Soundlabs and magnepan mix on front stage?????

FYI: Gordon Holt uses active ATC SCM 50's - he loved and owned SoundLabs for many years so perhaps you should look into ATC. They would be much more practical for an HT setup and are popular in studios for 5.1 monitoring.

I am not knocking your adoration of SoundLabs or Maggies - truely great speakers.....just the concept of usinglarge panels in an HT system seems a bit impractical to me.....of course perhaps you are simply looking for a challenge!!!

As an Apogee speaker owner...and one that has been there, and done that....unless your going to go for a sacd/dvd-audio setup....your options are many.

I've used everything from another Apogee (on it's side)...to a cheap Aurasound speaker (around $100) used...linaeum tweeter technology)....all worked "more than fine".

Using the exact same speaker....because of different placement issues, does "NOT" equal the exact same sound......take a measurement to confirm if you need to.

The most important factor is clear dialog...the other parts can be EQ'd if close......subwoofers do the bass anyway.

I'll put my flame suit on, but here goes....Apogees are head and shoulders above Maggies.....go there.

Dave

LOL,

No flame suit needed here. Speakers are the one true piece of equipment that falls under the "biased" catagory. I haven't had an opportunity to review the Apogees so I will try and make a point to do that. The SCM 50's I am not familiar with so I will have to do some research. I agree the center channel doesn't need to go full range. My concern was more that when I heard the 3.6's and most flat panel electrostats, they have been very directional. So going big for the center channel was more to increase my sweet spot for the voice coverage than it was to get big lows and highs.

I could just buy the maggie center channel cc3 as it is curved for better dispersion. It's small and easily moved around and would do the job fine. Though having a 1.6 or 3.6 on it's side for the center channel does have a certain "holy crap, is that your center channel?" flair to it. :-)

Thanks again for the comments.

Lance

Let me know....I can probably hook you up with an Apogee listen, you'll only need one.

Dave

I am running soundlab m2's with paradigm adp 450 actives for the rear surrounds and my center channel is a wharfedale active 8.2.
My critical listening is 2 channel but the home theater is for the family;I would not worry on the rear surrounds and try to buy a electrostatic for the center as it seems to be a most important speaker in the home theater setup.Take a look at the logan centers if you don't want to buy the soundlab center;I think your setup could sound very nice with the proper center channel.
I think you will find the soundlab a little bit of a harder load than 8 ohms; do they have the impedance mods and tordial transformer upgrade? You should double check with soundlab on the impedance curve of the speakers you are looking at.
For the rear surrounds I don't think you need to spend the big $$ on the maggies, maybe pick up a used pair of martin logan SL3's,Aerius or that used pair of soundlab dynastats that just showed up.