Maggie update - Page 46

Re: Maggie update

Do tell. You making one?

Re: Maggie update

Thanks All, will keep you updated.
Imu

Re: Maggie update

My MMGs will be arriving Monday.

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That's awesome....can't wait to hear what you think of them! As much as I enjoyed their sound, I think what I may like best about them is their contemporary appearance. I just think the MMGs are very cool looking....

What color did you decide on? Mine were just the basic black on black....I loved 'em

Re: Maggie update

Black black. I don't care for oak and they don't do cherry on the MMGs.

What amps should I be thinking of eventually? I want some warmth but don't want to kill the detail if that makes sense. Oh and IF I decide to stay with maggies I would be buying amps with the 1.6s in mind in the future and my room is large. I was at one point thinking two outlaw monoblocks and then get two more to biamp way down the road.

Re: Maggie update

Howdy maggie mates!! And welcome to the new guys!!

Did a little tweaking the other night. I took the crossover box off the back of my 3.6's and used some short lengths of my anti-cable wires to hook them back up....got rid of the steel maggie pins which came on my maggies. I haven't had a lot of time to do any critical listening, but I think I am hearing a bit more dynamics and detail!!

I wil keep you posted.

Re: Maggie update

Greetings all

Charles, what is your budget for an amp? I usually recommend B&K, Parasound, Odyssey, and Van Alstine. The Van Alstine is a hybrid tube/ss amp, and I have it on very good authority that they are magic with the Maggies.

Alan M likes his Crown pro amp, so you should look into those too....if they make his 3.6s sing, then they'll do well for the 1.6s

What are you running now, P? I know you had the Rotel in there, but I'm thinking you went to something else a while back yeah?

And WHERE IS DEAN-O????????? Do we need to send out the search party???

Re: Maggie update

Monopoles, no matter how good, are still very much at the mercy of the room...that's where a dipole has the advantage. Don't expect much below 40hz or so, but for the music range they can be truly revelatory. My dipole makes even my IB sound relatively "slow", but my room sucks...better rooms benefit less.

Re: Maggie update

Still running the Rotel RB 1090.
http://www.rotel.com/products/specs/rb1090.htm

It pushes these maggies around pretty well. And for less than 2K it is a great amp....is there better amps for my maggies? That will be my next and final (yeah, right) upgrade!!

Re: Maggie update

awaited all weekend for my Maggies. UPS dude came, but I was raking leaves in the back and he left. They will attempt again tomorrow.

in the meantime this weekend I moved my Athena ASF2 to join the BOSE in the HT. They compliment the system quite well, but I have a question:
I used the preout from my Pioneer receiver to join another receiver (an RCA) to run the ASF2. But when I lower the volume on the Pioneer the power delivered to the ASF2 also goes down. How crazy is that?? I thought preout would send a signal at no wattage dependent on the preout receiver. I am making any sense??

Anywho, will try to be home to receive the MMG and will keep you guys posted over the next few days. I hope Charles got his MMGs.

IMU


Imu

Re: Maggie update

You might could call the main UPS location near where you live if it's w/in reasonable driving distance. That happend to me once and they let me stop over after the truck returned from its route to pick up my package

I think your volume control issue is because you essentially have two volume controls in the loop.

Looking forward to hearing about the MMGs!

Re: Maggie update

Imu:

That is interesting that your Pioneer pre-out is controlled by its volume control. I am like you in thinking it would be independent. What Pioneer receiver do you own?

6

Re: Maggie update

Ah, a couple questions to answer and a story to tell.

1) I'm using an HK 3380 to power the MMGs for now (http://www.harmankardon.com/product_...203380&sType=C) I'm getting plenty of volume and its not getting at all hot so the only area I need to improve on is quality.

2) As far as my budget for amps? Anywhere up to $1000 in theory but I need a new DAC and a new pre-amp too, so... That's what made the Outlaws look good but I've also been looking at the Exodus/Hypex UCD amps. Audiogon will be a regular hangout for me going forward If I could get one of the amps you mentioned for closer to $500 I'd be happier of course, but I don't want to skimp out either.

OK, now my story. So I work from home yesterday to take delivery. UPS is ALWAYS there by around noon. It gets later and later, so I check the status. Delivered, left on porch... NO way, I've been sitting IN the front room. So I call UPS. They say wait until it updates in their system and they can see what address they left it at. In the meantime, I say I'm calling Magnepan. "Hi Magnepan employee, I just ordered some MMGs. What address do you have on file?" "XXXX S. 92nd Ave." "NOOOOOO I live at XXXX S. 192nd Ave!!!!" So I drive over to XXXX 92nd Ave. thinking if they're laying there, I'll see if anyone is home and show them my ID. If no one is home, F it, I'm taking the package. Well no one was home, but there was no package. Well, it was a 40 minute round trip drive so I'm at least leaving a note. About 20 minutes after I get home, the gentleman on 92nd Ave. calls me. If I can show him ID, I can have my package. Back to 92nd Ave. Any way, I got the MMGs setup about 7 minutes before my family got home so I had to go have dinner and play with the kids.

Long story short (too late, huh?) I listened to them for about an hour and a half last night and left them on with FM radio all night last night and again today. I didn't really get the positioning right until the 15 minutes this morning that I had to play with them. The right hand speaker was out too far to the right and I wasn't getting a solid center image.

So, other than that, impressions...

1) Sounded a bit thin at first but I was crossing them over with an outboard Paradigm crossover originally designed for use with their Servo 15 sub. I had discovered with my old system that it sounds a lot better if I run the speakers full range and blend the sub in up underneath them instead. I discovered this was true of the Maggies in all of 15 minutes of playing around last night. Don't know if its a room thing or that the crossover doesn't have the best components in the high-pass section, but it sounds infinitely better with the MMGs running full range. So with the thinness gone, it sounded very nice.

2) The benefit of the setup described above is that when I feel like it, I can just kill the power amp to the subs and listen to JUST the main speakers. I did this a little this morning and am just stunned by the bass output of the MMGs. I played Flight of the Cosmic Hippo and the output was respectable. Not THAT close to with my subs on, but truly respectable.

3) I really think I need everything to break in and then I need to spend some more time listening so look for more details in the next few days.

Re: Maggie update

Charles............enjoy your new toy, and keep us posted!!

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Sometimes you appreciate things more when you really work for them.

I think part of the initial surprize is amazement that any bass at all is coming from such flat panels...at least I was. When you ditch the sub and really listen to them, though, you hear how good that dipole bass really is.
Break-in helps the overal picture, as does experimenting with the resistors for the tweeter panel.

Re: Maggie update

Yep, when I first picked up my MMGs, I had no subwoofer. There were plenty of times with both music and movies where I was pretty surprised at how much bass they really put out. I ran them full range, too, and they did a very respectable job even with some pretty intense action scenes.

Charles, I think the UCD amps were the ones that Dean was so high on about twenty pages ago, lol. If that Joker would chime in we could hear more about what he's up to!

You should be able to pick up a very nice amp for $1k, and even probably half that if you're looking on audiogon. For a DAC, consider the omegastar DAC from www.avahifi.com Frank Alstine is an audio legend and his DAC's are very well regarded. I think that particular DAC won a few awards. I'm still in the research stage of looking for preamps myself, so not sure I can be of much help. I know van alstine is a good choice there, too....Odyssey Audio has a new tube preamp that is very reasonable called the "Candela". If you want to really break the bank, you have the Modwright preamp for around $2500....supposed to be pretty damn good.

Anyway, keep us updated....and I know you're getting plenty of volume, but don't be surprised if you go with a more powerful amp at some point and they transform the Maggies! I'm just sayin....

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Here's another really good DAC option....a couple of them, actually. It's from a company called GR-Research. I've had a few conversations with the owner, Danny Richie, and while I've not heard his products, I know several people on the forums whose opinions I greatly respect say that his stuff is great.

Anyway, here's the link: http://www.gr-research.com/components/lite_dacs.shtm

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I've met and talked with Danny at RMAF the last two years. He is a great guy. For the record he's just selling those DACs, he doesn't design them. I said hi to Frank Van Alstine at RMAF but didn't talk to him. He shared a room with Salk Sound it was a very nice sounding room. New amps is an inevitability, not an option. I just have to figure out all the timing.

Considerations:

Speakers
MG 1.6 QR

Preamps
Van Alstine
Odyssey
Rogue Audio

Amps
Outlaw
Rotel
Aragon
B&K
Parasound

DAC
LiteAudio
Scott Nixon
Van Alstine

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You mention doing some room treatments on your HT site, which is a great idea. I think bass-trapping and first-reflection control will have a far greater positive effect than amp and DAC upgrades.

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Oh, well if you're going to things like the RMAF, then I don't need to be thinking of suggestions for ya, lol....hell, I'll come to YOU for them when I'm ready to finish my 2-channel pathway

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Jack, are you talking to me? If so, I already have room treatments in place. Mid to high band absorption behind the speakers and at the first reflection points. Bass trapping in the front corners. If you were talking to someone else, sorry.

Z, LOL, you don't need any special qualifications to got to RMAF. There are a lot of no-nothings there too. I've learned more in the last two years at RMAF though than the whole rest of the time in this hobby combined.

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Yeah, I hadn't noticed any in the photos on your site. Cool...

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Charles: I hear ya...and I'd love to hit that show (or Cedia)! I can only imagine how much more of a learning experience it is to actually go than to just try and find show reports, which usually what I end up doing. A lot of my favorite audio folks go to the shows, so one day I'm gonna join 'em!

How did you like the Salks with that Van Alstine gear? I don't know if you followed the exchange between Jim Salk and Frank V.A at the audio circles, but Jim ended up shipping Frank a demo pair of his HT-3s that Frank ended up loving. So then Frank sent Jim a set of his "ultra" components in exchange. It was a very interesting thread!

Did you happen to see Klaus of Odyssey audio? He's another character....lol

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The Salk/Van Alstine room was probably the best sanely priced room there. I did in fact meet and talk to Klaus from Odyssey. He is very hard to get a bead on. Either he's a constant kidder/clown or a major asshole. It was tough to tell.

Yeah, my website sucks. I started just dumping pics onto the server and linking to them in threads etc.

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lol, hey may be an assshole too for all I know, but Klaus is certainly known for being a ball buster.

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Finally received my MMGs today, but had to take kids out for TorT so left the box unopened. I wanted to ask my Honey to take the kids out so I could set up the new toys, but didn't have the guts---just kidding. Taking the kids out to "trick or treat" is always one of the special things I do!!

"That is interesting that your Pioneer pre-out is controlled by its volume control. I am like you in thinking it would be independent. What Pioneer receiver do you own?"

I own the Pioneer 914K (7.1 X 110). I used the optical out to my RCA optical in but had some funcky results. The best solution so far is to use the optical out from my DVD player to the Pioneer and the coaxial out from the same DVD player to my second receiver ( it works---the Pioneer DVD player outputs from the optical and coaxial simultaneously), so this way I can avoid the volume problem when using the preouts. I hope this makes sense to you guys, but if not don't waste your time.

I may get time tomorrow to set thing up. I'll keep you all updated!! For some reason I can't get myself to spend some real $$ to get quality amplifier, but may have to do it to get some real music.

Blessed with hearing but cursed with wanting it to sound like the musicians are in front of me. Probably will never be satisfied!! I am hoping the MMGs will get me started on the right path.

God Bless Us All,
Imu

Re: Maggie update

The treatments look great, Charles, nice job.

Re: Maggie update

Thanks!