Review: Magneplanar MG1.6QR - "Best Buy Part II" - by Johnathan Valin (Fi)

Practically a whole generation of audiophiles-m-m-m-my generation-cut their teeth on planar magnetic loudspeakers from the (now venerable) firm of Magnepan, Inc. In the mid-Seventies, a few hundred bucks got you a pair of Maggie Is or Ils that could make Lou Reed's walk on the wild side (and those colored girls going "doot-dadoot-dadoot"), or George Szell and Rafael Druian's incomparable Mozart sonatas, or the Duke's men taking the A train come alive with a trippy presence and immediacy that no other loudspeaker of that day could quite equal.

True, Maggies were large beasts, and more difficult to place than "box" speakers (or so it seemed in those innocent, park-'emin-a-corner-and-forget-'em years). But who cared? Back then, all you had was a beat-up couch with a Madras throw, some slung-canvas chairs, a stack of brick 'n' board bookshelves, album covers like a second rug on your floor, your stash, and your stereo. Somewhere out in the world, there were classes you were supposed to be showing up for, exams you were scheduled to take, futures yawning like wolf traps. Sooner or later-it took another decade for me-you got around to losing a paw. But for a sweet time, there was no need to lose anything. It was just you, the wild night, and the music. I wonder, sometimes, how those gray engineers who made Maggies and SP-3s and Dual-76s, all of them from M-m-m-mom's generation, would have felt had they known the infinite varieties of sloth and ecstasy their products were aiding and abetting? I wonder if Jim Winey would've sold me a pair of Maggie Is, if he'd known the timewasting, time-enhancing, time-obliterating uses I'd put them to?

Well ... times have changed.

Oh, from the top of their line to the bottom Maggies are still the fairest values in all the high end. And, as you will shortly see, they still sound great. But those of us who learned what high fidelity was all about (and I don't mean specs) via Mylar 'n' magnets have grown older (sigh). We've got jobs and kids and wives and houses and-Lord help us-futures. And the Maggies ... the Maggies just aren't tailor-made for the man with a future.

Their size-or, as they say nowadays, their "footprint"-makes 'em the very definition of obtrusive, and their looks... well, you can't see through 'em, and you can't shoot 'em. On top of that, they gotta be placed away from walls and each other, meaning you have to fit everything else in the room around them. Is it any wonder that Magnepan has lost marketshare to those sleek, half-naked nymphs from Martin-Logan, or the innumerable lunchboxes-on-a-stand from Great Britain and Italy? When you're a man with a future, sound takes second-place to hearth and home. Indeed, I strongly fear that will be the swan song of all two-channel stereos.

All right, shake it off for a momentthe accumulated frustration of living two minutes ahead of yourself, of constantly looking over your shoulder and wondering what the wife, the kids, the neighbors, the decorator will think. Go back... back ... back.

It's the late Sixties/early Seventies again! And, guess what, all you care about is getting the most fun out of Now. Your great aunt died and left you six hundred bucks to spend (fifteen hundred in 1998 dollars), and you want the best sound you can buy. 'Cause music means everything to you, man. It gets you high, gets you laid, joins you at the forehead with other slackers who live to the beat. You don't worry about how your new speakers are gonna fit your "lifestyle" or ,'decor" (so long as they're not hideously uncool-looking, or made by a company that exploits Chicanos or contributes to the war effort). All you care about is that, like an inexplicable, inexhaustible parlor trick, they thrill you with the sleight-of-hand magic of making Mick Jagger, Jascha Heifetz, and Joan Baez (hey, it's twenty, thirty years ago) appear in front of you.

You there, yet? Well, if you are ... dude, have I got the speaker for you!

Actually, these latest numbers from Jim Winey & Co., the 1.6 Q(uasi)R(ibbons), are down-sized as Maggies go, standing a little over five feet tall, about a foot-and-a-half wide, and literally thin as a board. In hardwood trim and black grillecloths they're handsome in a KLH Nine School of Design sorta way, meaning they're about as good-looking as floorstanding, cloth-covered rectangular panels get. While not quite entry-level, they're very reasonably priced at $1,895, and when it comes to making music-any kind of music-they're simply terrific.

I never got the chance to fool with the Maggie 1.5s, which these babies replace, but I did live with and (very favorably) reviewed the 2.7s awhile back-well, quite awhile back, actually, in Fi No. 9 (No. 9, No. 9). And I can tell you that, as good as the 2.7s were and are, the 1.6s may be a bit better.

In my room, from an honest 35 Hertz to a (slightly less honest) l6k, these things are hard to fault. Oh, I guess there's a wee bit of the old ribbon brightness in the upper midrange, but nowhere near enough to sharpen violin E-strings to razor edges, or add a tea-kettle whistle to flutes or piccolos, or make ol'Joan Baez sound like she's singing through a hole in her teeth. And I suppose that the very top octaves are a bit soft compared to something like Genesis' ribbon tweets (or Maggie's own version of same), so, while you get the full percussive impact of a sharp stroke on a high-hat, you don't quite get the refulgent wave of air that follows. (The 1.6s' softness on top is slight and not nearly as subtractive as what you hear through the $2000 Aerii from M-L, or from the majority of dynamic tweeters at this price point.) And I suppose that if you're used to listening down into the low thirties and upper twenties (and I mean to well-defined pitches down there, not ill-defined noise), the 1.6s won't float your boat, although they go low enough for most music and where they play they play with the definition and authority that Maggies are famous for-the kind of definition and authority that turns cellos playing in their lower octaves and contrabasses playing in their mid-to-upper ones into veritable forests of flashing bows and vibrating strings, or a single, plucked bass-fiddle into a three-dimensional object with a huge, pear-shaped sounding box and strings that stand out like the muscles in a sprinter's neck. And, finally, compared to their elder brothers, the 3.5s and the 20Rs, or Quads or Bella Voces Sigs or Gen 300s (properly driven), the 1.6s are not the Very Last Word in detail. But compared to everything else, they are. (And believe me, you'll never pine for the little bit you're missing.)

Enough of what the 1.6s don't do. What the 1.6s do do is make vocalists and most instrumentalists sound like they're cut from the same sonic cloth-dynamically, timbrally, and imagistically-regardless of what octaves they're playing in. Although this "single-driver sound" is something I've discussed many times before (most recently in my review of the Bella Voce Signatures), perhaps I should remind you of why it's important. When drivers are made of different materials or housed in different containers or powered by different drive systems, you inevitably hear those differences along with the music. Take the M-L ReQuests, for example. This is a speaker with a superb midrange, as good as anything I've heard in my home (indeed, better in this one regard than the speaker under review). BUT, the M-L's bass is produced by a single woofer housed in a box; everything from 200 Hz up by a boxless, curvilinear, electrostatic dipole. The different ways these disparate drivers are driven and enclosed (or unenclosed), and the different speeds and radiation patterns of each, produce a discontinuity between the bass and the midrange/treble, and that means a discontinuity in the size, speed, and timbres of instruments whose pitch ranges span these octaves. A piano, for instance, will blossom gloriously in the midband via the ReQuests; but once that same piano dips into the bottom octaves, it shrinks in size, loses a good deal of its bloom, detail, and color, and stalls on transients. The result is a mermaid-like instrument-purely gorgeous from the waist up, but a different animal down below. (Lest you think I'm picking on M-L, you can hear this same discontinuity, to lesser degrees, with Genesis 300s, AvantGarde Trios, and, even, slightly, the Shun Mook Bella Voce Signatures-all of them speakers I have recommended highly.)

Now, when it comes to producing a single-driver sound the Maggie 1.6s aren't perfection, but they are superior to the (fine) speakers I've just mentioned. The reasons, I think, are five-fold. First, like all Maggies the 1.6s don't have a box; hence no box-like colorations. Second, they are large dipoles, which, among other things good and bad, means that instrumental images and acoustic spaces are naturally sized, and don't change size on ya from octave to octave. Third, as I said in my review of the 2.7s, Magnepan's "quasiribbon" tweeters make a good blend with its magnetic planar woofers. Although marginally faster than these very fast (sorry, Robert) woofers, they are not so much faster that they produce a discontinuity in speed between top and bottom. Fourth, in the 1.6s that slightly faster quasi-ribbon driver is being allowed to do more work in the midrange, crossing over at 600 Hz (compared to 1000 Hz in the 1.5s). As a result, transient response through the midrange is more in line with transient response in the treble range and the low bass. Something like the harp and string pizzicatos in the scherzo of Kleinpeter's Mahler Fourth or the thunderous midband sforzandos in Byron Janis' Pictures are reproduced with a high measure of the "jump," the gunshot-like alacrity, they have in life. Fifth, because of their sheer acreage and the amount of air those acres move, large-diaphragm dipoles reproduce what I've called instrumental "action" better than smaller-sized drivers do. With first-rate recordings by vocalists like Kendra Shanks (Afterglow [Mapleshade]) or Mary Stallings (Fine and Mellow [Clarity]), or, more impressively, with big orchestral pieces like the aforementioned Mahler Fourth [Testament/ EMI] or the Varese Arcana [Speaker's Corner/ Deccal, you not only get a natural sense of the size of instruments and of the acoustical space they are filling with sound; you get a real taste of how they work-of the amount of air they move when they play, the direction(s) that air radiates in, and the intensity with which that air is launched and projected. As they used to say about car engines, there's simply no substitute for cubic inches. In short, 0 Man With A Future, you simply can't get this coherent and realistic an illusion of the size, dynamic scale, and action, of the sheer physical presence of instruments from smaller footprint drivers.

Let me tell you a true story that will illustrate all of these things. My wife (a Maggie fan) and I were listening to music one evening when I decided to put on the Mehta/LA Philharmonic LP of the Varese Arcana mentioned above. As is often the case with Varese half the audience (meaning Kathy) immediately left the room (in her case to potter around the kitchen).

Now Arcana is a big, noisy string, wind, and percussion piece, and Decca's Seventies-style multi-miking makes it seem immense, with no fewer than thirtynine spot-lighted percussion instruments and noisemakers scattered all over the stage, far left, far right, far rear. Because of the huge, cohesive soundfield that they throw, the Maggies are simply terrific on this kind of thing. The 1.6s' superior transient response, their exemplary way with the action and natural sizing of instruments, front-to-back, side-to-side, means that you can pinpoint the locations and identities of an enormous number of instruments. (Transient response, particularly what acousticians call "jitter"-their term for very low-level transient information-is intimately tied to our ability to locate and identify instruments of all kinds, and to recognize the way they are being played.)

Anyway, there I was listening to this very realistic barrage of drums and shakers and woodblocks and bells, much of it originating from way outside the 1.6s' physical boundaries, when I heard an instrument I couldn't identify coming from the far right side of the stage. It sounded like a slightly out-of-phase drumstick being tapped against a slightly out-of-phase tambourine. Save for the phasiness, it didn't stand out, in dynamics or size, from the rest of the percussion; but since the rest of the percussion was relatively easy to identify, I became curious. I picked up the paltry liner notes to see if they could give me a clue as to what odd-ball (maybe African or Native American) instrument Varese had thrown into the stew. But the notes didn't say. As I leaned over to put the album cover back on the floor (some things never change), I happened to glance through the portal on the right leading to the kitchen. There stood my wife, peeling potatoes for supper!

What I'd heard-and thought was part of Varese's Arcana-was the sound of the potato-peeler! Talking about throwing in the kitchen sink!

Now, this will tell you something about Varese's music (and something about me), but it will also tell you something about the Maggie 1.6s. The fact that I could be footed into thinking that a "real" transient sound, coming from a distance, was part of a recorded event should confirm just how natural these things are when it comes to recreating the physical presence of instruments-or potato-peelers-and just how big a soundstage they throw.

The Maggies aren't merely wonders at staging and imaging widely-spaced percussion-firework shows. On something like the Mahler Fourth, which depends musically on antiphonal effects, the 1.6s' frontto-back, side-to-side clarity is revelatory.

For example, one of Mahler's favorite strategies in the Adagio of the Fourth Symphony is to "terrace" a melody from foreground to middle to back. He will begin a theme in the foreground as a tutti, with strings dominant. He then pares the orchestration down so that the tune is passed from strings and piano winds and brass to winds alone, still playing piano, while strings and brass stand mute or play a ppp ostinato. Those winds were playing all along-at the selfsame intensity-but you didn't hear the theme dressed in their pastel colors and birdsong dynamic until Mahler "lifted the curtain" of strings and revealed what was happening in the middle distance. In a few bars, he may "lower the curtain" again then lift it further to reveal the richer hues and parade ground intensities of the even more distant brasses. Many composers use such chamber-like and antiphonal effects, but in Mahler's Fourth they are so subtly orchestrated that where you hear a tune becomes as important as when you hear it. Space becomes thematically relevant, as if you are not looking into a "soundstage" but into layers of memory and musical imagination.

With a great recording, like the Klempeter Mahler Fourth on Testament, this terracing from front to middle to back and side-to-side is especially clear (thanks to Klemperer's seating, balances, and reading-and EMI's engineering). But you need a loudspeaker that can do justice to the vast stage and complex orchestration of this intricate drama. The 1.6s do soas well as, or better than, anything I have in house.

When it comes to lifelike size, intensity, duration, location, number, and action, the 1.6s are marvelous, incredibly so for the bucks. When it comes to timbres ... well, they're very damn good. Not great like Bella Voce Sigs, because not as neutral as BVSes. Remember you're dealing with big panels, which means you're dealing with big room effects (and, doubtless, some undamped ringing and/or panel resonances).

Big diaphragm dipoles like Magneplanar 1.6s are just not the kind of loudspeakers that are going to bench-test ruler-flat. That bit of softness at the extreme top, that bit of added energy in the upper mids, a small bit of suckout in the crossover region (these are two-ways, after all), and the emphatic authority of its mid-to-upper bass combine to give you a sweet, slight tly-darker- than -I ife sound (unusual for Maggies, which tend toward the dry, bright, up-front sound of magnet-driven plastic). There is nothing egregious about this balance (indeed, the 1.6s measure flatter than other Maggies); it just isn't textbook.

Don't give it a second thought. Rulerflat frequency response is oversold. Better the lightning transients, the superb dynamic scaling, the remarkable spaciousness, the nearly world-class inner detail, the single-driver coherence, and sheer presencing power-all of which the Maggie 1.6s have in abundance.

When it comes to break-in, give these things a long leash. As Magnepan itself notes, the bass panels take a coupla months to loosen up, so don't judge the 1.6s prematurely. Let 'em cook. As for amplification ... don't skimp. While not as critical of source as some loudspeakers I can think of, the 1.6s will definitely tell you what's upstream of them. At $3800, the one -hundred - and- twenty-five -watt Goldmund SRMs are very nearly ideal for solid-state amps. Although I don't usually recommend tube amps with Maggies, the expensive-but-worth-it Atma-Sphere MA 11 Mk. 11 OTIs-which may be the best two -hundred -watt amps I've ever heard (review forthcoming)-do a helluva good job. There are bound to be other combos, for more money and considerably less, just make sure you have enough juice (at least one-hundred-watts into 8 ohms), because, like all Maggies, the 1.6s need sufficient power to come to life. Well, that's it. Show's over, and we're back in 1998. Time to make up your mind, dude. Are you gonna worry about footprints and decor and settle for lesser sound, or are you gonna spring for the best-for-the-buck, right now? 'Cause, in my opinion, that's what the 1.6s are-the best sound you can buy for fifteen-hundred dollars. Your call.

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