[xing3ds]

Hi fellow headfiers, I planning to set-up a home-audio system for my gf's dad. so, basically i have to calculate all the cost and what is require to se-tup one. so, I need your help! please...

for the speakers, I'm looking at A pair of Magnepan MMG speakers which cost around $550.00 and weighted 20pounds.

as for the source, amplifiers, pre-amp, receiver, and cables... I have neither knowledge nor idea on this area.

Anyone in this forum can recommend a good source that is universal player (CD, SACD, DVD-A & Movie)? a good and nice amp & receiver to pair with MMG? I also assuming that the receiver will have the function of pre-amp.

the budget will be around $1,600USD. minus $550 (MMG) that left out $1,050 for the source,amp,etc etc...

USE: music listening and movie.

I'm also thinking for the MMGW + MMGC (5.1 package) but it will cost $900.00 for that.. which left out $700.00 for the rest of things...

any better recommendation for the setup?

PS: this setup will be placed in a room design for home-theather purpose.
this setups will need to be shipped to indonesia.


thank you.

 

[videocrew]

check out the Rotel integrated amp, i've heard good things about that and MMG's

 

[Capt. Z]

I believe you may be better off by posting this question on a different forum.

Magnepans are very power hungry.

www.audioasylum.com

 

[Capt. Z]

sorry, double entry

 

[aseltzer144]

I have MMGs. They are outstanding. They are also revealing as are all the Magnepans and can be power hnungry. I believe Magnepan considers them to be a 4 ohm speaker.

Within your budget, I would look at a decent receiver. For home theater, I use them with a Denon 5x85 W/ch receiver. I've also heard good things about Rotel integrated amps. This should fit in your budget and leave room for a reasonable DVD/CD player. Given your budget, I would favor setting up a decent two channel stereo and not worrying about multichannel home theatre.

The MMGs will benefit from the best components your budget will allow.

 

[grawk]

Argh! I was going to buy them when they were $300 a pair! Last month. Ugh.

 

[chillysalsa]

Have you budgeted for a subwoofer?

The MMG will require an amp with a LOT of current capability. They would also allow a lot of details to come through, so you want an amp that will not impede that. On your budget NAD may be a choice new, but in the used market try to find a Sim Audio or the older Celeste models.

 

[ChicagoPhil]

many good suggestions already. i have MMGs currently powered by a Rotel receiver (75 real watts) and previously used an NAD integrated amp (80/85 real watts), and before that, a Yamaha receiver (85 perhaps not quite as real watts).

i think the maggies get a bad reputation for being "power hungry." even with the Yamaha receiver, which was from their stereo line and a bit beefier than typical HT stuff, they sounded great. a higher current amp will give more control over the panel for bass/mid-bass, but it's not like they can't be powered by a weak amp to quite acceptable volumes with good sound quality. any "better" home theater receiver will do (rotel, nad, denon, onkyo, etc.). i am not sure of what current universal players are out there, but to start off with, i would put more focus on the other parts. if the intent is a home theater system, get maggies all across (at least the center, not necessarily the surrounds).

a decent sub will also make a nice difference for HT, and also add to the bottom end for music. the maggies will do down to 50-60 hz very well, so you want a tight, musical sub to blend. most retail-store brands are going to either be not so tight and accurrate, or pretty expensive. look to buy direct. some of the best values would be from HSU and SVS. also check out ACI and some of the designs available from Parts Express. the new sub from Outlaw, which is based on an HSU design, is well regarded, but perhaps cuts into the budget a bit too much? how big is the room?

cheers,
phil

 

[aseltzer144]

The MMGs experience does benefit from a good subwoofer but I can't see how that fits into the budget. On the other hand, the MMGs go down to around 40 hz or so and the bass is tight and well defined. In fact, if you don't match the MMGs with an appropriate sub, you might be better off with no sub at all.

 

[canloader]

Jeff Rowland Model 112 - Sweetest sounding Amplifiers I've ever heard for Planer/Electrostatic.

 

[ChicagoPhil]

Quote:

Originally Posted by canloader Jeff Rowland Model 112 - Sweetest sounding Amplifiers I've ever heard for Planer/Electrostatic.

not sure a $5k amp fits his intended budget...

and while the maggies do respond to better electronics, i think an upgrade to the 1.6 powered by say something by Bryston would be a better use of funds than a Jeff Rowland powering the MMGs.

 

[Spektrograf]

xing3ds, those maggies are great speakers, though you haven't left much room in your budget to fulfill your stated design requirement... esp. on the HT end. With your fixed budget and with the fact that maggies may not be fulfilling in a HT setup w/o a sub because of low-freq. response issues (despite the quoted 50Hz, issues arise since, being dipoles, they present various room-induced bass freq cancellation issues if not properly positioned and if the room isn't properly bass-trapped, combined with limited bass-reproduction dynamic range). IMO, there's two ways you can go since you've been talking HT with a $1.6K budget...

A) 2-ch. Magnepan setup with a low-end subwoofer
B) 5-ch. Non-Magnepan setup with or without a subwoofer

Either way, you'll get better bang-for-your-buck if you go to eBay and purchase used for your amp. As others have suggested, NAD or Rotel receivers are a low-risk pick, or a 80's/90's vintage Adcom multi-channel amp would present a superb value here. Either way, the low impedance the maggies present do demand the the amp be somewhat capable to reduce harmonic distortion. You can drive these loudly with a lesser designed amp, but you'll experience higher distortion than with an amp with a more robust design.

If you REALLY need to shave off $$$ on the amp, you can get a older Yamaha, Denon, Onkyo 5.1 receiver for $100-200 on eBay.

If you are willing to go with a dynamic speaker rather than electroplanars, there are more forgiving options for you within your budget range.

The focus on the sub here has been (I'm guessing) due to your stated HT requirement. Sub(s) not only handles the booms, but is actively routed information as the LFE channel (depending on the mix engineer), it's an important channel not to leave out in a HT setup. If this were a 2-ch, music only system, it'd be another story.

Give us some feedback so we can refine our advice to you.

EDIT: Here's a guy that put together a pretty decent 2-ch maggie system for about $1.7k back in 2000 (prices may have risen since then)...
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazin.../donibbles.htm

 

[xing3ds]

thanks for the all the reply.

I must say that I forgot to mention the need of seperate piece of subwoofer. since a lot of respons in here suggested to pair MMG with a subwoofer due to incapabilites of MMG to produce a good low frequency sound.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spektrograf A) 2-ch. Magnepan setup with a low-end subwoofer B) 5-ch. Non-Magnepan setup with or without a subwoofer

from the respon in this threads, I will say I go for 2-ch one (but I need to ask this to my gf's dad to which he wants, but I bet he will go for 2-ch).


OK, so the situation now is....
- A pair of MMG
- A decent subwoofer to be pair with MMG
- Amplifier (Rotel Integrated AMP, NAD, and ???)
- Receiver (anyone can recommend a decent one, that is ready for 5.1?)
- Source (a good all-round player)

for the amplifier, I'm not really interested buying the used one because of the warranty problem and my gf's dad do not trust used electronics product. lets just keep it that way

btw, how much a Rotel Integrated AMp cost? which series? RA-1062 $699? that left out $350 ($550+$700 - $1600) for source and cables? Can i get a good source and cables for $350?


thanks again for the reply....

 

[ChicagoPhil]

Quote:

Originally Posted by xing3ds thanks for the all the reply. I must say that I forgot to mention the need of seperate piece of subwoofer. since a lot of respons in here suggested to pair MMG with a subwoofer due to incapabilites of MMG to produce a good low frequency sound. from the respon in this threads, I will say I go for 2-ch one (but I need to ask this to my gf's dad to which he wants, but I bet he will go for 2-ch). OK, so the situation now is.... - A pair of MMG - A decent subwoofer to be pair with MMG - Amplifier (Rotel Integrated AMP, NAD, and ???) - Receiver (anyone can recommend a decent one, that is ready for 5.1?) - Source (a good all-round player) for the amplifier, I'm not really interested buying the used one because of the warranty problem and my gf's dad do not trust used electronics product. lets just keep it that way btw, how much a Rotel Integrated AMp cost? which series? RA-1062 $699? that left out $350 ($550+$700 - $1600) for source and cables? Can i get a good source and cables for $350? thanks again for the reply....

you won't need both an integrated amp and a receiver... it's one or the other (or was i being too obtuse in reading your post?)

an integrated will give more value in a 2 channel setup, but will be effectively wasted money when going to HT. so i would just get a good receiver to start with since you know that's where the system is headed.

consider the NAD T743, retail $699. it is 5.1 only, but i think 6.1 and 7.1 are more fad than anything else. at this price point, the choice is sound quality vs. feature "novelty" for lack of a better word. same goes for power rating. the NAD is 50x5, but these are real watts. all 5 channels simultaneously driven at 0.1% distortion across the full 20hz-20khz. most mass-market receivers claiming 100+ per channel, when you read the fine print, are really quoting at a single frequency, not simultaneously driven.

so while the NAD's specs aren't as impressive, rest assured that it has sufficient current to drive the MMGs.

i think you can find a decent source and cables for $350. without getting into a debate about the absoulte value of cables, as part of a system at this combined price point, the bang for the buck is clearly in the speakers and amplifier (receiver). parts express (website direct) sells a house brand series of cables, named Dayton, that have solid construction and are reasonably priced.

cheers,
phil

 

[Spektrograf]

xing3ds, I think focusing on a good 2-ch system is a good start. Thay way, if your gf's dad wants to expand later, he has a good foundation to start with.

Now that you've settled on a config, I'd focus on getting a good amp before dumping money into a low-end subwoofer. As aseltzer144 mentioned, electrostatics (the kind of speaks maggie's are) present a difficult matching problem with subwoofers since they are so much faster than dynamic speakers (almost all subs are driven with dynamic drivers). That makes the sub quality all the more important. In fact, even more so than just matching with regular bookshelf speakers. The most common complaint that people make about mismatched systems is smeared or rather undefined bass as different parts of the bass freq. response gets to the listener's ears at different times depending on whether it's being generated by the sub or the maggie's (usually happens around the crossover point). A good, tight sub will run you easily over a grand. Around the $500-600 price point, you've got reasonable subs like the PSB 6i or a Sunfire True Subwoofer Junior. The Sunfire True Sub (the junior's bigger brother) is a very capable sub, but unfortunately, I have no experience with the PSB 6i or the True Sub Jr, just read lots of good things about the 6i, while it's just my wild guess that the Jr. can't be half-bad (so take that with more than a grain of salt). At your current budget, it may be better, again as aseltzer144 mentioned, to do without a sub, as you could be doing more damage to your resultant sq with a mismatch than just without. It may be fine without a sub anyway if the end user listens to material at moderate levels and doesn't crank the system to "feel" the explosions when watching a movie.

Phil's made some excellent suggestions on receivers already if it's within your budget. He's also right in that if you have a receiver you won't need a separate amp -- the amp is built into the receiver.

EDIT: I thought I'd add that electrostatic speakers (ESL's) are sometimes difficult on amps because of wide varying complex impedance loads. Simply taking a resistance measurement doesn't tell the whole story as the phase of the impedance can fluctuate widely across various frequencies. This is, of course an expansive generalization of ESL's, of which, some designers have implemented various compensation methods to reduce the load variance when pressented to the amplifier. On the specific design and load of the maggie's, I plea ignorance.

In simpler terms, a more robust amp design beyond your run-of-the-mill, mass-market HT receiver would be far more capable in driving these loads.