Speaking of the Magnapan’s, some guys in the Nati were experimenting with them crossed over to subs. The Magnapans and electrostatic speakers (which the Magnaplanars are not) are extremely fast and incredibly coherent (all frequencies coming from one driver) but because of their dipole design, it was tough to get deep bottom out of them. In fact, even the 6’ tall Magnapans I heard, in a complete live end dead end room, didn’t do rock music well, even with huge solid state amps. So guys were trying to cross them over and use subs with them. To me, it rocked more but never worked. Just like some of the Infinity speakers at the time that had incredibly transparent ribbon or electrostatic tweeters and mid ranges and crossed over to cone woofers, the time alignment always seemed off and there was something about the tone that “gave away” that it was coming from various types of drivers.
I’ve often wondered if that could be remedied now, given the huge advances in the digital technologies for time and phase alignment, etc. But, there is a video circulating currently, where someone with the ability to test it properly “proves” that the popular Adam speakers are not properly aligned... so the advantage of the incredibly quick and transparent ribbon tweeters is somewhat lost by their lack of perfect phase and time alignment.
How did you get me on this stuff? LOL
Hey, I get you on this stuff because you're interested in audio!
The Heil ribbon tweeters ADAM uses were first used on ESS Heil AMT speakers starting around '1974 (you probably remember them). They had a wonderful high end, but a narrow sweet spot. However, they led me to the idea of trying new types of drivers, and were actually a big reason that I started to experiment with unusual drivers in speakers such as the OHM Fs and Magneplanars in my own rig back in the day. When I was in college I even had Bose 901s; though they weren't as accurate, they were great fun paired with a 50 WPC McIintosh I had at the time.
I had a good moment remembering my first audition of the Heil AMT Tweeter in the ESS speakers during that time when I first heard the ADAM monitors. I was really excited about them!
I didn't have a problem with the low end on my Magneplanars (they were the 6' tall ones). However, one factor is that my room was a good 35' long, which allowed plenty of low end extension. Since a 40Hz bass wavelength is 28' long, the longer the room, the better for low end reproduction without doubling and other bass artifacts or cancellation.
Accurate bass reproduction is largely dependent on how the wavelength operates in a room. If you have a smaller room than one with a 28' length from front to back wall, the lowest frequencies tend to start cancelling one another out because of phase cancellation and other issues. What most audiophiles don't realize is that bass extension is as much a function of acoustics as it is the gear.
This is especially the case in dipole transducers, in my opinion, since the room reflections from the back of the speakers mean a lot.
Most people don't realize that much of the bass they're hearing is what's doubled an octave up, which gives the impression of more bass. I felt that the Magneplanar speakers had more accurate bass than I was able to get from traditional drivers. That doesn't mean, however, that it was more
entertaining, bass!
All that said, once I began working in the studio, I realized that I was getting a more effective presentation in the near field of the monitors, and that creating a good near-field zone that eliminated as much of the room as possible was going to give me the most accurate results. That meant using monitors that were front-radiators with adequate dispersion in the higher frequencies to create a wide sweet spot. For some time, this was the B&W 805s and 801s, and later the Genelec 8040s.
Fortunately, I've always had studios with at least 30 feet between the front and rear walls, so bass propagation hasn't been a problem, though reflections can still create null points at certain spots in the room that I treat with bass traps. I do still experiment with speaker placement and room treatment.
Still, my mix room isn't perfect, and I use headphones and software like Sonarworks and the Waves NX/Abbey Road/Ocean Way rooms to double check for low end issues (which they do quite well).
