Magnepan SMG planar

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heliumflight

heliumflight

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Hi Folks,

Has any one heard of Magnepan SMG planar. What were they paired with. Request you to share your experiences and impressions....

MODEL INTRO DATE DESCRIPTION FREQ.-RESP. CROSSOVER REC. POWER SENS. IMPED. DIM. (W"H"D")

SMG 1980 2-Way
Quasi-Ribbon
Planar-Magnetic midtreble : 58in
midbass : 370in 50Hz-16kHz 4dB 6dB/octave @ 2400Hz 20-100Wrms @8O 90dB/2.83v/m @500Hz 4 Ohms 24"48"1"


Thanks a ton
 
Heliumflight - Not an exact answer to your question but I owned a pair of mmg's some years back - they are the entry level 'maggies' and used to drive them with a pair of monarchy audio sm70 pro amplifiers. I believe these are also a quasi-ribbon design and not true ribbons such as the higher end maggies. I second audio_engrs description of the sound - generous soundstage and very transparent. Positioning was quite important with these and I had them pulled at-least 4' from the rear wall and about 2-3' from the side walls. I would eventually love to get back in the magneplanar sound:).
cheers
Sid
 
A friend of mine has a MG12 & he uses the quad's 909 or the rouge audio tube amp with a quad cd pre. I agree with the audio engr 's description of sound.
Cheers
 
I agree.:)
We are waiting for the rouge audio's to come back after being refurbed with new transformers. Will post once i hear them.
Cheers
 
heliumflight said:
Hi Folks,

Has any one heard of Magnepan SMG planar. What were they paired with. Request you to share your experiences and impressions....

MODEL INTRO DATE DESCRIPTION FREQ.-RESP. CROSSOVER REC. POWER SENS. IMPED. DIM. (W"H"D")

SMG 1980 2-Way
Quasi-Ribbon
Planar-Magnetic midtreble : 58in
midbass : 370in 50Hz-16kHz 4dB 6dB/octave @ 2400Hz 20-100Wrms @8O 90dB/2.83v/m @500Hz 4 Ohms 24"48"1"


Thanks a ton
Click to expand...


Planning to buy?
 
Sumant, visit the A2V showroom at Saket Citywalk. They have the MG 12 there on display. I had heard it with a Rotel power amp (I think a 70 watter) and they sounded nice as explained above but lacked bass. The sound changed considerably when they switched the amp to a Nu-Force Integrated 100 Watter (the 9 series) and the speakers came to life and showed the true potential of the planar sound. The bass was much better and tight.
However having heard the MG 1.6s, I feel it is better to save more money and buy them than the MG12s as within 6 months the upgrade bug will hit.

I like the sound of the Magnepans and still have them on my wishlist along with the Spendors A6. Sometime, someday.......
 
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Nice link, would give helium quite a bit of understanding in to the subject. I wonder where mr awedophile is this days?

Sorry for taking the discussion a bit of tangent but if you've read the link awedeophile talks about effect of weather but confirms that he has not observed the same. What is everybody's take on the subject i think it does effec the sound though not sure why & neither i've gone deep in to the subject to dig facts.
Cheers
 
audio_engr said:
maggies & rock? Yes, they work BUT keep in mind that what you located were SMG (or a later version of SMG like SMG-a, SMG-b or SMG-c). If its an SMG, its sensitivity is 90dB, if ...a or b or c, then 90, 87, 86 and they are all 4 Ohms.

See this Link: Speaker differences

You need to try a healthy 100watts amp or more with them to see it is "floats your boat", the later versions 'a, b & c' will have much better treble resolution like the MG12. The specs say so!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the Magnepan Specifications sheet

This is what it reads from the speakers I located...Will it fit for Rock

MODEL INTRO DATE DESCRIPTION FREQ.-RESP. CROSSOVER REC. POWER SENS. IMPED. DIM. (W"H"D")

SMG 1980 2-Way
Quasi-Ribbon
Planar-Magnetic midtreble : 58in
midbass : 370in 50Hz-16kHz 4dB 6dB/octave @ 2400Hz 20-100Wrms @8O 90dB/2.83v/m @500Hz 4 Ohms 24"48"1"


--
helium
Amp: Lyrita SET 2A3
Speakers: Vintage B&W DM4
Source: LG DVD + Beresford DAC
Cables: Lyrita's I.C & cables
 
4 Ohms
Click to expand...

Hi,

Unless your Lyrita amp has a 4 ohm output tap on the OPT then driving the Magnepan SMG from the standard 8 ohm speaker outputs of the Lyrita 2A3 may not sound good.

Long term use at high levels might damage the amp. You could check with Viren if the amp will be OK driving a lower imp speaker or get him to fit new OPT's with taps for 4 and 8 ohms.

In my opinion the 2A3 amp with 3 watt output will not be a good match with the Maggies if you like to listen to rock at loud levels.

Regards
Rajiv
 
Hi Helium


MODEL INTRO DATE DESCRIPTION FREQ.-RESP. CROSSOVER REC. POWER SENS. IMPED. DIM. (W"H"D")

SMG 1980 2-Way
Quasi-Ribbon
Planar-Magnetic midtreble : 58in
midbass : 370in 50Hz-16kHz 4dB 6dB/octave @ 2400Hz 20-100Wrms @8O 90dB/2.83v/m @500Hz 4 Ohms

I also had the opportunity to listen to the magnepan mg12 driven by a rotel receiver.
Being used to bipolar sounds (deftch bp7004s+denon pma2000ivr+denon cdp),
I think magnepans are the most revealing speakers in any price bracket.
Their sensivity of around 86db is a botheration, but the receiver was driving the speakers effortlessly (around 100 rms per channel)
They did not have the slam of my deftechs but you would easily forget that considering the liquid midrange which were far better than my deftechs.
I think the lyrita may be good match for the magnepans (provided they can handle the 4 ohms load) as magnepans love current and they pair well with tubes.
Definitely worth a try as long as the mylar diaphragm is not damaged.
And rock, why not?
cheers
himadri
 
hey - I was not aware of this thread. I picked those smgs up and currently they are hidden in my house. Will post more details. They sounded ok to me in the shop so I thought I should pick them up. Played for a very small time (like 5 mins) with my HK amp (with lyrita pre not in the chain) and they sounded alright. I played hotel california and it did not shake the room with bass, but I found bass to be adequate.
I did not know that there is a stand that comes with them and foolishly didn't even ask. Was in a hurry so just picked them and parked at home. Right now I don't even know how would I place them in my living room :eek:
regards
 
at that price is it is a Steal !

if you feed it more power, you will get more Bass, at least enough to enjoy rock music.
 
anm said:
hey - I was not aware of this thread. I picked those smgs up and currently they are hidden in my house. Will post more details. They sounded ok to me in the shop so I thought I should pick them up. Played for a very small time (like 5 mins) with my HK amp (with lyrita pre not in the chain) and they sounded alright. I played hotel california and it did not shake the room with bass, but I found bass to be adequate.
I did not know that there is a stand that comes with them and foolishly didn't even ask. Was in a hurry so just picked them and parked at home. Right now I don't even know how would I place them in my living room :eek:
regards
Click to expand...

anm did you pick this up from 'Kabbadiwala'?
 
If you mean Pawan from gzbd, then yes! I am thinking of a small get together with interested people to listen to these speakers.
Kamal/ Panditji/ Viren seem to be interested.
 
anm said:
If you mean Pawan from gzbd, then yes! I am thinking of a small get together with interested people to listen to these speakers.
Kamal/ Panditji/ Viren seem to be interested.
Click to expand...


Yes. I would also be interested to listen to these speakers. Let me know the date/ venu/ time.
 
I am thinking of an early sat or sunday morning. say around 9am to 11am. Short and sweet session. I anyways do not have highly aspirational hifi with me, so it shouldn't be a huge gathering, or too long.
I am also waiting for my shure cart to land and my dac to be operational. Maybe we can do after that. I think it is still 2-3 weeks from now if we wait for the above. Otherwise we can do it on coming sunday.
 
heliumflight said:
Located a Magnepan SMG planar lying with a 'Kabbadiwala' @14k. So generally asking few questions.

From the few responses I'm getting so far, I don't think it will fit for Rock Music.
Click to expand...

Couple things to consider with the SMGs

- They need gobs of power - atleast 150 - 200 true watts / channel - AVRs are not meant to drive these at all. You need a v. good integrated or better yet separates to drive them. Some ones to consider are Bryston, Accuphase, Sunfire, Adcom (older models), Parasound etc. Some have good success with Emotiva but its far and few inbetween as these have been coming through only lately.

- they need lots of room for placements - ideally 2 - 3 ft from either wall.

- they are very picky about placement. The sound signature is fairly discernable if you are in the sweet spot or not. So if you are planning an audition, then make sure they are properly placed before the gang comes down and also ensure that the listeners are in the sweet spot. otherwise they may not sound involving at all.

- finally given the age be careful about them esp. for hte price you are getting them for. They may be good but chances are they might not have been taken care of well. Just a watchout though.

- my personal feeling is that you can get better speakers to play rock or metal. SMGs are good for instrumentals, classical, jazz and vocals.
 
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