Review: Magneplanar MG 3.6 Loudspeaker - by Brian Damkroger - Stereophile August 2000

Bonnie and I decided to avoid the crowds last weekend, and instead settled in at home to watch the recent remake of Great Expectations, with Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow. It seemed like a pretty good movie, but before long I found my thoughts drifting to the review I had in progress: my audition and analysis of the Magnepan Magneplanar MG3.6/R- True, Great Expectations is a little slow, and a few explosions or car chases might have better held my attention, but if ever there was an audio product to which the phrase "great expectations" applied, it's the Magnepan 3.6/R.

The MG3.6/R's immediate predecessor, the MG3.5/R, was a break through product for Magnepan. It was a huge commercial success, and established a spectacular new level of performance for Magnepan in terms of dynamics and transparency. As if that weren't enough, the 3.6/R comes right on the heels of the MG1.6/QR, another huge success, and an industry-wide benchmark for performance. I reviewed the 1.6/QR in January 99; it's one of the least expensive speakers to ever appear in Class B of Stereophile's "Recommended Components."

Months before the MG3.6/R was even introduced at the 1999 WCES, a buzz permeated the Internet about "the new Magnepan," and I received a steady stream of e-mail messages asking about it. "Is the 3.6 as good as I've heard? Is it really all of the updates developed for the 1.6, now applied to the 3.5?"

Nowhere were expectations greater than at Casa McKenzie-Damkroger. I've been listening to Magnepans evolve for two decades. I've admired their coherence and loved the uncanny way they could capture the sense of real instruments playing in a real space. Conversely, their lack of dynamics and slight opacity were always barriers between the music and me, barriers diminished in each succeeding generation and nearly eliminated in the MG3.5/R and 1.6/R. Now comes the MG3.6/R, so maybe ... ?

Great expectations, indeed.

Basic Technology: What is an MG3.6/R?

Several Magnepan loudspeakers have been covered in these pages, including two of the MG3.6/R's predecessors, the III and IIIA. The 3.6/R carries forward the same configuration, layout, and driver technology. It's a three-way design with crossover points of 20OHz and 170OHz. The planar-magnetic driver is a 0.5-mil-thick Mylar diaphragm, onto different areas of which have been fastened separate, current-carrying wire grids for the bass and midrange. The top end is handled by Magnepan's unique, 55"-Iong ribbon -a true, free-standing ribbon in which the current-carrying aluminum ribbon is also the driving element.

The 3.6/R is cosmetically identical to the 3.5/R: a slim, elegant tower approximately 6' tall by 2' wide by 1.5" deep. My pair was covered with an oatmealcolored, open-weave fabric, with dark cherry strips flanking the panels and separating the tweeter and midrange-bass sections. The panels are mirror-imaged, with the planar-magnetic driver located to the inside in the recommended setup, and the ribbon tweeter to the outside.' Connections (single or biwire) are made via banana plugs to an external crossover box that plugs into the panel's rear. Magnepan also makes an optional crossover for bi-amping but I did all of my listening with the standard unit.

NOTE: The tweeters should be slightly farther from the listener than the bass-midrange panel so will be placed inboard or outboard, depending on distance and toe-in.

Although it retains the 3.5/R's basic configuration, appearance, and driver technology, the 3.6/R differs slightly in some system parameters. The changes reflect both a response to perceived shortfalls in the 3.5/R and lessons learned in the successful transformation of the 1.5/QR into the giant-killer 1.6. The goals for the 3.6/R were to improve low bass power and articulation, smooth the in-room midbass smoothness, and better integrate the drivers. The first was accomplished by increasing the midrange panel's area from 170 to 199 in, allowing the bass/midrange crossover point to be lowered, and the bass panel's tuning to be optimized for a narrower frequency range. Better integration and smoother in-room response were achieved primarily by careful optimization of the tensioning, damping, and partitioning of the diaphragm -the "black are' responsible for much of the transformation of the 1.5 into the 1.6.

System and Setup

I did all of my listening in my main 17' by 23' listening room, with the Maggies firing across rather than down the room's length. The setup put them approximately 3.5' out from the front wall, and the speakers' outer edges approximately 7' 10" from the left wall and 4' 11" from the right. The speakers' inside edges were about 5' 8" apart, their centers each about 13' from my listening position. I settled on a slightly toed-in configuration, with the speaker axes crossed at a point approximately 6' behind the listening position.

My past experience with Magnepans led me to expect a fairly easy setup and optimization process, and that proved to be the case. A few things are worth noting, however. The MG3.6/R's radiation patterns -dipole for the bass, a line source for the midrange and tweeter - reduced bass problems with room boundaries, but made sidewall interactions a bit more of a concern. Positioning too close to a side wall could cause the image to come for-ward along the side walls, distorting stage placement and image size. In my room, with a 23' long wall behind the speakers, it wasn't an issue. It's also been my experience that Maggies in general work best when backed by a solid but irregular wall. Hard plaster and adobe are good, brick and stone are better. None was an option for me, so I had to make do with drywall and lath over concrete block.

Another consideration is that although the 3.6/R is a benign load -mainly resistive and a fairly flat 4 ohms -at 86dB/2.83V/m they're not terribly sensitive. The VAC Renaissance 70/70 is an unusually strong 70W amp, but wasn't really enough to make the Maggies sing. The Mark Levinson No.20.6s, VTL Ichibans, and Classe' CAM-350s A did better jobs of resolving low-level dynamics and detail, and opened up the soundstage noticeably. I spent time with all three, but ended up preferring and doing most of my listening with the Classe' monoblocks, which are rated as delivering 70OWpc into the Maggies' 4 ohm load.

The rest of the system remained constant throughout the review period: my VPI TNT IV/JMW Memorial turntable/tonearm combo with Grado Reference cartridge, SimAudio's new Moon Eclipse CD player, and a VAC CPA1 Mk.III preamplifier at the center of it all. Nirvana's new S-X interconnects arrived mid-review and immediately claimed their territory. I biwired the MG3.6/Rs with Synergistic Research Designer's Reference when the Classe's were in use, and used Kimber's Bi-Focal XL with the VTL and Levinson amps.

Bright Star's Rack of Gibraltar and Air Mass, Big Rock, and Little Rock isolation products kept everything stable and quiet, and AC was fed through an MIT Z Stabilizer (amps) and Z System (front end), with a Nirvana isolation transformer providing an extra measure of isolation for the Moon Eclipse.

I ended up using only a minimum of room treatment-a single 14" ASC Tube Trap in one front corner (reflective side out), an EchoBuster diffuser panel in the other, and a combination of EchoBuster BassBuster columns and homemade panel resonators in the rear corners. EchoBuster absorbers were mounted to the rear wall, behind the listening position.

Use and Listening: Can Great Expectations be Met?

Great Expectation No.1: A huge, open, holographic soundstage. Magnepans have always gotten "the space thing" right. Whatever their other pluses or minuses, they've been able to create a more realistic soundstage than most speakers, and better capture the sense of real instruments playing in a single, coherent acoustic environment. The 1.6/QRs were very good in this regard; the MG3.5/Rs were outstanding.

The MG3.6/Rs didn't disappoint me in the least. Their soundstage was huge - extending well outside the speakers, and the deepest of any speaker I've used. Front-to-back layering was superb; in fact, the 3.6s set a new standard in this regard. They didn't just clearly define the position of the instruments on the stage and the surrounding hall boundaries, or even do so with a greater degree of precision and specificity than other speakers - they also quite clearly described the spaces between the performers, and between the instruments and an adjacent hall boundary. A lot of speakers can do this in the lateral plane, but none -in my experience-can do it so well with respect to the front-to-back distances.

The effect is particularly riveting on naturally recorded works, where the hall ambience is discernibly woven between the instruments. For a dramatic example, try John Eliot Gardiner's recording of Henry Purcell's The Tempest, with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra (Musical Heritage Society 4479). Most speakers can assign the correct depth cues to the orchestra and various singers, and correctly place the images on the stage. Good speakers clearly track the singers as they move forward and backward on the stage.

With the MG3.6/Rs, there was also a continuous ambience field that stretched from the side walls down into the front-to-back spaces between singers, who were clearly and obviously moving around within a single, defined acoustic envelope. I often felt as if I could actually enter the recording's acoustic environment and wander around among the performers. Even on good studio recordings, where there's no real "stage" per se, the soundstage and images were so tangible that it seemed as if I was almost able to get between and behind the performers.

Great Expectation No.2: Pinpoint precision and extraordinary detail. While Magnepans have always done a good job of soundstaging and their images have always been wonderfully coherent with the surrounding space, they've never had quite the precision of the best cone-type speakers. Each succeeding generation of Maggies has improved on their performance in this regard, and both the MG3.5/R and the 1.6/QR were dramatic improvements over their predecessors. But the picture was still a little diffuse - certainly not a Monet, but not quite a laser photograph either.

The MG3.6/Rs didn't noticeably improve on the 3.5s' performance in this area. The performers' images were natural, and there was sufficient detail to resolve, in a general sense: individual instruments within an orchestral section, even within dense, complex passages. Similarly, the images' edges interacted naturally with the surrounding space, the notes blooming and expanding, the overtones dissolving into the background ambience. However, there weren't the layer upon layer of fine detail, the complexity, or the density with which speakers like the best Thiels and Avalons can imbue an image.

The situation wasn't perfectly blackand-white, however. I typically sit somewhere mid-hall at local symphony and chamber orchestra performances, and the perspective there isn't terribly dissimilar to the Maggies' slightly diffuse portrayal. Conversely, the added detail that the Thiel CS7.2s provided (see February '00, pp.119-127) unquestionably made voices and instruments more vibrant and alive.

A great example was "Chuck E.'s in Love," from Rickie Lee Jones' live acoustic album, Naked Songs (Reprise 45950-2). Through the MG3.6/Rs, her guitar and vocals, even the audience sounds, sounded very natural, nicely detailed, and dimensional. With the big Thiels, however, the extra detail and complexity seemed to supercharge the images and make them breathe, and gave the performance a presence and fife that had me turning out the lights and sitting spellbound in my chair.

Great Expectation No.3: Seamless top-to-bottom consistency. This is another traditional Magnepan strength, and an area in which the MG3.6/R is a solid improvement on its predecessor. The 3.5/R is wonderfully consistent across the frequency range, but if you listen closely, it loses a bit of articulation in two areas: from the midbass on down, and in the upper midrange to lower treble, just before it transitioned to the ribbon tweeter.

The 3.6/R was every bit as seamless and consistent as the 3.5. There was a slight warmth to its tonal balance in my room, probably reflecting a boost in the upper-bass region, but no overt discontinuities in character or distortions - nothing to draw attention to the speaker. Both instruments and soundstage remained consistent -cut from a single cloth, if you will -across the entire range of frequencies and levels.

The 3.6/R's bottom end was an improvement over the 3.5's, remaining powerful, clean, and articulate all the way down to about 35Hz in my room. The fast electric bass runs on Fourplay's "Bali Run" (from Fourplay, Warner Bros. 26656-2) are a true torture test. The 3.5/R got muddy and confused during these passages, but the 3.6/R sailed right through them. There wasn't the absolute power or last bit of detail at the very bottom that I hear from the Thiel CS3.6 and CS7.2, but the Maggie had a goodly amount of slam, with crisp, fast transients and excellent pitch definition.

The 3.6/R's upper-midrange performance was excellent as well, with no perceptible loss of detail or obvious transition to the ribbon tweeter. Piano recordings showed this off well, and Dick Hyman's In Recital (Reference Recordings RR-84CD) is a particularly good example. This very natural-sounding recording has a slightly distant perspective and a very well-defined portrayal of both the instrument and its interaction with the surrounding space. With some speakers, the piano will sound slightly different as its pitch moves up and down, or its size and placement within the recording space will seem to change. With the Maggie, the piano's tonal balance and the combination of the notes' attack, bloom, resonance, and decay were entirely consistent across the instrument's range, as were its size and placement.

Great Expectation No.4: Pure, articulate upper bass and midrange; airy, detailed highs: The MG3.5/R is superb in these areas, but the MG3.6/R was probably just a bit better. Vocals were treated well, with a natural mix of chest, throat, and mouth tones, but strings really showed off the Maggie's upper bass and midrange best. One of my favorite albums is Franz Helmerson's performance of solo cello works by Bach, Hindemith, and Crumb (BIS BIS LP-65). Listen carefully to some of the slower passages in Bach's Suite No.2, in particular. When Helmerson draws his bow across the string, I could hear the combination of sounds that were layered on each other to build each note. The bow's initial contact, the resinous draw across the string, the string's vibration, and, finally, the resonance building within and expanding out from the cello's body -all were exactly right in their balance and timing. The result was a beautiful, almost heartbreakingly pure cello sound.

The MG3.6/R's highs were nothing short of superb. Piccolos were pure and dear, and maintained all their detail and sharp metallic cut all the way to the top of their range - and without getting hard or steely. Solo violins were delicate and sweet, and high, massed violin crescendos had tremendous power and presence, but never crossed over into a hard, unnatural screech. Cymbals are perhaps the best example, and the Maggie unfailingly had exactly the right balance: a rich, bell-like tone at the center, a palpable sense of waves of overtones emanating from the cymbals'vibration, and, surrounding it all, a cloud of shimmer that seemed to permeate the entire space.

Great Expectation No.5: Dynamics! From the subtlest micro-shading to the most explosive crescendo: Another longtime Magnepan bugaboo has been the need to play them loud to get a sense of realism. The MG3.5/R and 1.6 were dramatic improvements over the previous models in their ability to reproduce large dynamic transients, but they still lacked the nth degree of resolution at the pppp end of the scale. With the MG3.6/R, Magnepan seems to have eradicated this shortcoming. Big crescendos were startling in their power, as were drum sets, particularly rimshots and toms.

At the other end of the scale, when the 3.6/Rs were paired with a muscle amp like the Classe' monoblocks, they did a first-rate job of capturing microdynamic shadings. On "What a Dif'rence A Day Made," from Never Make Your Move Too Soon (Concord jazz CCD4147), Ernestine Anderson often floats the faintest, subtlest traces of vibrato on the very last breath of notes. A lot of speakers, even some excellent dynamic models, can't capture that vibrato, but the 3.6/R did it beautifully. I'd often find myself holding my breath, just to make sure I didn't miss these delicate whispers.

Great Expectation No.6: Transparency: no opacity, no texture: For all their great strengths, Magnepan speakers have always suffered from a slight opacity. The MG3.5/R and 1.6/QR were spectacular advancements in this regard, retaining only faint vestiges of a slightly filmy texture. The 3.6/R is another big step in this direction, its transparency rivaling that of the best cone-type speakers I've heard. This showed up in added purity through the midrange and upper midrange, slightly more complex harmonic mixes, and improved dimensionality. The improved transparency was most apparent, perhaps, in how it helped expand and remove congestion in the back half of the soundstage. The MG3.6/R was the best I've heard at opening up the spaces between trumpets, for example, and maintaining their size and detail.

The flip side of the 3.6/R's transparency, however, was that it wasn't nearly as forgiving as earlier Magnepans. Even the 3.5 wouldn't penalize a listener too much for their choice of upstream components, as long as they included a clean, powerful amplifier. With the 3.6/R, I had to be a lot more careful. My Ultech and Parasound CD players just didn't cut it, for example, and until the SimAudio and oracle players showed up, I listened almost exclusively to vinyl -and had to scrupulously level, adjust, tweak, and warm up my TNT. Selecting cables became an agonizing series of trials and tradeoffs. Even my beloved VTL Ichibans became alimiting factor, ironically contributing a touch of haze of their own. Ditto the Mark Levinson No20.6s, which had a slightly dark, liquid presence. It was only when I installed the Classe' CAM350 monos and optimized the setup around them that I truly appreciated the MG3.6/R's transparency.

Summary

Okay, I'm a Magnepan guy. I've owned several pairs over the years, and I absolutely flipped over the MG3.5/R. In these pages, I pronounced the 1.6/QR "one of the great audio bargains." Nowhere were expectations for the MG3.6/R higher than in my listening room. And, point by point, the 3.6/R delivered.

The 3.6/R builds on the great strengths of the 3.5/R, and successfully incorporates some of the magical touches that transformed the 1.6/QR into such a small wonder. Its re-creation of the onginal soundstage and recording environment are incredible, and with the latest improvements, its dynamics, resolution, and transparency approach those of the very best speakers I've heard.

The 3.6/R does need to be driven by a good, powerful amplifier to sound its best, and will clearly reveal the weaknesses of upstream components. But when all the pieces are in place, it's magic.

The 3.6/R is unquestionably better than the 3.5/R -stronger, more articulate, and better integrated. It's not a quantum step, though, so 3.5/R owners needn't feel the need to immediately dump their speakers in the "garage sale" pile and upgrade. Similarly, the 3.6/R is a substantially better speaker than the 1.6/QR in every way. It's flatter, more refined, much better at the frequency extremes -the fist goes on. However, if bucks are really, really tight, I suggest you opt for the 1.6/QR, invest the difference in upgrades elsewhere in the system, and not lose any sleep over it.

Taken on its own, however, the Magnepan Magneplanar MG3.6/R is a sensational speaker, and, at $5,000/pair, very reasonably priced. In some respects it's the best speaker I've heard, period. Even in the areas where it's perhaps not the very best, it's awfully close -even when the very best is several times more expensive. Some speakers I admire, some I like ... the Magnepan MG3.6/R, I think I'll keep. Very highly recommended!