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TerrestrialCephalopod
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- Mar 11, 2020
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- #41
And yes, very few people buying Maggies or any panel are at their destination lifetime speaker. It happens, but maybe like 1 out of 1000 people do this. My guess just reading your post is you've wanted these Maggies and nothing else will scratch that itch. So do listen to some quality alternatives, but if nothing much shakes your sense of the Maggie dreams, you'll probably have to have some Maggies for awhile. Just manage leaving your self some wiggle room for later on. If nothing else for getting some better Maggies somewhere down the line. Its about the music, but you have to be honest...............its a little bit about the gear too. Nothing wrong with that. You'll have fun.
I can't deny that there's some gear lust related to the mystique of magneplanar speakers, but I can also recognize that it's illogical. It is a little magical that those gossamer panels can fill the room with music.
On the practical side, buying Magnaplanar's would mean I also have a power amp that'll handle just about any other speaker I could ever think of buying. It's also dedicating myself to passive speakers when, inevitably an upgrade is required. The design target is "the last stereo", meaning something I could be happy with for as long as possible. Truthfully the room dependency has me pretty nervous. It is a critical failure w.r.t the design goal if I get them and am not able to make them work in my living room due to positioning constraints.
And on that note:
I think you'll find you need much more space between the Maggies and walls than you are planning. They demand space period. Mine are several times the distance you cite (look at my picture above). You'll do some experimenting to suit your tastes (e.g. ribbons outboard or inboard, angle of speakers towards listening position, distances from rear and side walls, etc.). So not finicky really, just need some invested time to experiment with best placement. Follow both Magnepan (toe in) and Cardas (triangle) guidance for placement to start with and then fine tune things.
I've put a "rough sketch" of the layout below. There really isn't a lot of room to move things forward before you start obstructing the room, mainly the bay windows along the bottom wall.
In considering the world of active monitors, I'm seeing most listed as nearfield. So they're generally going to be wide dispersion. Which, if I understand correctly, is a "feature" of maggies. The key difference is then true dipole vs. pseudo-monopole. And if there's stuck in the corner biasing the signal strength to the forward direction is advantageous. That's just my understanding so far, as I said, I'm often wrong.
Might need to pick up a copy of Toole's book to sort this all out a bit more holistically.
T_C