Hello Chris,
I believe we had an email exchange or two on amps and Maggies the last few months. As a Magnepan series 3.3/3.5 owner for 5 years and now running an older pair of Sound-Lab A1's, perhaps I can provide some information here as well.
I run my system in a basement room of size 13x18x7.5. This works very well but I'd love another 3-4 feet in each dimension to allow for more space from the side and rear walls....and the speakers to be farther apart. The 2-3 feet greater that you have in each dimension would definitely work well.
To dismiss the Sound-Lab because of a room like mine, and yours as well, would be missing a lot if you want and love the qualities that these speakers provide. I have heard two different SL dealers' comments and also the company itself write of very impressive success with these speakers in rooms much smaller than mine. One dealer has a room just a little bigger than mine and he runs U1's with absolutely spectacular results.
With a lot of experimentation, I have gotten the A1s to sound mighty good. I'm convinced further room treatments, speaker positions, knowledge learned from in-room measurements, etc., will allow me to get the sound even more impressive. I just need to tame the bass a little more as I did not have a lot of material on the back wall with the Maggies. But it does sound very nice now....far far more enjoyable than the Maggies and I was a huge fan of those. For the price, I find the Maggie 3.x speaker to have no competition for the musical magic it provides.
As with the Maggies before, I run the A1's on the short wall. The A1's are close to the side walls, about 4 inches. I found the Maggies were more sensitive to being too close to the side walls so I kept them about 1.5' from the walls.
The speakers on the short wall allows me to sit farther away which I like. Toeing-in the A1s helps a lot to alleviate problems at the sidewalls. I have a woven rug on the side walls just behind the speakers to tame down side-rear reflections due to the toeing-in.
To run the speakers on the long wall would put me right at the back wall which is something I have never liked. I find that being out in the room brings on so much more of an openness in the presentation.
I visited a local audiophile who tends to like his seating position much closer to the stage than I. And I must admit, the sound in his system was outstanding. For someone who likes a closer seat, the long wall might indeed work well. And of course it might also allow for the speakers to be farther apart. But this might require quite a lot of toe-in, which could work out as well. You just need to try and find out for yourself.
With the Maggies, the distance from the rear wall was fine at 3 feet. Due to the A1's greater low-end extension, they need to be farther out in the room to reduce a bass hump; 4 feet is working well but I still need to add more treatments, like the SALLIE devices, behind the speakers to resolve this. Perhaps this will allow me to put the speakers closer to the back wall.
I currently have the A1's 9.5' apart, center to center. This compresses the stage width just a tiny bit. I think a more realistic and open presentation would exist with the speakers at 11' or so apart. With a 15' room width, this could be just what the Dr. ordered. I suspect that much more than 11-12' apart and images would end up being too big to be realistic.
Toe-in with the Maggies had to be very minimal or I found the sweet spot to be small. With the A1's, I can walk from one side to the other, at the back of the room, and the images and tonality is unchanged. And this is with the A1's toed-in toward the listening position which is 8' from the speakers. This is a most impressive improvement with the A1's.
Concerning amplifiers, when I had the Maggie 3.3's and then later the 3.5's, the 110w and 150w ARC tube amps just could not take these speakers to their capability. A Counterpoint NPS400 at 200w output drove the Maggies with no trouble at all and with so much more of a convincing natural presentation than the ARC's. I think there was much more going on with a lack of "reserve" on the ARC amps and not it simply being due to a rated power output issue. I would be skeptical of the VT200 to do much better here with the Maggies.
My A1's are an older pair with the lower efficient wood cores but they do have the updated electronics and toroid transformer. With the older unmodified Wolcott amps at their 250+W output, there was no problem at all to get these speakers to play very loudly with great low-end authority. But my CAT JL-3 amps take the sound to a whole new level and they are rated at "only" 150W. It only goes to show that 150w here was a whole different story than the 150w in the ARC CL150 amps.
I think it is not so much a watt rating but perhaps current driving capability and a reserve to handle the dynamic capabilities of the A1's as well as the Maggies. But I find the Maggies to be more difficult to drive due to their less stellar dynamic capability which makes us want to turn up the level and then of course the driving issue comes more into play. With the A1's, I can play at lower volumes and not only hear far more low-level detail but also have no desire to crank up the volume to get the desired musical effect. So for this reason alone, I feel the Sound-Labs, even the older ones, require a less powerful rated amp to play at loud and dynamically involving levels. So the VT200 could very well be suitable with the Sound-Labs whereas with the Maggies I suspect it would not have worked so well.
Ok, now what about the other improvements with the Sound-Labs? Low end extension! Wow, once you hear this vs. the Maggies, you realize the Maggies are missing so much in the bass. This clearly adds much to the enjoyment of the music. And I found the ML's to be rather anemic in the bass vs. the Maggies. Another big improvement is the A1's ability to have a greater degree of clarity. I loved the Maggie midrange magic and bloom but it tended to mask the detail in the mids and trebles. With the A1's, the Maggie magic is impressively retained but with a whole new level of refinement in resolution.
When I heard the Martin Logan speakers vs. the Maggie 3.5s at the dealer, I just could not get into the ML's at all. They were so resolving but also way too analytical. I remember trying 3 different ML models in the $3k-7k range and upon the return to the 3.5's each time, I felt I was back to listening to music. This was my concern when I was to audition the Sound-Labs but one listen and you realize the musicality here compared to the ML's is not at all the same. I feel the Maggies and the Sound-Labs are much closer than the ML's and the Sound-Labs.
One thing for sure: once you hear the Sound-Labs, you will want to do everything you can to get them to work in your room.....and I feel that if I have been able to do so, you will have even greater success due to your larger room.
John
