Followup-Magnepan 1.7s in a 10x13' dedicated room?

I'd like to emphasize that "some" recordings were a "little" bright, but far from unlistenable. I think it was more the recording than the speakers. These speakers just show you what's in the recordings more than I'm used to. If they didn't, genuinely good recordings wouldn't sound as good as they can through these speakers.

I put the Athena LS500bs back into the system last night and that actually showed in stark contrast what I was hearing with the MG12s. Or rather what I was no longer hearing with them gone. The last day that I had them I had just received a new CD by Keiko Matsui named Soul's Quest. I had not listened to this disc through my speakers. Track six on this CD, "Antarctica--A Call To Action" has some really dynamic percussive transients that just blew me away exclaiming WOW by the end of it. Literally raised goose bumps on my arms. I could feel the drummers sticks hitting his snare drum and toms. I could hear and feel his foot pedal mallet hitting the bass drum skin, not just the boom of it. I was actually afraid the speakers might hurt themselves. So now that the speakers are gone I go to listen to this really great recording again through my Athenas and when I get to track six, I'm left wondering if I'm remembering the track number correctly. It literally sounded like a different song. The drums were recessed way in the background with no impact and puny, as if the recording engineer intended for them to barely be heard. There was actually more low frequency energy from the bass drum but none of the transient speed and slam. It's as if the speaker box and damping inside are just soaking up all the energy, even though they are five db more sensitive. If I hadn't just learned that the MG12s are soon to be upgraded to .7 with the full QR drivers I'd put an order in right now. It's going to be hard to wait, but I think I'll just continue accumulating funds until they are released and if it takes more than a couple of months I'll just get the 1.7s.

07-23-14: Brownsfan
Bombawalla, thanks for sharing this info. I had not heard this idea, and I must admit it makes perfect sense....

Brownsfan, yes, what I'm finding out is that a lot of people are quite unaware (& perhaps even ignorant) about loudspeakers needing to be time-coherent. Time-coherence in loudspeakers ensure non-fatiguing sonics & a very realistic & natural playback of the music.
Time-alignment is just one small aspect of time-coherence in loudspeaker design. Time alignment merely aligns the acoustical centers of the drivers such that the sound from each driver reaches your ear at the same time but does not deal with the phase of the various frequencies that comprise a music signal. So, a time-aligned speaker can distort the phase of the music signal & destroy one's listening pleasure.
You get a time-coherent loudspeaker by using an acoustically insert cabinet, time aligning the drivers & ensuring that the phase of the various frequencies that comprise a music signal is not touched.
We are having a long discussion on this topic right now in the thread "Sloped Baffle".

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1403209611&&&/Sloped-baffle

It's got some 195 posts! If you start at the beginning of this thread, I have provided 3 links to prev threads on Audiogon discussing time-coherence in loudspeakers. Plus, as you go thru the thread concentrate on posts by "Royj" - Roy Johnson is the owner/designer of Green Mountain Audio in Colorado Springs & he designs only time-coherent loudspeakers. In this thread he answers questions from other members & clarifies the concept of time-coherence & why it's so important.
There are a few loudspeaker manufacturers that build time-coherent speakers & I think that these people are the smarter ones.....

"07-23-14: Bombaywalla

07-23-14: Brownsfan
Bombawalla, thanks for sharing this info. I had not heard this idea, and I must admit it makes perfect sense....

Brownsfan, yes, what I'm finding out is that a lot of people are quite unaware (& perhaps even ignorant) about loudspeakers needing to be time-coherent. Time-coherence in loudspeakers ensure non-fatiguing sonics & a very realistic & natural playback of the music. "

That's all great, but how does it help him in getting his Magnepan's sounding right?

Zd, yes we wandered a bit. However, if the OP is able to use stands that permit tilting the panels to achieve a perpendicular from the mid point of the panels to his ear when seated, it will improve the sound. Other than that, nada. Just an interesting observation I thought.

I didn't see where you mentioned the stands. I thought you were just talking in theory. The stands are an interesting idea. Have you ever tried anything like that with Magnepan? With traditional speakers, you can place the drivers at points that are most effective for time coherence, but with Magnepan, the ribbons run the full length of the speaker. If you pivot the speaker at its mid point, you move half the ribbon further away from the listener, but the other half closer. Since you get the highs from the full length of the driver, I don't see how that will help. If it were to make an audible improvement, I suspect that it will be from pointing the ribbon upward and not having it fire directly at the listener. The highs would be rolled off, but not necessarily time correct. You can probably get almost the exact same effect if you were to just tilt the speaker back. Try putting some type of spacer under the 2 front feet. Its a very good idea, though. Had I thought of it, I might have been able to live with my 1.7's.