Instruction manual

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to just stick the things somewhere
and, voila!, perfect sound forever.
But the sonic improvements one can
achieve by taking the time to set
them up optimally are so audible, it
justifies the time. (You may wish,as I
routinely do here, to use transparent
tape to denote the exact positioning
o f the speake rs in case they ge t
moved—not difficult to do since they
are more bulky in size than heavy.
And sometimes you may want to
move the speakers aside if you need
ex t ra room for doing wh at eve r
comes naturally.) I found, in my par-
ticular set-up, that the tweeter strip
had to be attenuated—provision is
provided for doing this, but things
would have been easier if one could
have just thrown a switch. Operating
in its “fl at ” p o s i t i o n , t h e re wa s
e n t i re ly too mu ch treble energy,
which might not have been so objec-
tionable if the sound hadn’t been so
raspy and edgy. I also opted to close
the drapes in the bay area behind the
speaker, thus damping the rear wall
and providing additional image
focus and specificity. That move may
have cost me something in the way of
a kind of d epth-of-field that all
dipole ra d i at o rs simu l at e. B u t , o f
late, I’ve been asking myself whether
the simulation is a replication of the
signals on the discs or just a lovely (in
some cases) enhancement of that.
One additional thought:Maggies
take a long while to break-in, partic-
ularly the bass panels. My pair has
been around. They are two years
old. Winey says there is no bass-
panel “flap” once the speaker settles
in, which may take several hundred
hours. For sure I can tell you that any
Magnepan design sounds better and
better over time, sort of like the
Bordeaux wines the French made 40
years ago.
The Point Ones can be either
biwired or biamplified. Winey him-
self prefers biwiring, although he
says he is at a loss to explain why,
technically, the speaker sounds better
t h at way. This can be ach i eve d
through its external crossover net-
work, whose connecting apparatus
Scot Mark well intensely dislike s.
1
And I used, in the initial round of
evaluation, many a different compo-
n e n t . Sometimes to the speake rs ’
a dva n t age ; sometimes not. Wh at
remained constant were the Nordost
Valhalla connectors, which are, in
my experience, sonically invisible in
every system in which they are used.
Otherwise, we ran the gamut.In full-
featured preamplifiers, that meant
the Burmester 808 Mk V; in line
s t age s, the Wye t e c h Opal and
C o n ra d - Johnson A RT II; in CD
decks, the Gamut CD-1 and the new
Burmester 001; the amplifiers, the
Plinius SA-250, the Gamut 250
m o n o bl o cks and the Gamut 200
stereo amp, the Halcro DM-68, and
the Joule Electra Rite of Passage.
And we will use more in upcoming
listening sessions, since I am so
intrigued with the Point One.
I have to confess that I have no
real fix on why the Maggies sound
less than pleasant with some combi-
n ations of c o m p o n e n t ry. Be that as
it may, the speake rs could sound raw
and edgy in the cro s s over reg i o n
b e t ween tweeter and midra n ge, t h at
i s, c i rca 3kHz. I know Wi n ey uses
s o l i d - s t ate components in designing
and fine-tuning his speake rs (wh i ch
is why, dear ch i l d re n , the speake rs
sound so good with solid-stat e ) , so I
a s ked if he could think of a ny re a-
son for the unpleasant interactions I
was sometimes ge t t i n g. He could
think of n o n e, noting that the
c ro s s over designs we re re l at ive l y
simple and “ought not to prov i d e
a ny diff i c u l t y ” for components driv-
ing the speake rs. I ’d like to rep o rt
t h at I have gotten to the bottom of
these and could make specific re c-
o m m e n d ations about combos to
avoid with these speake rs, but . . .
During the final phase of my ini-
tial sessions, that is, almost at dead-
line for this issue, I had a massive sys-
tem failure, possibly from a power
surge (Sea Cliff is next door to the
power plant and there are often huge
voltage surges, some of which we
have measured in the past), that took
out one channel of the Burmester
preamplifier (which I would have
thought indestructible), the Wyetech
Opal line stage’s power supply, and
one of the Gamut monoblocks, as
well as one channel of the Edge NL-
10 stereo amplifier. And so, I asked
Scot to insert the Conrad-Johnson
line stage and Joule Electra
O ( u t p u t ) T ( ra n s fo rm e r ) L ( e s s )
m o n o bl o ck s, to rather spectacular
e ffe c t . But cl e a rly, t h e re is mu ch
more assessing to be done.
* I am going to have to use musical annotations to describe the dynamics of the spectrum. That’s because we have
nothing like a more precise—or scientific—language for discussing dynamic gradations. So when I say mezzo-forte, or
mf, I am talking about passages of average loudness; p stands for piano, or soft,but there are four degrees of that,with
the softest sounds being pppp; f stands for forte, which is loud,while ffff is as loud as it can get. No audio equipment
with which I am familiar can satisfactorily encompass the full range from pppp to ffff without compression or distortion,
although highly efficient speakers,particularly those that are horn-loaded,come close.
** If you are in doubt about the best placement for any speaker system,other than an exotica of questionable ori-
gin,it is best to start at the one-third points. That is,the speakers should be placed one-third of the distance into the
room from the back wall,and each individual speaker at the one-third points from the side walls.
1 I am adamant on two particulars here: First,the “high-current” connectors Magnepan insists on using on both the
speaker panels and the crossover box are,at the least,annoying, and at the worst,as in the case of the tweeter atten-
uator on the right-channel panel,nearly impossible to access unless one partially removes the inner-side “foot” of the
speaker, a procedure fraught with danger to the speaker and adjuster, as well as a considerable pain-in-the-keester.
Second,as HP mentions,it would be far easier and sonically preferable,I imagine,if the tweeter level in each panel
were adjustable via a small two-or-three-position slider switch,or the like,that would shunt the treble energy through an
appropriate resistor, so that the user would not have to go through the contortions of inserting the flimsy, too-skinny legs
of an ugly bar-type resistor into holes designed for 12 gauge or tinned bare wire. Whatever happened to the high-quali-
ty standard speaker lugs that “regular” speakers use? Also, the end user is required to manufacture his or her own
jumpers that go from crossover to speaker panels. Depending on the type of metal and the construction of these
jumpers,one can,as we learned to our dismay, alter the sound of the speakers,perhaps obviating somewhat the intend-
ed sonic goals of the designer. I think that it would be wise for Magnepan to provide its own properly terminated jumpers
so that this step could be avoided. It took me an extra two hours of work just to make noise from the speakers because
I had to find some suitable good-quality multi-strand copper wiring of sufficient gauge and then prepare it to work cor-
rectly with the speakers. S M
h p ’ s w o r k s h o p