Instruction manual

62 THE ABS O LUTE SO U N D ■ A P R I L / M AY 2002
fo rte region.* The midra n ge sec-
tion of the original was dy n a m i c a l -
ly the most compressed (the “slow-
e s t ,” i f you will), while the bass
p a n e l , despite the fl ap p i n g, wa s
dy n a m i c a l l y more re s p o n s ive. I f
yo u ’re ahead of m e, you can re a d i-
ly guess that the midra n ge of t h e
20 sounded somewh at veiled in
comparison with the elements at
either end of the fre q u e n cy ra n ge,
even as it exhibited quite low col-
o rat i o n , or wh at I would call fre e-
dom from ch a ra c t e r.
In subsequent reviews of other
Magnepan speakers, I found a 7kHz
resonance in the tweeter to be a
highly glamorous coloration, lend-
ing, as it did, a sweet, silvery shim-
mer at just the right point in the
overtone structure. It was there in
the original as well.
■ ■ ■
I
n eva l u ating the 20 Point One sys-
t e m ,I re t u rned to Music Room 2,
wh i ch has long been a hap py
home for Mag n epan designs. I have,
for instance, a lways been able to ge t
c o n s i d e rable bottom-octave re s p o n s e,
and fl a t response down to the 30Hz
p o i n t , wh i ch , g iven the boxless nat u r e
o f all Maggie designs, sounds more
i m p re s s i ve than you might suppose.
Perhaps it is the room’s roughly
s h o e - b ox shape that allows the
speakers to “couple” well therein,
and perhaps its opposite end irregu-
larities (a bay at the one, a back
wall/walkway at the other) that help
break up the nodes that can play
such havoc with a speaker’s sound.
In measurements of the room, done
by David A. Wilson and others, it
would appear that the only measura-
ble nodal resonance can be easily
avoided if one simply avoids the bay
area of the outside wall. (It is not a
particularly significant resonance, in
any case, unlike Room 1, created
after the Fire, which is nightmarish
in this respect.)
I used the Rule of Thirds to
locate the speakers, using the tweet-
ers as the focal point for the one-
third point.** As usual, I had to fid-
dle after I got the speakers to obey
the Rule of Thirds. Magnepan rec-
ommends a slight inward cant to
achieve correct time alignment, and
we found, after trying them firing
forward, that this was best in our set-
up. The fiddling consisted of achiev-
ing the exact focal point wh e re
s p e a ke rs and room c o u p l e d. Th i s
process can madden those who want
h p ’ s w o r k s h o p