anyone familiar with magnepan magneplanar speakers?

[eeldip]

i am thinking of picking up a pair from ebay.. the SMGa (if you bid i KILLL YOU)

they seem cool, i have heard them years ago, and liked them... they are pretty cheap... well $200 or so...

but it seems cool that they have pretty different transducer technology.

[cbastriani]

Owned some before, good speakers, no midrange dynamics. Bass can be a bit of a dissapointment too. Id try to stick to Cone driver speakers. Thats just my 2 cents.

[h.bilerman]

they are the speaker equivalent of ribbon mics. no hype in the top end...very "listenable"....no fatigue after several hours. great for classical music, nice for acoustic stuff, much less great for hip-hop. they do have a pretty big achilles heel mind you....especially over time. the voice-coil wire is glued to the diaphram, and tends to lift after a few years. this causes a snare-like effect, and can only be resolved by sending the speakers back to magnepan for service. (they might also send a repair kit to your home....which i'm guessing would look much like rubber cement). i'd be scared to buy them w/o being able to listen to them first, but my mcIs made me very happy...

hb

[h.bilerman]

oh...

i should follow that up by saying they really sing with good amplification. they are hard to drive, and the better & more powerful the amp, the more pleased you will be. my friend's SMG's sounded better with his Class a 50 watt amp, than my (larger) MCI's soundded with a 200 watt adcom class a/b amp...

hb

[8th_note]

A friend of mine owned a pair so I'm familiar with them. They sounded great but the one thing I would add to h.bilerman's comments is that you have to be flexible in placement. They will sound very different depending on where they are in the room and you need a fair bit of space between the speaker and the rear wall. If you can't have them out in the room I wouldn't recommend that style of speaker.

[idylldon]

I have owned a pair of Magnepan MGIs since the late 70s. When they were 20 years old, I sent them back to the factory for a checkup and general look-see. They re-diaphramed both speakers, updated the hookup jacks, installed new grille cloth, and sent them back to me for a total of $250 (including shipping), which was 1/2 of what I paid for them new. Exceptional service all around.

I agree with the poster who mentioned the importance of placement--these are not speakers that you shove against a wall--and the one who suggested driving them hard. If you pay attention to these things, you'll be rewarded in ways you can't imagine if you've only ever listened to cone speakers.

Cheers,
--
Don

[eeldip]

yea, it seems to me that at the very least... from an audio engineering perspective it is interesting that they have different transducers.

i have heard them, but never critically...

thanks for the opinions...


ummm. dare i say, has anyone ever tried using one as a microphone?

[Electro-Voice 664]

I have a pair of older magnepans and they are cool. Everyone else is correct. Placement is key, use a good amp, and the low end is flat. ...I made the mistake of resting them up against the wall. It sounded bad, so you gotta get them out in the room. Keep this in mind when planning on the bid. You'll want enough room to walk and stuff.

[headache9]

I had the maggies for a few years...I loved em. Other posters are correct..they shoot sound out the back so you have to be carefull about placement. I would often hear cymbals reflected off the wall if I was just a few ft out of the sweet spot. Took days to place them right in my place. If your room is cool & you can space em 3 ft from the walls behind them & nowhere near the corners then you will love em. Yes you will also need lots of power.. I wonder how they would work as a microphone?