Life after Maggies?

I was in an almost identical situation a year ago. I moved and the listening room in the new house was too small (13' X 15') for my Maggie 1.6QR's. Believe me, I tried, but there was just not enough breathing room for them from both a sonic and physical standpoint.

After much looking around including a couple of 200-plus mile road trips to listen to speakers that did not have a local retailer I ended up buying a pair of Spendor S5e's. They are the perfect size for the smaller room and the sound is outstanding, though obviously a much "different" experience than the Maggies in a larger room.

However, Spendors are noted for their midrange abilities and in particular their neutrality when it comes to reproducing voices. Given your taste for classical music, you may want to run down a pair (or another model of Spendors) to audition. There is also a review I posted which has some more detail concerning my experience with these.

Make sure you try them in the new room.
They may just suprise you and work fine.
Cheers Johnnyr

Try them in the new room, but position you seating position so your head is against the back wall and Mag's 3' off the front wall. Make sure to get some type of corner ceiling treatment (cornbusters) as you will quickly overwhelm the room with volume and no treatment. I ran some 1.6's in a 10x12 room for a little while before I switched to WP7's. I had them pulled 3' off the back wall.. try tweeters on the inside and outside.. it's nearfield listening.

Unfortunately the all over sound of the Mag's will not be duplicated by box speakers.. and watch out most speaker with ribbons and conventional drivers will seem mismatched after having the quick mid-bass of planars. Listen if you can before deciding.

I have owned the Maggie 1.6's, 3.6's and currently own the 20.1's so I understand your appreciation of the Maggie speakers. I have a smaller room where I have a second system and I use the Harbeth SHL-5 speakers. They are excellent speakers and give much of the magic presentation of the Maggie speakers. I've tried many speakers in that room and at one point sold my Harbeth speakers but I wasn't happy with any replacements so I went back to the Harbeths. Although I haven't heard the Spendor speakers I understand they are very similar sounding to the Harbeth line so the recommendation above may be a good one.

As a former owner of the MG 12s, the 1.6s, and the 3.6s, I can tell you its going to be quite difficult to find a speaker that gives the magic you are looking for. As I now own a pair of Merlins which throw a great soundstage like the Maggies, they still don't have that dipole transparency. My advice would be as follows: First, try the 1.6s in the new room and see what you think. Its definitely a tight squeeze and the hard part will be getting them far enough from the front wall (the wall behind the speakers) to breath. Second, if they don't work in the smaller room, consider a modded pair of SMGAs. There is a startup company called Magnestand that makes modded SMGAs run by Peter Gunn over at the Planar Asylum on Audioasylum.com. I've heard these speakers on several occassions and they are fantastic. In my opinion, they have more PRAT than the 1.6s. I even liked them better than the 3.6s, though they clearly didn't have the amazing resolution of the ribbon tweeter. They are much smaller than the 1.6s, closer to the size of the MMGs. They integrate suberbly and they are, of course, Maggies so you won't be losing the love you have. They cost just a little more than a used pair of used 1.6s, somewhere in the range of $1200. Peter Gunn's craftsmanship is spectacular and his mods are innovative when it comes to performance (I've also heard unmodded SMGs and there is no comparison to the modded ones). If you want to email me privately, I can get you in contact with Mr. Gunn and he could advise you as to whether they would work in the small room (he's an honest guy and won't try to sell you anything that would be unuseable). Or, you can look him up on Audioasylum under his moniker, Peter Gunn. Third, if none of the above options work, I'd consider an open baffle speaker like the Alons, Nomad Ronins, or the Linkwitz Orions. Its just my opinion, but I think you would miss too much of the dipole magic that the Maggies give you with any other box speaker (based on the way you've described your affection for the 1.6s). Just my 2 cents.

Wish you the best of luck with whatever you choose.