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Anyone send back Magnepan MMG's?

I'm currently trying out some MMG's under their 60-day money-back trial period. I'm two weeks into it and I've already made up my mind that they're going back. The presentation is interesting, but the soundstaging is no better (perhaps even worse) than my trusty Audio Physic Tempo's. There is a problem in cohesion from midrange to bass, and this manifests itself quite frequently when I play 80's rock and pop (Pat Benatar especially). And they get congested with complex orchestral music. Granted, with simple chamber music or guitar solos, they sound pretty good. But they just can't handle the gamut of music that I play like my Audio Physic speakers.

There are those who may claim that perhaps my amp isn't up to the task of powering the Maggies. I have an Innersound ESL 300 which is designed for planars and electrostats, being able to double down twice to 2 ohms, and still stable at 1/3 ohm impedance. It should be more than enough to drive the Maggies.

And some will claim that the MMG's don't adequately represent the abilities of Magnepan's higher-end offerings. I've heard a 3.6 previously, driven by Classe electronics, and while it sounded OK, I wasn't thrilled with it. Which surprises me, because I tend to gravitate toward electrostatics, and I thought I'd gravitate towards planars as well.

And I will admit, my old Audio Physic Tempo's originally retailed for $4000, which is substantially more than the MMG's $550. But still, even at their entry level, the Magnepan's should be hinting at something that those box speakers can't quite do. But I'm not hearing it. I came into this with a very open mind, and I'm somewhat surprised that the speakers are likely getting shipped back to Magnepan.

Has anyone else come to this conclusion?

Michael
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fishcat1's avatar
fishcat1
26 posts
 
Hi Michael,
I really wanted to fall in love with the maggie sound, too. The people who state that they need massive current and wattage might be on to something. If I have to take out a second mortgage to purchase amps for any speaker, that said speaker is flawed. I think I could have gotten them to sound right, but I would have had to throw a lot of money at amps, and rebuild the damn crossovers. I wasn't about to start over from scratch, as I like the AP sound, which is really a good all around sound for most all genres.
-Fishcat
sufentanil's avatar
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sufentanil OP
782 posts
 
Or should I just keep the MMG's to get me off of Pat Benatar?
tomryan
796 posts
 
You're addicted to Pat Benatar?!?
j_stereo
130 posts
 
I have owned the MMG's for about 2 weeks now. I liked them and when I saw the comments on here about raising them off the floor, I built wood platforms 7" tall and secured them in the vertical position. This is all subjective of course, but I thought it made them worse. They did have more bass but it became sloppy and they started to lose the planar sound (tranparent) and they took on more of a "box-speaker" sound. Again this is just subjective and perhaps it is the way I constructed the stands. I am still debating on keeping them. As for amps, I drive them with a NAD C272 which doesn't have the high resolution of a more expensive amp, but it has the power to give them clean bass you can actually feel, and they are not bright. Anyway good luck.
rnm4
308 posts
 
I tried a pair, totally broken in -- borrowed from a fine fellow who purchased dome other speakers from me. I had them positioned vertically, and used both a couple of good amplifiers, one rater at 70W into 4, the other at 350 into 4. The more powerful amp definitely was better with them. I liked the Maggies alot, great naturalness in some ways, timbrally excellent, spacious seductive sound.

But I decided I couldn't live with the lack of low bass and dynamic range. I also found them to represent all singer as having huge heads. This may be a function of the size of the drivers -- getting a large instrument to sound so right by having it reproduced by a large panel may cause them to get what are closer to point sources but nonetheless move lots of air to sound like they come from large instruments too. I have my doubts as to whether going for bigger, better Maggies would really ameliorate these concerns.

That said, I can easily see how they would be great for some applications and preferences. And at $550 the MMG's are a stunning value. They do have in some ways a quite gorgeous presentation. All speakers are compromises.
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