them proper attention and they will sing (pun intended)!
Click to expand...

I am curious about your set up. I always wondered why Magnepan purposely tilt the panels forward. At least mine are tilted forward. I have to think this is by design, but if you are getting better sound by having them stand at 90 degrees to the floor I will probably give that a test run. Can you tell me about the oak strips? How wide and thick are they? Is this for stability or to raise them off the floor a bit? Also wondering about the 40 lb weight on the back of the stands. Does this provide better stability as well? I think mine sound really good, but I've always questioned the flimsiness of the stands. The panels actually move back and forth when lightly touched and can't help thinking they could be oscillating a bit when playing music at elevated listening levels. Sounds like you've come up with a pretty good way to stiffen the setup and are enjoying better sound as a result.
 
thymanst said:
Every magnepan owner that loves their Maggie's remarks about how the magnepans sound better with as much power/current you can throw at them.
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No question. I was driving mine with a McIntosh 2105 rated at 105 watts per channel and they just didn't sound as good as they do now with the Peachtree that is putting out around 400 a side into the 4 ohm load.
 
Back when the SMG came out, the first 4-foot maggie, it leaned back a good bit. I believe it was because the speakers do not have any vertical dispersion of the high frequencies and when one stands up they usually rise above those frequencies produced by the speakers, even the MG-Is with their 5 foot height. Very dull sounding when the tweeters can not be heard.
 
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