Magnepan MMG's and Sony DB-930 (1 Viewer)

[shujaatkhan]

Hi All,
I have an Energy Take 5 system and, I'm planning to add an extra pair of mains (Magnepan MMG's) for music.
I've heard people say that the Maggies need a lot of power, so I was wondering if my Sony DB will be ok with it??
Are there any other hints/tips on setting up the maggies??
Thanks in advance and I'd appreciate any input.

 

[Saurav]

Go to the planar speaker asylum on www.audioasylum.com and run a search, you'll find a gazillion discussions on this.

 

[Rich G]

Most say that they are tough to place and have a small sweet spot. But once you get everything right, people love them. It may be tough to get voice matching with your other 3 speakers correct with these. Something to consider.
Your receiver may not be the best to drive these speakers, 4ohm and very inefficient. You will notice a volume difference with your current speakers. You may have to consider outboard amps.
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Rich G.

 

[Andrew Pratt]

As someone that actually owns maggie speakers (5 in my HT) I can tell you that a lot of what people tell you about maggies being difficult loads or hard to drive are mostly inaccurate. Magnepan speakers act for the most part just like a 4 ohm resistor plugged into the amp. In that their ohm rating doesn't change no matter what frequeny they are being asked to play. Take a normal 6-8 ohm speaker and plot their ohm rating vs frequency and you'll see some peaks and valleys that might dip well below 4 ohms esp on 4-6 ohm speakers. These speakers are truly hard to drive, maggies are fairly easy in that regard. One thing that is true is that they are ineffiecent so the more power you give them the better (to a point obviously) but even a modest receiver can push a couple of maggies with ease. I started out with a pair of MMG's connected to my Denon 3300 and it was great...but then of course once you hear maggies you need more so after replacing all my other speakers with them I started to discouver that the denon's power suply wasn't up to the tast of powering 5 maggies. Its then that I added the HK 5800 5 channel power amp ($300 on the net if you look) and it has no problem powering the maggies so that might be an option down the road for you. For what its worth I recently added a much nicer 2 channel amp for the mains and it made a huge difference but to answer your inital question yes the sony will easily power a pair of maggies.
Take a chance, think outside the box..you'll be very glad you did
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http://www.attcanada.ca/~itisi

 

[Westly T]

I ran my MMG's (when I had them) off a DB930 and my 777ES. I thought they had no problem driving them, and would say go for it. My 777ES even did a decent job driving my 1.6QR's, but the Marantz MA700's do give me better sound.
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- Wes
My Home Theater
The MMG were replaced with 1.6QR's and added Marantz MA-700's. SVS is here. Ok, allot more then that has changed, I'll update my page some day...

 

[shujaatkhan]

Thanks everyone, for the info.
That makes me feel better. I won't be running all five channels at the same time with them, since I'm getting them just for music, so seems like I'll be ok.
Only thing is I'll have to remember to flip the switch in the back from 4 to 8 ohms each time I switch between them and the energys.
Out of curiosity, what would happen if I forgot to fip that switch? Just an increased/ decreased volume or would it do something terrible to my stytem?
TIA

 

[shujaatkhan]

More Questions! for Andrew and Westly
Do you guys use any exotic cables with your Maggies or just regular home depot stuff? Don't wanna start the eternal cable dispute but just want to know what you use....!
I do have Kimber 4TC's (I know, overkill my tiny energy mains) which I'll use for the maggies.
TIA again.

 

[Andrew Pratt]

I'm running IXOS's 11 guage 6006 cables to my front three channels. As far as the switch i'd leave it at 8 ohms and see how hot the receiver runs. if it says cool great leave it there, if not then maybe the 4 ohm switch is the ticket. It won't matter to much unless the receiver starts running to hot but like I said earlier these aren't normal 4 ohm loads we're talking about.
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http://www.attcanada.ca/~itisi