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Magnepan center CCR & CC flawed design

Posted by marty1675 (A) on September 18, 2010 at 13:59:55

IMHO the CCR center speaker and CC bass stand are seriously flawed in terms of how they are designed. I'm posting this because anyone who plans to but the CCR and CC under a rear projection TV needs to be aware of this problem and flaw in the design.

The first and main problem is the height of the stand, at 16.75" plus the height of the center speaker at 15" for a total of 31.75". This is simply too high for many, if not almost all, rear projection 60" to 70" TVs with the stands supplied for those televisions. For example, the bottom of the actual screen image on my Sony 60" SXRD is 24.25". That means that in order to put the CC-CCR combination in front of that TV, I would have to put the TV stand on concrete blocks. It is a safe assumption that this same problem would occur with almost all large rear projection TVs that must use the stand supplied by the manufacturer.

This could have easily been prevented. The CC bass stand is significantly narrower in width than the CCR speaker, with the result that the bass panel is quite high. (Look at the photo on the Magnepan web site.) If the CC bass stand had been designed to be as wide or wider than the CCR speaker, then it could have easily had the same surface area for the bass panel and fit under rear projection TVs. I'm left shaking my head and wondering what Magnepan was thinking. A simple visit by Magnepan to a Best Buy, or to a local high end TV store, using a tape measure, would have confirmed that this design simply doesn't work for many Magnepan owners who own such TVs. When I spoke with Wendell, he claimed that they consulted with dealers on the design. My response was that the dealers must not own a tape measure either.

In response, Wendell tried to minimize the magnitude of the engineering mistake, by arguing that the center speaker can be integrated with the 20.1s through bass management and that you don't need the bass stand.

But there are two problems with that argument as well.

First, center speakers carry a great deal of bass information, and it is directional. The best setup would utilize a center speaker that can at least reach down to 80 hz and 50 hz would be better. I would gladly buy both the center speaker and bass stand -- if it was properly engineered to fit under rear projection TVs on the their own stands.

Second, the so-called "solution" offered by Magnepan, since the CC bass stand is the wrong size, is to use bass management. Their solution is to turn off the subwoofer, and direct the bass to the front 20.1s. But that is not possible with a processor like the Lexicon MC-12HD. It will route the bass to the speakers with the lowest crossovers, such as sides and rear, and then signals lower than the lowest crossover point are directed to the crossover. (See page 3-27 of the Lexicon manual.) It is not possible to tell the MC-12HD to send the bass from the center speaker only to the front speakers. That means that the bass from the center would be all over the room.

Mangnepan claims, in the CCR manual, that their design solves the problem of the "hole" in the center. Well, with one of the top of the line processors, it actually moves the hole all over the room, and does so with bass all the way up to 200 to 250 hz.

My conclusion is that I'll keep using my Martin Logan Theater center speaker. It goes down to 80 hz, which is an improvement over the 200 hz cut off of the Magnepan center.

If Magnepan had simply gone to a local TV store with a tape measure, and designed a bass stand with the correct height to fit under large rear projection TVs, then the problem would be solved. Those who want a center speaker with bass down to 50 hz could buy one. Those who need to do so due to problems with bass management could do so.

Unfortunately, that option does not now exist. I will wait until Magnepan corrects a seriously flawed design and simply widens the bass stand, and reduces the height. I might have to wait for five years, given Magnepan's reputation for very slow introduction of new products, but Magnepan will have to do it eventually. Next time I hope they will actually measure the TVs that will have a center speaker placed in front of them.

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

VH Audio

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