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Satie chose the amplifier size by watching clipping levels, so I guess his panels didn't flap. The Tympani bass panels are amazing. I used to have Tympani 1D's and they could reproduce bass notes with the slam of a dynamic speaker, but with planar clarity and naturalism. (Alas, they don't fit my current room, so I lent them to a friend.) In fact, I just read this comparison of the 20.1's and the Tympani IVA's by someone who had owned both:

"For midrange and highs, the 20's are superior, though I missed the subterranean lows of the Tymps. The MG20's will exceed their range and flap before reaching the lo-frequency spl's of the Tympani's."

I've never forgotten that bass and it's why I'm on a Quixotic quest to shoehorn Tympani woofers into my tiny listening room.

The 116 dB SPL comes from a paper on concert hall levels written by a fellow from Dolby Labs. But, again, it's a peak figure, and instaneous peak levels are *much* higher than average levels. You need a scope or a real-time analyzer or meter with a peak hold function to read them. You really don't want to let test signals at anywhere near that level get near your speakers, the best that can happen is that you'll blow the fuse.

116 dB SPL is a pretty typical upper limit for the peak SPL of audiophile speakers. Professional speakers play louder. I don't have the figure for Maggies, but if you're listening at an average level of 95 dB SPL and your amp isn't clipping, there's a good chance that they're reproducing 115 dB SPL peaks. In my experience, though, the MMG's start to sound strained when they get that loud. They just don't have enough woofer surface area -- 312 square inches vs. 1254 for the Tympani IVA's -- and they probably have a higher Q.

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