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RE: Harsh vocals in Magnepan 3.7i

Ah, this may be an underpowered amp issue. If your Maggie's sounded great the first two months, they should sound even better now, not worse. Also, an amp under stress will degrade over time if pushed to extremes by a difficult load. Sound-wise, this could result in harshness, more constricted vocals, thinner treble and ...worse case scenario... eventual amp failure.

I used my Quad 909 amp (250 watts into 4ohms) with my 3.7i Maggies for a month or so early on. Prior to that, the Quad had been driving a pair of Gallo Reference 3 speakers in a much smaller listening room with no stress. Maggie 3.7i speakers in a larger room were just too much for the amp to handle even at modest volume.

In my situation, the sound was never harsh, but seemed congested, never fully opening up. Also, the amp would get very hot in prolonged listening sessions which concerned me. Power-wise, there just wasn't enough meat on the amp's bones to righteously play these babies. In fairly short order I bought a Magtech (which comes with a 30 day trial period and lifetime warranty) and never regretted the purchase.

With more power in reserve, I can engage the Maggies full range without bi-amping, and dial in just the right low level crossover point on the Hsu Research powered sub to lock down the bottom octave without an active crossover, seamlessly blending the Hsu sub with the Maggies slow roll-off point at 40Hz.

If you aren't currently using a powered subwoofer and your listening room will accommodate it, I'd strongly recommend looking into any sub that will integrate well with your 3.7i Maggies. Investment in a good powered sub may be the least expensive, non-invasive tweak you can make. From my perspective, bigger Maggies produce a much bigger sound and require more juice to make them sound their best. This also requires some attention to the low bass roll-off, which in turn makes a big difference in the perception of mid & high frequencies.

One last point, if you go the more powerful amp route, there are other options besides the Sanders Magtech. I've read good things about Wyerd 4 Sound Class D monoblock amps that have even more power (1100+ wpc) than the Sanders amp into 4 Ohms (stable down to 2 Ohms) for significantly less cash. That said, without first-hand knowledge of the Wyerd4Sound amps nor having read any direct comparisons with Sanders' AB biased amps I can form no opinion on how these would interact with your speakers.

Apologies if I've gotten too afield of your topic ...not to mention long-winded in respect to recommendations..., but hopefully this info will be useful.


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  • RE: Harsh vocals in Magnepan 3.7i - Audiophilander 03/29/1812:11:08 03/29/18 (0)

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