Magnepan owners : past / present

Soundlabs

Lrsky miss understood Plato. I think he meant that the VMPSs were easier to drive.

"VARIOUS MAGNEPAN MODELS- All the speakers from Magnepan, including the Reference Tympani bass panels above, require above average power, and louder-than-life sound pressure, to sound "alive". This is because they very noticeably subtract low-level information; particularly dynamic shifts and harmonic decay."

I'd have to agree with Arthur Salvatore (Audio Critique) in that the Magnepans lack dynamic contrast and require a lot of power. Purely resistive or not, you need to give them a lot to jump a little. IME you just cannot give them enough power, and I easily get listening fatigue with them due to increased spl required to extract some detail I am used to.

FWIW, at the moment I am modding my Soundlabs, and injected a pair of 1.6qr. They have some of the nice dipole qualities, but they are in no way as detailed as either my Quads or Soundlabs, my Tannoys either for that matter.

I can see how someone could switch from mag to Ohms, similar ambient information, but both are veiled IMO.

Go ahead and tag me!

There you have it, bigger amps for Magnepan! Not the first time I have heard or felt that...

Well - as always when talking about Maggies we get to how much power.

Has anyone driven them with Class D amplification like the Wyred4sound STI 500 amps?

By the way, I agree with part of what Soundlabs wrote "IME you just cannot give them enough power, and I easily get listening fatigue with them due to increased spl required to extract some detail I am used to."

I Listened to A Krell S300I Amp with 300 WPC/4Ohms and I heard a lot more than with a MacIntosh MA 6300 at 160 wpc/4ohms.

However, as a relative neophyte on these discussions, I did think that I upped the sound pressure levels in order to hear it. Is it possible that the extra power helps to carry the dynmanic peaks better which gets into more detail and better decay but not necessarily a lot louder?

"I can see how someone could switch from mag to Ohms, similar ambient information, but both are veiled IMO."

4est, please elaborate a bit regarding how the OHMs are veiled in your estimation and which OHMs specifically you have heard that led to that conclusion.

OHMs use dynamic drivers unlike Maggies or panels in general so there is little resemblance between the two in regards to dynamics. OHMs are more like conventional dynamic speakers in that sense.

"veiled" is not a term I would apply to any modern OHMs I have heard. The originals from 30 years ago, perhaps....

The OHMs are mostly omnidirectional and soundstage and imaging is unique from planars and conventional dynamic designs as a result.