Source vs Speakers...read the conditions first

steveinaz

Magnepans have always peaked my interest. I'd love to audition a pair, but I'm out in no-mans-land, arizona.

dorokusai

George/Early - They are real nice, and I'm impressed with the clarity, especially on acoustics. They can't do low bass, but the bass that is present is smooth, albeit a little thin. I have another pair to pick up tomorrow, Magnapan IIA. They are a little older, but are larger, so I'm wondering if they are night and day.

I'm trying to keep it fresh in here George

I've just been playing around with placement, but upright is definetly a better position initially. I'm at 4ft apart, and 16 inches from the back wall and with a small toe-in. I haven't invested a huge amount of time in adjusting the placement, but I didn't find them as hard to set up as I had heard from others.

I think they would be an easy fit for you Early.

George Grand

Early B.,

My old neighbor Dean had 4 of them in a room about as small as you could imagine. The placement was probably as bad as could be, and they STILL watered my eyes. He was augmenting the low end with a small, Carver Sunfire sized sub. I think it was a Pinnacle sub, or something else not too famous. I heard them both with and without the sub. Either way, at $550/pair, they're special.

Can't have kids or pets around them. That is an absolute.

George Grand (of the Jersey Grands)

McLoki

I am really surprised that amplifiers are so low on the list with many people. BTW - I would put room or placement as the number 1 thing to improve, but since that was not a choice......

My vote (in order of amount of change) would be:

Speakers (largest change in sound)

Amps (depending on the speakers chosen)

Pre-amp (to be honest, I have not heard alot of these, so I may be full of the excriment of your choice)

Source

Cables



My choice of location for amp (being second) is I have heard many great speakers that sounded like crap when run from an AVR. Put everything else the same and add an amp and they sound great. Heck, do a search on the forum for lsi sound improvement and see how many say "you want LSi 15's to sound awesome keep running them off a Yamaha or Onkyo AVR and get a really nice cd player..... "

Michael

tonyv1

Doro, that's too close to the back wall. I'm at 29 inches, but using a 4ft fake ficus tree behind each speaker to breakup the rear dispersion. I helped a friend's son rewire the tweeters on a MG-IIB. There's pics on the MUG site of the project.
Steve, try 'em for 60 days and then send them back. You'll only be out the shipping back cost. Sometimes MMGs are sold as used from the factory for less.

LuSh

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1011208490&read&3&4&


Humor yourselfs...possibly if you're bored.

beardog03

Lush,

Legit question here...

If you replacesd you LSi9`s w/ RT55i`s would you be as happy with your system ?

Would you notice a big difference ?

I have 55`s and I`m lookin at 9`s.....or 7`s

PolkThug

Just run frequency sweeps with different brand CD players, then run frequency sweeps with different brand speakers. Guess which one shows the most variation?

McLoki

Originally posted by McLoki
Heck, do a search on the forum for lsi sound improvement and see how many say "you want LSi 15's to sound awesome keep running them off a Yamaha or Onkyo AVR and get a really nice cd player..... "

Another quote to look for is "get a reviever that has pre-ins so you can upgrade the preamp in the AVR and still use the amplifier section of it."

Michael

jmierzur

Originally posted by beardog03
Lush,

Legit question here...

If you replacesd you LSi9`s w/ RT55i`s would you be as happy with your system ?

Would you notice a big difference ?

I have 55`s and I`m lookin at 9`s.....or 7`s

LuSh, do you have several different sources, amps and speakers that have an obvious difference in quality. If so, could you do a couple of listening evaluations on the impact each change has to the overall presentation. I have my views from experimentation and would be interested in hearing your results from experimentation.

LuSh

beardog, I honestly don't like the sound of the RTi series, I never have. I very much like the LSi character. The LSi's do require a better set of electronics to make them sound good.

PolkThug, nobody is disputing the fact that speakers influence the sound the most. What is being debated by myself and some others is that the source dictates how good the speaker sounds, and not vice versa. A good set of speakers won't hide a bad source. Therefore I recommend you build a system with a good source in mind. Because good sources are usually expensive ( i recommend buying used) I'd also recommend trying to invest as much money as possible into your sorce and finding a speaker which suites your tonal needs. I have done this with LSi9's and it has suited me very well.

Try running a set of B&W, Totem, Thiel, Harbeth or Spendor speakers using a poor source, these types of speakers will allow you to hear many many nuances up the stream. That's my point.

Tour2ma

Originally posted by dorokusai
I'm at 4ft apart, and 16 inches from the back wall and with a small toe-in. I haven't invested a huge amount of time in adjusting the placement, but I didn't find them as hard to set up as I had heard from others.

As tony suggested, bring 'em out a little more and keep playing...

With your 4' split, I found about 30" out about right for my 1.5's. Kept toeing in a bit more until imaging nirvana hit my ears. As you said, they're acoustic heaven...