Magnepan MMGi $650 Per Pair (48h, 14 1/2w, 1 1/4d)
Magnepan has improved its entry speaker to MMGi. Maggie has always had an entry speaker that is designed to hook you. It is sheer entrapment! They make this model at an absurdly low price so you’ll take a chance on trying Magnepan.
We’re happy to warn you that once you get a taste, you’ll want more and more! The devious plot is, buy these boys for $650 per pair, and it won’t be long before you’ll want one of the bigger models, a bigger dose, as it were.
MMGi set up properly, meaning three feet or so off the back wall, will cast a very large image. It is actually more than a bit eerie to have these two screens about eight feet apart and be able to SEE (hear) a vocalist dead center between them! We’re not talking small dead center, but HUGE dead center. The size of the image of a singer, for ex, is convincingly close to real life size.
At $650 per pair, you can’t get a speaker that is more open or has faster transient response. MMGi has extremely taut bass. On top of sounding gorgeous, MMGi is an especially good fit for an apartment or condo. Their clarity competes with the best speakers out there, without pounding bass response.
We can drive them very nicely with an NAD integrated amp of 40-50w/ch. NAD C316 ($380, 40×2) and NAD C328 ($550, 50×2) are natural, commensurate integrated amps to go with MMGi.
I particularly like C328 because it has better sound, MM phono, DAC and Bluetooth. If you get C328, you’re really good to go. C328 also has a subwoofer out in case you want to add the thunder of a dynamic woofer, to augment the beauty and speed of MMGi.
We stock MMGi in the best selling version, black cloth with natural oak sides. They’re also available in off white or grey cloth. Optional wood side finishes are black or dark cherry.
We’ve Come A Long Way
The Absolute Sound magazine commenced in spring of 1973. In the initial issue, publisher Harry Pearson went gaga for “Double Advents.”
HP started with the Advent bookshelf speakers. Then he took a second pair, put them atop the
first pair upside down and ran them in parallel. This… was considered a very substantial offering in 1973. That is, take a 10” 2-way with paper drivers- invert a second set and run “the tower” as a column at four ohms, when few amps of the day could drive them! They ran about $250 per pair, so for $500, I suppose, why not have some fun messing about? But… REALLY?
In the same article HP says he heard TRIPLE Advents and they put everything else in the
store to shame.
The best cartridges of the day were a disaster. HP’s faves of Decca & ADC were so varied in performance that he warned you better audition the exact cartridge that might end up at your house.
Channels cut in/out. Cantilevers collapsed. Some were smooth, others harsh. Crazy.
HP had to get four samples of the Audio Research SP-3 preamp to find one that worked. And even then, when his buddy Frank re-soldered the PCBs, harshness diminished and transparency improved NOTICEABLY.
HP waxed on that another buddy had some McIntosh gear that was reliable but sounded grainy.
In short, this was the wild, wild west. The “industry” was full of guys putzing about with very amateurish, non consistent PRODUCT.
Vintage
Why am I wasting your time with the above entry? Hardly a week goes by that we have to face the question by one shopper or another, “Isn’t vintage gear better than new?” NO. IT ISN’T!
If you want to invest in old baseball cards because you just love rubbing shoulders with
Mickey Mantle in 1951, knock yourself out. When it comes to audio gear, your relationship should be the same. If you want the old stuff cuz it is cool and collectible, fine. But don’t even begin to kid yourself that the performance and or reliability will be competitive with what we have new.
Electronics
Consider Emotiva’s great preamps:
PT-100 $300. Single ended with DAC & phono.
XSP-1 $1200. Balanced with great phono & sub out.
They slaughter the best stuff made in the 70s-80s!.They are quite affordable and reliable to boot!
In power amps, it’s even more extreme. Emo’s:
A-300 $400, 150×2 (Single Ended)
XPA2G3 $1000, 300×2 (Balanced)
DR-2 $1600, 550×2 (Differential/Balanced!)
DR-2 in particular, at only $1600, competes with any amp in the biz- built in the USA with a five year warranty!
New GoldenEar In Wall Speakers
Invisa SPS (Signature Point Source) $1000 each. (27 9/16h, 7 15/16w, 3 1/4d, 92dB SPL)
New from GoldenEar is a serious in wall speaker that fits in a standard 4” deep stud space. SPS can be run with, or without its back box ($150 ea). You can run three across the front, more on the sides and rears. Even in Atmos config.
Each SPS uses four 5 1/4” cast frame drivers along with GE’s esteemed ribbon tweeter. To have this level of smoothness with great imaging, in a speaker array that is almost invisible, pleases the audiophile, as well as the audiophile’s wife’s sense of style. We as audiophiles, have no sense of style!
You might think, what’s the big deal about running four of the same drivers with a tweeter? You’d be right. These four 5 1/4s are not the same.
The outside 5 1/4s are specifically woofer drivers and only run up to 500Hz.
The inside 5 1/4s are mid/bass drivers run up to 3k to meet the tweeters.
The tweeter in SPS is the new high gauss ribbon used in the highly touted T-Ref!
GE uses a BALANCED crossover to blend this system into a cohesive image.
The result of going to this “trouble” is that the speaker presents a more specific, point source image- the kind of image GoldenEar is quite famous for in its towers. To do this in an architectural speaker is unique.
The purpose of the back box is to define the enclosure space and make it rock solid. This deepens the bass and improves clarity. SPS is such a high performing speaker that if at all possible, we’ll twist your arm to use the back box!
Franz Liszt (1811-1886) Rock Star!
Liszt was perhaps the greatest pianist ever. He was among the first rock stars of the music world. Niccolo Paganini (1782-1840) preceded Liszt. But Liszt was clearly the first musician to drive the ladies to hysteria, creating Lisztomania!
In Liszt’s time people wrote to “stars” to ask for locks of hair, instead of autographs. Liszt got tired of the antics early and started cutting hair from his dog to mail away. So all those keepsakes…