Followup-Magnepan 1.7s in a 10x13' dedicated room?

I didn't see where you mentioned the stands. I thought you were just talking in theory. The stands are an interesting idea. Have you ever tried anything like that with Magnepan? With traditional speakers, you can place the drivers at points that are most effective for time coherence, but with Magnepan, the ribbons run the full length of the speaker. If you pivot the speaker at its mid point, you move half the ribbon further away from the listener, but the other half closer. Since you get the highs from the full length of the driver, I don't see how that will help. If it were to make an audible improvement, I suspect that it will be from pointing the ribbon upward and not having it fire directly at the listener. The highs would be rolled off, but not necessarily time correct. You can probably get almost the exact same effect if you were to just tilt the speaker back. Try putting some type of spacer under the 2 front feet. Its a very good idea, though. Had I thought of it, I might have been able to live with my 1.7's.

That's all great, but how does it help him in getting his Magnepan's sounding right?
Zd542

Zd542, I believe the answer to that question is: he cannot! This seems to be mostly in-line with Brownsfan's post where he is suggesting (Mye) stands & if that does not work, then there's nothing else. And, this advice from a user who used Magnepan from 1991 - 2014. what does that tell us?
You are also skeptical of this suggested solution - I think what you wrote makes sense (firing at ceiling rather than at user & reflected sound might be less painful to listen to)
The speaker is inherently flawed by design & will never sound right. The user can treat the walls, toe-in, tilt-back, use stands, upgrade the x-over components quality, etc, etc to reduce the issue but it will never go away & it will never sound right...
If one buys this speaker, that's what one has to live with. Better for the user to buy with his/her eyes wide open rather than be surprised after the purchase like the OP....

Zd, I used this technique with both the 1.6s and the 3.7s. This technique does not roll off the high end, which would more likely occur by turning or tilting as you suggested. What this technique does is reduce the time smear from an individual driver to the extent possible, but it certainly does not reduce it to zero. The speakers sound better, but it does not really change the tonal balance to make them more or less bright or warm. If you think about how this plays out with, for example,the ribbon, when the panels are tilted to achieve a perpendicular from the mid point to ones ear, then the distance from the top of the ribbon to one's ear and the bottom of the ribbon to ones ear is equal. This would give the lowest total amount of smear. On the other hand, if the panels are tilted back, then the bottom of the ribbon may be 6 -8 inches closer to one's ear than the top, and each point from top to bottom is a different distance from one's ear. This arrangement gives the maximum time discrepancy possible. In practice, I found this improvement to be more significant with the 1.6s, but it also helped with the 3.7s.

Bombaywalla, I take it you are not a big fan of Maggies!

Obviously, I draw a different conclusion than you do, while conceding that the unique Magnepan design brings with it some unique compromises. Those you have heard may not sound right to you, but Magnepan has a lot of fans who are not tone deaf knuckleheads, who would express a much different conclusion. Magnepans can sound heavenly in the right room with the right ancillaries.

Sometimes, the problem is the recording. Some times, the problem is the room. Sometimes, it is the wrong speaker for the room, but would work well in another room. I have recounted several times in this forum a concert experience from the late 80s, listening to an Isaac Stern recital. If I had closed my eyes, I would have said this is the worst screeching ear-bleed inducing bad digital recording I have ever heard. It was a world class violinist, playing a superb instrument, but unfortunately, it was the wrong seat in the wrong hall for that violinist and violin. It sounded really really bad. I don't know that it had anything to do with time coherence. Later that year, I heard Itzhak Perlman from the same seat, and his playing was sweet as honey.

Likewise, any room not constructed as a perfect sphere or an anechoic chamber is going to reinforce and diminish certain frequencies. This has nothing to do with speaker design. Treating a room to reduce unnaturally reinforced frequencies makes sense to me.

As I said before, if there were a perfect no compromise design everyone would use it and life would be simple.

" On the other hand, if the panels are tilted back, then the bottom of the ribbon may be 6 -8 inches closer to one's ear than the top, and each point from top to bottom is a different distance from one's ear. This arrangement gives the maximum time discrepancy possible."

I was thinking pretty much the same thing with regards to the bottom of the ribbon moving toward the listener and the top moving away. I'm just questioning the why of it. How do you know its a time coherence issue, and not a roll off/freq. response issue? Magnepans do measure poorly in that area. I don't know for sure, so you may very well right. I know freq. response can be measured. Is it possible to measure time coherence?

Zd, I have no way of proving the improvement is time coherence. The person who suggested this to me explained it that way, and it made sense, so I just accepted the statement.
With the right equipment, one could evaluate any change in frequency response, but all ll I have is my ears.