How far would you from the side walls? I have absorbers at 90deg off axis from the tektons and some high directly forward and on axis directly behind. I find this to have cut down on much of the “bouncing around” that I had. Do the magnepans benefit from room treatments? Just thinking about it, does the distance from the rear wall perform the “same function” ie, lowering the impact of rear signal bouncing of that hard surface to soon, too strongly and causing what ends up sounding like distortion?
So this is really subjective. Trial and error is your best bet. For me, I had great experience quite close or a few feet away from side walls.
Distance from rear walls certainly does what you say in terms of reducing what sounds like distortion from the timing being thrown off due to being too close for reflections and causing a confused type of sound. But that is not the primary reason for pulling them out, in my opinion. At least it is not why I do it. Especially having heard many Maggies much closer that did not suffer from the effect you describe. The reason to pull them out is to allow them to breathe more. Vague, I know. But if you think of the room as your box, it just allows them to be more balanced and complete. More precise. Better soundstage. Deeper soundstage. Better off-axis sound. and more realistic and live sounding. That's been my experience with nearly 30 years of Magnepan listening. So I'd experiment with moving them further out simply because most speakers benefit from this, but without a doubt, this is crucial to the Magnepan sound. Again, many have great sound without doing this. But not on the same level. Nearly all speakers in nearly all rooms and speakers benefit from acoustic treatment. Magnepan speakers probably more than most. I happened to have a naturally beautiful sounding room, so I didn't need much at all. Same with my friend who had the older pair. He was in an old house Built in the 1800s. He had a live jazz band play in his house once and it sounded fantastic. Everything just sounded good. He was very lucky. the fact that you have vaulted ceilings puts you at an advantage, in my opinion, as I always find lower ceilings to crowd the sound. Again, I'm sure there are many who may have had the opposite experience, and that's fine. Just sharing mine.
In general with Maggies, you want to treat the room without making it dead. you want them to still have life. I would go to your dealer and demo some of them and get a feel for what you like.
Again, you're in a good position due to the power reserves you've got. They like a lot of power. A lot of current. They become a much more refined sounding speaker as you go up the chain with front end quality.
They're the only reason I still like solid state, high power amplifiers. If not for Magnepans, I'd have gone high sensitivity speakers with tubes, long time ago.
Magnepans just have something I miss when I am without them. What part of the country are you in?
Any Magnepan dealers near you?
regarding the sublimes - yes, they divide the frequency ranges. I just wondered if you'd listened with and without and heard a difference in the type of sound.
I'm interested due to the price-point. I don't like to use equalizers, so I doubt I'll turn one up more than the other, but I always noticed an improvement when separating frequencies.
I'd be interested to see a pic of your setup if you end up going with the Magnepans. Nice to chat about them. I am tempted to turn them on and test russ69's suggestion about the bananas. But as mentioned in a previous message, my big issue is a radio station right now.
It has really turned me off to playing vinyl, which is my main listening source these days. Real downer.