Life After Your Magnepan’s

Just a second vote for Soix's recommendation to check out the Nola KOs. Years ago when I had a 20'x38' family room,  I went from Maggies to Alons (predecessor of Nolas) and was very happy with the IVs and finally the Circes. These were more dynamic than the Maggies but retained much of what I loved about them - open, transparent, unboxy sound with good coherence and great soundstaging. If I still had that room I would also consider the GoldenEar Triton Reference or Triton One.R.

Hello stickman451,

One last tip for best results:  I recommend you try to set the volume and crossover frequency as low as possible on all three subs with the bass still sounding very good to you at your listening position.  My experience taught me that this will facilitate a seamless integration of the bass with your main speakers.

Tim

Having lived with the .7s for a few months now, I've concluded they're long-term keepers for me, especially considering I'm not stuck with them as my sole pair. 

Absolutely love the .7s. If you think Maggies can't do slam, you need to hear this model play Hotel California off of the Hell Freezes Over album. Oddly, I was never able to obtain this level of dynamics from the 1.7s.

These are not the most resolving speakers, but what they forego is usually only those irritating details that didn't add anything of value - distracting background noises, tape hiss, minor clipping distortions, etc. 

I bought my first Magnepans in 1988. The MG IIs sounded like nothing I had heard up to that time and they captured me completely. In 1998, I moved up to the 3.6. With that purchase I also upgraded my amplifier to a Bryston 4B ST. I had reached audio nirvana.  In 2011, I put together a second system using MMGs.

 

I still love Magnepans, but after 26 years the itch to try something different overcame reason. I was not unhappy with either the 3.6 or the MMG, but I wanted to try something new.

I set a budget of $5,000 and developed a short list that included Spendor, Focal, GoldenEar, Revel and Tekton. After a lot of procrastination, I ordered Tekton Pendragons. I am extremely happy with their sound. They work well with all the types of music I enjoy and have provided me with a tremendous amount of musical satisfaction at a very reasonable price.

 I know Tekton can be a somewhat polarizing brand on this forum, but I have absolutely no regrets with my purchase. YMMV

Good news to report; using three SVS SB4000 sealed subs in a “swarm” configuration works exceptionally well in my large room !  Very please with the results!

Using the basic guidelines of the Geddes approach, Sub one was placed in the front center just behind the plane of my 20.7’s.  Using a good microphone and RTA software on a Windows laptop we adjusted one large suck-out and two medium peaks with the subs built-in peq  and set the cutoff at 60hz.  Volume was set at -16db.  Then we added the second sub on the left side wall about 2 feet in front of the Maggie’s with the woofer firing across the room.  Re-ran the test tone and made a few minor adjustments to sub one and set sub two.  Sub two’s volume was set at -15db.   Adding sub one was a noticeable improvement, adding sub two made a minor noticeable improvement.  Adding sub three made a larger difference than when sub two was added.

Sub three was placed on the right-hand rear wall against the wall and about two feet from the corner, firing down the length of the room.

Overall a very successful effort!  Bass is much more evenly distributed throughout the room, sound field grew noticeably wider and deeper, and bass is better extended, better detailed, better realistic decay, and just sounds more REAL! 
I’m done for now!