I need some clarity


Hey guys, can yall give some suggestions on how to brighten the sound of my system. It consists of:
Ah! Njoe Tjeob CDP with the Burr Brown OPA627 Op-amp upgrade
Van Den Hul The Bay C5 IC
Parasound HCA 750 power amp
Acoustic Reasearch speaker wire (to be replaced soon)
Magnepan MMG

The midrange is quite nice and strong, the bass is fine, but I need more clarity and detail. My options in placement is very limited because I live in the dorm at my school, plus I have a roommate so I only have half of the room. I'm hoping I wont have to buy a pre amp with tone controls or brighter speakers. Any and all suggestions are welcome.

Thanks
lawbadman
So ZaiK:

What decent small monitors do you suggest in the $0-$50 price range? This is the budget that I ended up with in my last post.

The MMG's can sound quite good when set up half way right and this takes some time if you are not experienced with planers.

I do not see any problems with the system (should sound pretty damned good if the speakers can be placed 24" from the front wall) and suggested further work on setting it up properly.

As far as some of the silver IC's go I feel that they work quite well with softer sounding speakers (like the less expensive Vandersteens and the little Maggies). Since when is using the proper IC a tweak if it balances out what is otherwise lacking (in this case dynamics and HF's)?

Oh, and the same to you Dweller (we probably listened to the MMG's in the same shop - Shelly's). They sounded good and musical to me for a $550 planer.
Lawbadman, I can't tell you which speakers to get, nor would I presume to try. You'll need to listen to some things yourself if at all possible. What I want to stress is that you don't need "brighter" speakers, as you say - tonal balance is only part of what you crave. Clarity results from accurate transient response and low resonance as much as it does from outright extension or a flat frequency balance, which is why even tone controls will not fundamentally correct the flaw you perceive, despite the fact that such a control could certainly be used to provide some sort of additional 'brightness'. It is quite possible to have brightness without clarity, and it will sound even worse.

While I disagree (but only to an extent - I still like the speakers for their essential 'Maggie-ness') with Dekay's assessment of what the MMG's are ultimately capable of, he's dead on with his diagnoses of why these may well not be the speakers for you at this time (even though he doesn't frame it that way ;^) Flat-panel dipoles like Maggies are critically sensitive to both in-room positioning and listener positioning relative to the speakers, and a dorm room is probably not going to allow for the correct placement of either. As to the first factor, ideally Maggies should be at least 3ft., and more optimally 4 - 5ft. out from the front wall (although the MMG, which is both shorter and more angled than its big brothers, won't benefit as much from the greater distances, which is as it should be). As to the second factor, the listener must be able to position themselves with their 'line of hearing' absolutely perpendicular to the plane of the speaker panels. If you have to listen at all off-axis, you will quickly lose a lot of high frequency response - it's just the nature of this type of radiator.

My assumption is that you are experiencing both problems associated with this speaker - it's not as good a speaker as you want, and you can't properly utilize what goodness it has. Dekay is also right about them being a great value at $550 - MMG's give you some things no other speaker close to the price can do (primarily in their spatial presentation and lack of boxy colorations - great clarity however is not one of them), but that recommendation shouldn't be taken for more than what it is - on an absolute scale, these speakers are lacking in many ways. They are kind of a 'loss-leader' teaser for the Magnepan brand; consider that their next model up (the MG12) is almost twice the price, but only slightly larger. MMG's are basically sold on the premise that they will shortly be traded in and up using Maggie's full-credit program.

For your situation at the moment, a decent set of smallish 2-way box speakers (which may well run more than the MMG's, although not necessarily, especially used) could offer the kind of broad dispersion and ease of placement that you could probably use, and the right pair could also offer higher intrinsic clarity (in the senses mentioned above) than do the MMG's. It's got to be your call though - the MMG's are hard to beat in certain ways for the money, and sound quite different than what I'm suggesting. Depends on what your priorities are, both sound-wise and money-wise, and whether or not you can achieve optimum set-up with the Maggies. Even if you like the Maggie's special sound, if you can't set them up right and listen to them on-axis, don't waste money on other system tweaks trying to compensate - it won't work. And if you do have them set up right, but still crave more clarity, look for new speakers before spending on system tweaks, because you are already up against the MMG's limitations in the area which concerns you. (All IMHO, natch - Bob! :-)
Lawbadman...if your dorm room was like mine...Mags would be a "tight fit"...as others have stated...they are very room sensitive and not "space savers"...if you plan on moving off campus...I would keep em as opposed to taking a hit on the used market...although Mags have good resale value...probably around $400...monitor alternatives would be Spendor 3/5 used(sealed design)...Triangle Titus(front ported)...the Triangles are very detailed and transparent...some would say "bright"...neither will have the spacious qualities of the Mags...but there is not much out there at the $500 level that is...
ZaiK:

Looks like we agree more than disagree.

What do you think of our future Lawman trying some DIY diffusion panels for the back wave (place them on the front wall behind the speakers)?

There are some examples of these @ the Cain & Cain website (photos of their listening room) and it looks like two panels could be made with a single (4 x 8) sheet of MDF and a scroll saw (glue them up).

I had once considered using these with a pair of the little Acoustats in our spare bedroom which is about the same size as a typical dorm room and in which the speakers would have had to be approx. 24" from the front wall. I gave up on the project as the room was converted from a non-cat zone (we needed to add a second litter box in the bath off this room due to the addition of a psycho cat).
A friend and I went and listened to a bunch of <$1K monitors, and the Meadowlark Vireos were hands down the best of what we auditioned (I forgot all the models we listened to... sorry!). Very BIG sound, filled the room. I loved them, and my speakers are hybrid electrostats, so they must have been relatively transparent. I've seen these on Audiogon for about $600 used. Front ported, so they can be placed right up against a wall.