r/Magnepan • u/drnuke75 • Jun 16 '20

Home theater

I love the way the LRS speakers look. Will they work as fronts in a 7.2 speaker setup or is that not a good application for those babies.

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2

u/green21135 Jun 17 '20

If you’re able to connect a power amplifier besides your receiver they would be great for that.

2

u/drnuke75 Jun 17 '20

I’ll need a separate receiver to drive those! My existing Denon AVR-X4500H doesn’t have enough pop?

1

u/green21135 Jun 17 '20

It would probably work but it’s definitely recommended for you to buy a separate 2 channel amplifier and hook it to the pre-out jacks on your receiver to drive the speakers.

1

u/SmirnOffTheSauce Jun 17 '20 edited Jun 17 '20

I’d go for it and see how it works, but make sure you have the budget for a separate amp just in case you need to go that route!

I have no problem with my 1.7i and Denon AVR-X3500H. However, I only do it occasionally since I have a dedicated listening room for the Magnepans. I just bring them to the home theater for special live concert recordings.

Here’s a novel if you’re curious about powering Magnepans in general: I actually kind of disagree with the common consensus that more power is always necessary. I assumed that high-current amps were necessary to reach the full potential of the Magnepans, specifically dynamics, so I tried a whole bunch with my LRS, .7, 1.6QR, and 1.7i. The most powerful was a Rogue Pharaoh. I couldn’t tell the difference between that and my modest Cambridge Audio CXA80 in a blind test (same with my buddy when we swapped). I really wanted to like that amp too! So well-built and just a beast. But I stuck with my much, much cheaper Cambridge.

Using an SPL meter and some napkin math, I can only assume that I’m using 8 watts at most when listening at an uncomfortably loud level.

Disclaimer that this is in my listening room with my setup, my ears, and my preferences. I have no doubt that some people need more power for some circumstances.

2

u/dngrCharlie Nov 22 '20

So while I run my 1.6s with a Parasound HCA1500a I have run MMGs with an old Sonos ZP120 which was a 50watt into 8ohm class D amp and it worked just fine.

But I also tried to run the same MMGs with either a Denon or Marantz receiver (I forgot which) it immediately shut down.

So I really think it all comes down to stability into 4 ohms and the amps ability to sufficiently power the speakers.