For my Maggies: Accessories, Round 1

Well, here I am. Only between 4 and 438 weeks to go before my Magnepan 3.7 speakers are ready and shipped. Which means I’ve had (and will still have) plenty of time to start sweating the small stuff.

Like …

What to get to make them sound their best?

The first thing on the list is a stand. Grant VanderMye has a webstore that provides the, arguably, one of the best stands available. Why MyeSound, or more generally, why racks at all? Well, it’s possible that the planar speakers are a bit loosy-goosey and might benefit quite thoroughly from some robust reinforcement.

Second will be floats. That is, vibration control according to Barry Diamante. Essentially, what I want is some footers that are essentially ball-bearings-in-a-cup, along the lines of the Rollerblock Jr from Symposium or the First Impression Music 305.

Third will be something to sit those footers on. It could be a platform, but it’ll need to be something thin. The stands already raise the speakers up an inch or two and the footers do the same. Another 2-4″ just isn’t what I need. I was thinking that I need to find something a bit thinner. A Symposium Svelte Shelf might be just the thing. It’s less than an inch thick and it provides a more robust decoupling interface between the speakers and the Berber-on-concrete floor. The problem is that with the Mye Stands, the footprint I’d need a cover for is 26″x26″. That’s … ah … pricey. Like $1200+ for a pair. An alternative might be something a bit more streamlined, like a set of Symposium Point Pods or Fat Padz for the Rollerblocks to sit on, or vice versa.

Last (but not least?) will be diffusion. This one is tricky. There are too many options, unfortunately. What I want is wood, not Styrofoam, polystyrene, or some other crap. Here’s some I’ve found:

• GIK Q7d
• RPG Modfusor
• RPG Diffractal
• RPG Modfractal

Any of these would work. There are some others, from Grant or Core, but when compared against the RPG or even GIK, these designs just don’t seem to be on the same level.

The price ranges between these wooden diffusor units start at $350 per for the GIKs (which are only 4′ tall) and range up to $2k per for the Modfractals (which you can get up to 8′ tall). I’m sure all would be “just fine”. The question remains how many and where to stick them (oh, and how many/if I’ll be able to afford them, but that’s just details, right?). What about dead center on the front wall? Yeah, apparently that’s where the biggest impact comes — as a dipole radiates in a figure-8 pattern, I’m assuming that center-front represents an overlap region between the two speakers’ dispersion fields where reinforcement is the highest. But the speakers are likely to be toed in a bit, which means that the backwave will be heading almost directly toward the corners, so maybe one each for the corners too. So, maybe three diffusors, total. Which means it’ll cost to $6k. Ouch.

Anyway, that’s the current thinking. Thoughts and comments are welcome ….