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Mini Maggie System hurts to listen to

I went to a local audio dealer to audition different speakers for a home office. I listened to the mini-maggie system extensively, loved it, and brought it home. Unfortunately at home they are causing something I've never experienced before. After listening to them I feel a clogged sensation in my ears and an almost reflexive cringing at higher frequency sounds. I've put in the included tweeter resistor which helped slightly but not enough. Listening levels are low. At the dealer the maggies had a lot more space behind them then they do here. They are being powered by a Peachtree Inova. Some recordings are worse than others but almost all cause this with time. Sources are digital and vinyl. ~80 hours on the speakers. Any thoughts?
jataro
dave_b's avatar
dave_b
3,159 posts
 
As a former Maggie owner (Lover), take my advice and get get your money back. It aint worth the headache, time or $$$ involved to make a Maggie sound acceptable.
jataro OP
2 posts
 
So I thought I'd post an update to the thread in case someone in the future sees has a similar issue. I decided to ride it out a little bit and put some more time on the speakers. After another one hundred hours the speakers broke in and that top end burn went away. I still have the 1 ohm resistor in but may take it out in the future. I also raised them up so they were more at ear level when seated. I also added an old subwoofer which had been going unused. Overall time was the most important thing as they seemed to need 200-300 hours to break in. Raising them helped ~20% and I'd say the addition of a sub accounted for another 20% of the improvement. I'm very happy with them and would now really recommend them.
rjohnson
1 posts
 
Jataro- do you use these in a home theatre system or with your computer? Also do you get a decent 3D image from them?
shakeydeal
979 posts
 
Maggies can sound very disappointing right out of the box, glad you gave them more time.

Shakey
josh358
286 posts
 
Yeah, agree with Shakey -- Maggies sound awful before burn-in. Apparently it's the thermal cycling that limbers things up.

Rjohnson, the word from Magnepan is that while the Minis can be used in a small room they're basically designed to be desktop speakers and won't perform as well as the full-sized models in a large one. For home theater, the on-walls are often a good choice.

I haven't yet heard the Minis myself but from what I've read, you get a very three dimensional image but you may have to pull the desk out from the wall to get the best imaging, as with any speaker early reflections from the wall behind them can reduce the sense of space.
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