What amp to get?

[KEW]

Are the ceilings 8', 9', vaulted?, open to 2nd floor, etc?
It is the cubic feet off the room that matters.
Also, is the room open to another room on one wall or anything like that.

Regarding shaking the windows, Maggies alone are not know for low frequencies. I don't know if you have a subwoofer (and am rushing to post this before an appointment, so won't read back to check), but you'll probably need to add one for the low end slam you want, if you don't!

 

[revnice]

90gst:

If I've done something wrong in the setup, what kind of mistake am I looking for?

I've got each speaker attached to the proper connections and I've used the correct cable polarity.

I'm getting sound and I'm able to adjust the levels of each speaker using the remote and the onscreen display.

Where could I have gone wrong?

 

[AVRat]

Personally, I think that dealer took advantage of your naivety and unloaded some older demo gear on an unknowledgeable noob. I’d try and return it if at all possible. All of it, and look elsewhere for your gear. That dealer is just underhanded in my book and is not to be trusted. If they’re not willing to take the gear back (speak with the manager/owner), at least the receiver, I’d mention that you’ll be filing a complaint with the BBB.

That receiver is a couple generations old and does not have many of the latest features/connectivety. The units jinjuku mentioned are excellent options. If you should decide to do a dual sub setup, I'd recommend the Denon 4311 in place of the Marantz. The Denon can handle 4 ohm loads and may work well on its own.

 

[revnice]

AVR:

It was a few years ago so the gear was current at the time. I didn't go back right away and when I did I found they had a no-return policy, or the time period had expired. I can understand that with high-end electronics.

So I just lived with it - but the time has come to get it sorted out.

I don't have a sub at all so I'll definitely look into your suggestion. The Rel (forget which one) 'Storm' maybe - was recommended at the time. Might be obsolete now.

 

[walter duque]

Can you post some pitures?

 

[TLS Guy]

90gst:

If I've done something wrong in the setup, what kind of mistake am I looking for?

I've got each speaker attached to the proper connections and I've used the correct cable polarity.

I'm getting sound and I'm able to adjust the levels of each speaker using the remote and the onscreen display.

Where could I have gone wrong?

I think I have found the problem.

Your CCR is only designed to go down to 200 Hz and has to be used with the CC speaker stand. You connect your center channel to the CC speaker stand and the center to the stand. The CC speaker stand contains the 200 Hz crossover and the speaker delivering output below 200 Hz. The CCR is 3 ohm impedance.

This 3 ohm impedance above 200 Hz I don't think will embarrass your Rotel.
If you are using the CCR without the CC stand then I think you would heat up your receiver and get bad results. If you have been driving the CCR without the CC then you might well have damaged that CCR.

Your 1.6 speakers are four ohm, the CCR is 3 Ohm, the CC 4ohm and your surrounds are 5 ohm.

Max power for these speakers is 250 watts. So if everything is hooked up right you should be OK.

In that sized room you absolutely need to have a good sub, crossover for Maggies I would say at 80 Hz.

So if you don't have a sub, you do need two more items, the CC and a sub!

You have a nice set up and should be able to get very good results for years to come.

The need for the CCR to work with the CC is in the manual.

One other issue, the dealer that sold you this should have made sure it was set up correctly.

 

[90gstman]

I don't own a rotel so I will not be able to tell you step by step what buttons to press, but be more general.

First, How is your DVD player hooked up? I think the rotel does not have any HDMI inputs but if it does always use them. If not use the coax digital out (orange) or the optical out (fiber optic). Make sure the dvd player is set to output in one of the suround modes, not stereo. If it has a 5.1 output (five seperate outputs) you can use this also.

Second, make sure when playing dvds to make certain you chose the correct audio channel on the disc from the menu. I'm just saying this because some dvd discs defalt to two channel stereo.

Third, go into your setup menu in the rotel and make sure it is receiving a 5.1 channel signal from the dvd player while playing a dvd, not stereo. There should be a status menu that will give you this info.

Forth, speaker setup menu in the rotel. If you have no sub make sure that the two main spekers are set to full range plus LFE. Otherwise all your bass is getting lost. I know the maggies dont go bellow 40hz but if you set them to small and have no sub, you may be loosing all the bass below 80hz and thats not going to sound very good.

Fifth, please, please, please let us know if you have a sub. If you set the initial volume on the sub out of the range of the other speakers the rotel may not have enough gain to compinsate. This may be the reason you can't get your maggies loud enough.

sixth, make sure the crossovers in the rotel are set appropriatly for all five speakers. Let us know if you have a sub and we can make recomendations.

Hope this helps.

 

[revnice]

Thanks. I'm going to look into all that. I'll be kicking myself if the problem is just a setup issue - all this time.

No, I don't yet have a sub. I ran out of money and they're not cheap. That's going to be my next question but I've got enough to keep me busy for now.

I even found the manual!

 

[revnice]

90gstman:

Didn't see your post at the time of last reply.

Yes! That is very a very useful checklist, I've already printed it so I can work from it. Thanks a lot for that. I have to admit I didn't know to make sure of all those things, I just connected cables.

I don't have a sub.

You can specify 'no sub' in the onscreen setup options and the Rotel will then pass the bass to other speakers but that doesn't mean they can do it! True about the Maggie's bottom end, not very good without a sub.

The Rotel was out before HDMI so no, it doesn't have that.

"make sure the crossovers in the rotel are set appropriatly for all five speakers"
I don't even know what that means but I have the manual so I'll look it up.

Thanks a lot!

 

[walter duque]

Something is not Kosher here.

 

[AVRat]

The speaker setup starts on pg 27. I think the reason you never experienced decent surround sound effects is because you never properly set up the speakers in the receiver. http://www.audioholics.com/tweaks/speaker-setup-guidelines/setting-speaker-levels-distance-in-a-surround-sound-system.

Do you have the CCR stand as TLS Guy asked? And how high is your ceiling as KEW asked?

 

[90gstman]

revnice,

Regarding the crossovers: Again I'm not familiar with the Rotel, but most modern receivers allow you to manuely adjust the crossover freqency for each speaker. For example, if your center channel speaker rolls off the bass below 200hz and your crossover in the Rotel is set to 40hz for that speaker (or worse have it set to large/fullrange) then you are loosing all the sound going to that speaker bellow 200hz, which is alot! It's going to sound thin, weak, cell phone like. You need to redirect the sound under 200hz to the main channel (your 1.6's) by setting the crossover in the Rotel for the center channel to 200hz if it allows you to so.

Worse even is that you are waisting power in the Rotel trying to drive the center channel with full range sound and the speaker is not acousticly putting out anything bellow 200hz. The speaker is receiving it, but is turning it into heat instead of sound. Lost overall power in the system.

 

[jcl]

Magnepan has very explicit instructions for setting up the CCR. I would suggest you follow them closely. I would also find the manuals for your other speakers on their site and follow the setup instructions for them as well.

http://www.magnepan.com/manual_CCR


Here is the manual for the CCR stand
http://www.magnepan.com/manual_CC_speaker_stand



The Audio Asylum Planar Speaker Asylum is full of maggie fans/experts. However, before posting there I think you need to read the manual.

If you don't have the stand their center channels are known for being bass shy and difficult to setup properly because of that.
I seem to recall a special version of the outlaw audio icbm-1 intended just for maggies. I checked the site but it has been discontinued. The simple explanation of this is that the sound below the crossover that would go to your center was routed to the l/r mains to allow them to fill in between the sub crossover and where the center could begin.

http://www.outlawaudio.com/products/icbm.html

You may be able to do this with your rotel's bass management, you'll have to experiment.

I realize you don't have a sub, I would strongly suggest you invest in one (or two). It will help the Rotel, and it will help the Maggies. You should work on getting your speakers setup properly and sounding good at lower volume levels. Then you can get the external amp to power them to the volume levels you wish.


HTH

 

[TLS Guy]

revnice,

Regarding the crossovers: Again I'm not familiar with the Rotel, but most modern receivers allow you to manuely adjust the crossover freqency for each speaker. For example, if your center channel speaker rolls off the bass below 200hz and your crossover in the Rotel is set to 40hz for that speaker (or worse have it set to large/fullrange) then you are loosing all the sound going to that speaker bellow 200hz, which is alot! It's going to sound thin, weak, cell phone like. You need to redirect the sound under 200hz to the main channel (your 1.6's) by setting the crossover in the Rotel for the center channel to 200hz if it allows you to so.

Worse even is that you are waisting power in the Rotel trying to drive the center channel with full range sound and the speaker is not acousticly putting out anything bellow 200hz. The speaker is receiving it, but is turning it into heat instead of sound. Lost overall power in the system.

Crossovers on all Rotel units are global.

 

[90gstman]

Crossovers on all Rotel units are global.

Is it global for all speakers or global for all the speakers that are set to "small". Again, I apologize for not being familiar with Rotels but if its global for all set to "small" and your 1.6's are set to "large"+LFE it could work.

If it is truely global for all five speakers, you are going to need to get the dedicated center stand (and a sub would help).

I think we all understand that to sound best he is going to need the stand and a sub. What I'm trying to do is make the system tolerable without spending any more money. This way he can take some time to save money and do some research on subs.

 

[jcl]

It doesn't look like it is global -http://www.rotel.com/content/manuals/rsx1056_eng.pdf page 39 -
"The bass
management system redirects bass information
away from all SMALL speakers and sends it to
the LARGE speakers and/or the SUBWOOFER."

I think what would be the best system for the OP -
"LARGE front speakers, SMALL center and surround speakers, and a
subwoofer. The normal bass from the
SMALL center and surround speakers is redirected to the LARGE front speakers and
the subwoofer. The LARGE front speakers
play their own normal bass plus the redirected bass from the SMALL speakers and
LFE bass. The subwoofer plays the LFE bass
plus the redirected bass from all of the other
channels. This might be an appropriate configuration with a pair of very capable front
speakers driven by a large power amplifier. A potential disadvantage with mixed
LARGE and SMALL configurations is that
the bass response may not be as consistent from channel to channel as it might
be with the all SMALL configuration

 

[GranteedEV]

Maggies crave power and plenty of it. When I have heard them at their best, it has almost always been a tube setup with tons of current or on a high output SS amp. Sunfire comes to mind here, and a great choice would be the Sunfire Stereo 300~2. Another would be the Nakamichi PA-7 mkII designed by Nelson Pass. This amp would likely be my first choice, having heard the Maggie Tympani MkIII using a pair of these amps when I worked at Magnepan....


There have been a ton of recommendations made for Emotiva amps of various types, and I can state from experience that the QUAILTY of power used to drive Maggies is as important if not more so than the power the amp is capable of. Maggies are a delicate and airy speaker with a huge soundstage, but they do not have the ability in the 1.6/1.7 to dig deep. They have been called a "jazzy" speaker in that they excel at that type of music....

I've always heard that planar type speakers don't respond well to negative feedback but I don't quite understand why and my gut has always told me that it's the same total snake oil to promote Class A and SETs as usual while taking advantage of low sensitivity and impedance.

 

[GranteedEV]

As I said in my original post, Maggies are quite sensitive to the quality of power they recieve. The last pair I heard(I am actively seeking a pair now) were being driven on a pair of 300wpc Mcintosh tube amps(MC301's I believe) and a solid state Mcintosh Preamp. Source was a Mcintosh music server. They were the 20.1's and they easily bested a set of B&W's that were in the same room.

There's no such thing as "quality of power".

There's hundreds of kinds of amps, with their own intricacies. These include , differential solid state, ultra high frequency switching solid state, switching voltage rails, and tubes unless they've got serious inherent design issues they will sound the same unless they're clipping.

My question was what aspect of planar type speakers like the magnepans makes them sensitive to amplifiers with any level of negative feedback, which is what i've heard but don't necessarily buy.

If you believe in voodoo like "quality of power" perhaps you're not the person I should be asking this question to.

 

[Matt34]

Let's not turn this into an amp debate. He needs help getting what he has set up properly before we even begin to start recommending amplifiers.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

They were the [Magnepan] 20.1's and they easily bested a set of B&W's that were in the same room.

That is your pure subjective opinion.

I thought a pair of $2,500 Martin Logan Vantage bested a set of B&W 800Ds, and that is my pure subjective opinion.

It is also your pure subjective opinion that power cords, cables, wires, and "quality of amps" matter, which is fine by me. Some of my friends and relatives also believe the same.

But the reason a lot of us don't share this notion is because we believe in double-blinded tests, which have proven that this notion is false.

Of course, it may also be your pure subjective opinion that these double-blinded tests don't mean anything to you.

So there you have it. The same old 2 camps of audio from the beginning of time.