ce_4

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
Less than 1 month

Visitors rate this review
4.29 of 5, 7.00 votes

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
I purchased these out of curiosity to see what they sounded like. Upon listening, I was stunned at how terrible they were. No bass, extremely weak highs, and the midrange sounded like the speaker wires were connected to cardboard. I decided to try them out for at least a week before returning them in case this was just a matter of "break-in." That break-in time period is supposed to be 100 hours, but as somebody stated, more realistically 200 hours. After three painful hours (an hour a day) of listening, by the fourth day, they were starting to sound kind of nice. After a week and a half, they sound like... well, read the positive reviews. I don't know if this is the case with all of Magnepan's products or if someone had a bad day and just shipped it without giving it a honk of white noise. Perhaps the break-in and perceived improvement is all in my imagination. Take my word for it, at first I was ready to shoot them back in their boxes fast, and return to my original setup: two fifteen inch active subwoofers, two giant monitors, and two Fostek super tweeters. Quite a change, but the sound of the MMGs is magical, very lifelike and detailed. I do hear sounds in familiar recordings that were merely a sonic smear in the past. For example, John Lennon's voice has a growl in "I Want to Hold Your Hand." I never heard that before, nor even noticed his voice.

I added the two subs with the MMGs, and added a gentle dose of LCY 100Lsuper tweeters. The subs only add from 50 Hz. down, and you are right, there is a time alignment difference between the subs and the MMGs, To add insult to injury, out of necessity they are being driven by an old Onkyo receiver 130 watts at 4 ohms, but it's actually just under six ohms from my calculation. They can go painfully loud without audible distortion before I have to turn my hearing aid down.

Keep the cartons if you buy these and want to return them, as Magnepan will charge you without the cartons. Or, I'll sell you mine.

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hififorlife

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
1 to 3 months

Visitors rate this review
1.00 of 5, 2.00 votes

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
I am 48 years old and have been an audio enthusiast for about 33 years,yes 33 years.When i was a teen i would spend many a afternoon at New England HiFi.I have spent as much as $10.000 on a system,and have tried so many different systems.So to my point if you do not give these speakers a good listen,you lose.I can not believe how good they are.I bought the MMG and on a whim went and bought an 20 year old pair of MG1C.Just for fun,and thay are amazing in there own right.please take the time with any magnepan and you will be so rewarded.

stuartson

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
1 to 3 months

Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5, 4.00 votes

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
For the last few years I've been using a pair of fantastic dynamic loudspeakers (Neat Acoustics Motive 1's, ($3,200 retail and highly recommended!). I love them, I think they do everything well and I have no intention of getting rid of them, but I had an itch to try something different, an alternative pair of speakers that would give my hi-fi a different sound from time to time without having to give up the Neats.

I've always been interested in planer speakers and the MMGs were very attractive because of the price point. Still, I figured if I was going to spend $640 or even $395 (used on Audiogon, where I bought them) then I wanted to be sure that they'd work in my system and be a worthy alternative to the Motive 1's. The Motive 1's are a high value speaker to begin with and they cost nearly $1600 more than the MMGs, so I knew right off that it wasn't going to be a fair comparison. Boy, was I surprised!

First off, The MMGs are amazing! Not simply "amazing for the money", but flat out amazing. The soundstage is open and expansive, the tonal reproduction is exceptional, the speed and detail are mind-boggling at times. They truly have the ability to reproduce certain types of music with a scary accuracy and realism. All of these "pros" have been mentioned and elaborated on in many of these reviews so I'll stop there. Before buying these I was actually less concerned with the "pros" (I expected a beautiful midrange) and more concerned with the "cons" (would beautiful midrange be the only thing they could do well and would everything else suck?). Well, in my opinion, the "cons" are way overstated. There is a legitimate basis for them but it shouldn't scare you away if you pair them with the right electronics and if your primary taste in music is not death metal, pipe organ recitals or techno. The MMGs are not that difficult to set up and they don't have a ridiculously tiny sweet spot, they do have sufficient bass for many types of music and they are perfectly fine without custom stands or internal modifications. period.

Myth 1. "Difficult to position with a small sweet spot." I placed them in the same place as my Motive 1's and they sounded great on first play. They are 2' from the back wall, 6' apart measured inside to inside, my listening position in 8' from the speakers, the ribbon tweeters are on the outside. The toe in is such that I can just see just the back edge of each speaker's inside stand.
This roughly conforms to the recommendations in the manual which suggests a 60% ratio between speakers and listening position, but it's totally not necessary to be that exact.
As with all speakers, the sweet spot is in the middle. My wife and I can sit side by side and both be in the sweet spot. Some people make it sound as if the sweet spot it so narrow that if you move you head and inch in either direction you lose that amazing soundstage. Not the case in my experience.

Myth 2. "Lack bass and must use a sub to make them acceptable". Quite the contrary, the bass is quick, tight and realistic. It's not going to deliver the lower octaves but I found it to be acceptable with many different types of music, including the new Beatles' stereo remasters, Chet Baker's "Chet" , My Morning Jacket's "Z" and the new Leonard Cohen "Live in London". In fact, I would NOT add a subwoofer unless it's really, really good. I heard the MMGs recently with an somewhat expensive subwoofer and it did not integrate well in my opinion. At best it added a little bottom end and at worst it muddied the nice mid-bass the MMGs are quite capable of reproducing on their own. If you want a little more bass then I would recommend getting the MG12s instead of the MMGs. It wasn't necessary for my taste and not worth the extra $400-$600 since these are secondary speakers in my rig, but if I was committing to Magnepan as my only pair of speakers and I only had a small or medium sized room to put them in, then I would seriously consider the MG12's instead. There is a difference between the two but fundamentally they are the same. I had the opportunity to audition both of them at a hi-fi shop after I bought the MMGs on Audiogon.

Myth 3. "You must use custom stands or do extensive modifications to get them to sound good".
My listening position is 8' from the speakers and I prefer them tilted back as recommended by Magnepan.
You don't need to invest in custom stands that get them upright and off the floor unless you just can help yourself.

Ok, that said, you do need to follow the basic amplifier and room placement recommendations from Magnepan. They are perfect for small to medium sized listening rooms and they do need to be at least 2' from the back wall. If you've got a big room then you should take advantage of that and consider the 1.6's.

You need an amplifier that can handle a 4 ohm load. One reviewer on this site mentioned getting good results with a NAD C325BEE. That is by no means an exotic or expensive amplifier. In fact, it's an amazing bargain of an amp. I'm currently using a Rogue Cronus Magnum with KT90 output tubes (4 ohm setting) and it's an amazing combo! I can't recommend it enough.
I use an Exposure 2010s for the Neats but they only handle 8 ohms so the Rogue is it for the MMGs.

Last night my wife summed up the magic of these speakers perfectly. She and our 11 month old baby were sitting on the couch listening to a children's CD that they've listened to many times before (Putumayo World Music 'Asian Dreamland' various artists PUT-259, excellent for adults too!) She had her eyes closed and for the first time realized the wonderful experience of feeling as if the instruments and players are live and in the room with you. She was in a trance listening to the plucked stings of a shamisen when the percussion came in and both her and our baby turned their heads toward the outside left speaker to see where that sound was coming from. For me, that's a better endorsement for these speakers than anything I could say about them. Run, don't walk, to get a pair!

edpadden

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
1 to 3 months

Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5, 1.00 votes

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
Hello.

I was using a pair of Castle Acoustic Severns for some time. Really liked them but wanted to try something different. I use to own a pair of the SMGc and 2.7QR models in the past and really loved them. I put an ad on Audiogon seeing if anyone had a pair of MMGs they wanted to trade. I lucked out. A guy one state away had a pair he wanted to trade for my Castles. I received them two days later. Had a couple repairs / mods to do first. Had to replace one of the nuts on the speaker for one of the stands. The other issue I had was the screws for the Amplifier inputs were missing. I ended up pulling off the connection plates, removing all connectors and fuses and installing a pair of binding posts for the input. No more fuse and tweeter attenuator. Nice and clean. Much better than those crazy nut looking things they put on there stock.

I had also just purchased a NAD C325BEE (50 WPC) integrated amp and their C545 CD player. I was a little worried that the 50 wpc wouldn't do it but it was no problem for the little NAD. I first put on a real good acoustic guitar piece from Nils Lofgren "Keith don't go" off the live CD. Holey F@^*&ing S#it!!! I am hearing every little buzz and twang from this guys acoustic guitar. I melted into my couch and cranked it up. I was breathing the music. It was right there in my room with me. When it was over. I just sat there with my mouth hanging open and the hairs on my neck were on end. I said "okay, what's next" I popped in my 'Best of Kodo' Chinese drum music. OMG the bass is awesome and not matter how loud I turned it up, the speakers never lost their composure. Just hit me harder. I'm in love! I shouted.

I have had all kinds of electronics and speaker in my 36 years and I can't remember the last time I had so much fun listening to the music. For $1500 you can't get a better sound in my opinion for the money.

Ed

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
I re-sorted all the reviews here from worst to best, then started reading the worst ones first. I like the MMGs. A lot. So reading the negative reviews brought several points to mind.

Lack of bass, loudness, low efficiency and amplifier fickleness (and they are not - read on) need to be compared to one other factor - price. When discussing same, please compare them to a range of similarly priced speakers, don't say JBLs or Thiels are so much better in those regards, when they never retailed for $500.

In short, in the $500 range for a new set of loudspeakers, there is no (box) speaker that can reproduce the transient response and smooth highs of the MMGs. And for $500, you can afford a (cheap $200) sub, which is a must.

I have two pairs of Magneplanar systems. Let's ignore the pair which are connected to my expensive amp, CD deck, fancy cables etc... (The sound difference is noticeable, but even to self-labeled audiophiles, not that much - I've had to get them to do a near instant A-B test with the same material before some - not all - hear the differences!)

Anyway, my second pair of Magneplanars (the MMGs) run off a $200 Pioneer AV receiver. The trick? The lows are sent off to a $200 sub-woofer. Being an AV receiver, it allows me to set the cross-over frequency of the sub-woofer. I set it to 50 Hz. The result is that the receiver does not have to work on the lowest frequencies, allowing more power to be available to combat the lower efficiency of the MMGs. The (cheap) sub never has to work at anything above 51Hz, and so cannot and does not colour the bass from the MMGs. I've ended up then with an extended deep bass that finishes off an almost perfect mid-bass, (the MMGs legendary) midrange, and highs with a transient response second to none.

The MMGs do have a response that curves gently down either side of about 2000 Hz. Since most average sized rooms tend to boost up the mid bass (around 200 Hz) and the sub can be adjusted to manage the missing below 50 Hz, the gap behind the back of the MMGs and the rear wall is carefully adjusted - using white noise - to INCREASE (only) it's highest frequencies. This allows the roll-off from 2kHz to be less so, adding just that little bit more to the above 10kHz area.

Then I use a low-priced analogue SPL meter, set it to the recording studio standard of 83db (C weighted, Fast) and with those levels (I'm about 10 feet back) the 55 WRMS Pioneer AV receiver actually survives driving the MMGs!

Bad points, there are several. But gosh, these speakers cost $500!!! (Okay, $700 with the sub.) These are NOT party speakers. For parties I have a pair of Boom Boxes with 15" "woofers" and horn "tweeters". Loud. Junk. But during a party, nobody cares. They do their job of being loud (and fun).

At all other times, I am in 83db (average) loudness, and in true bliss. Sure 83db is not loud, but certainly NOT soft; get that SPL meter from Radio Shack before you decide. (Actually reviews without measured SPLs should be banned, I think! ;-)) And if you've killed your ears from overly loud iPod 'music', it's about time you stopped before permanent deafness sets in.....

I use Replay Gain. With Replay Gain settings on my MediaMonkey software I can quickly shuffle between my 1,000s of MP3 and FLAC files and not have to touch the volume control on the amp (except for the 6db difference between 'louder' highly compressed and 'normal' recordings), and it is clear that there are many recordings out there that have a poor tonal balance. When recordings are thin, the MMGs sound thin. When recordings are bright, the sound is bright. Don't blame the speakers, don't blame the clear window that the MMGs present. But there are also many well balanced good recordings with a wide dynamic range (about 50/50). This you will only know after listening to 100s of tracks. Don't judge the MMGs too soon on a series of bad music tracks (some from highly distinguised artists).

Tip: Ensure you connect your PC's audio to your AVR with a digital connection, not analogue; PC DACs are woeful! Also turn Off MediaMonkey's "clipping prevention" and set the levels to 83db, not 89db. This ensures your pre-amp stages are NEVER overloaded, and the full dynamic range of the tracks are left to soar.

After the tracks have been Replay Gained and rated (not by good song/bad song but by good recording/bad recording), I then sort my digital music list by their ratings, skip the bad (quality recordings) and can listen in absolute bliss for hours. Starting at 10:00 PM I was once surprised when my spouse walked down at 7:00 AM - and I was still un-fatigued and in full 83db-listening mode!

It is important to understand what MMGs are. No box, no boxiness. Full-wave mid-bass punch like no box speaker. And never any sibilance from vocals. NEVER.

Lastly, get yourself a reference speaker system. By that I mean a reference pair of headphones. The Sennheiser HD-650s are my reference standard. They go much much louder than my MMGs, but my system's tonal balance is nearly identical between my loudspeakers and headphones. How? Stand next to a live drum set and listen. Then listen to some drums on the HD-650s. Then listen to drums on the MMGs and other speakers. Then you will KNOW that the MMGs are truly hi-fi. And for just $500!