the previous spot has now become a cosy little corner
new spot for maggie (notice the lateral openness)
bored with my current sound, coupled with some feng shui factors, i have decided to switch the position of my system to the opposite corner of my living room.
i took less than 1 hour to shift the furnitures and 20 minutes to setup my system randomly. meaning, using my previous experience, i simply plonk the maggie on spots which i think will best suit them.
lo and behold, even without proper setup, the resultant sound is much more spacious, dimensional and layered than before! bear in mind that i don't have my curtains on the "new" wall, so the mids are slightly thinner than before but what dimensionality! i would gladly trade off the thinned mids with this panaromic soundstaging!
it suddenly dawns on me that even in an the previous spot (enclosures flanked by two walls measuring 13' wide, see the 1st photo) the maggie still need more lateral space to breathe! the current soundstage is beautifully layered and well spread out. soundstaging used to be my achilles' heel in my previous spot and i just gave less priority to this aspect, not knowing that my spot is the limiting factor.
to counter the thinned mids, i use what have now become my second-nature skills in speaker positioning - pushing the maggie forward and backward in minute movement (centimeter by centimeter), to test the tonal balance. the more i push the maggie closer to the back (bare) wall, the better the mids become, yet without sacrificing much on the layering and dimensionality. i didn't test the bass response cos it was 2am in the morning!
by the 2nd night (tonight), i have gotten a fairly great sound satisfying 80% of my demands, eventho' i still haven't done my ultimate speaker positioning steps. the mids are better now, altho' still lacking the palpability and thickness of the previous setup.
i am going to experiment with wooden racks for my monoblocks in the hope to add more meat and texture to the tonal balance.
this has been a revelation! not only has my feng shui improved (now my main door is no longer blocked by hifi), my hifi also acquires a new dimension! way to go!
infrequent updates
8 years ago
5 comments:
It sure took you a long time to figure out that you can't have curtains behind a Magnaplanar as they do need the rear wall. You should also try having the tweeters inside rather than outside. BTW someone told me you don't believe in component isolation, so why the sudden change of heart i.e the rack.
i may add the curtains back if i don't get the desired tonal balance in the long run.
the correct way to say it - i don't like over-tweaking! i am a believer in the minimalist approach. however, i am using mana racks so that's isolation. in my previous setup, i find that it is best to place my monoblocks on the floor. but in my current setup, i may want to add a low-rise wooden rack to see if it aids in the tonal balance.
balancing act is the hardest and trickiest skills in hifi :-)
Bro,
The stock stands for the 3.6Rs are rather flimsy in my opinion. The speakers should benefit from a stronger and more rigid supports. Check out those from Mye Sound. It is a tad expensive. But maybe you can ask your local contractor to fabricate it for you at a fraction of the price.
http://www.myesound.com/Magnepanstands.html
Another point is to use diffusors for the wall in front. Curtains may dull the sound and affect the tonal balance.
hi
the curtains did not dull the sound at all. bear in mind that my sound is a superbly vivacious one, thanks to the synergistic combination of 6550 triode, maggie's ribbon and stage III silver cables. if anything, it helps to thicken the tone. without it, the tone is clearer. the sudden improvement of the soundstage aspects is, to me, not due to the absence of curtains, but rather the openness of the space.
i did consider the mye stands before but it is gonna cost at least RM5K with the tax included! fabricating it locally is a good idea!
thanks.
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