MM7's are here

[Mike Lavigne]

a question was asked on another forum about (1) coherence (2) vinyl verses tape, and (3) sleep.

here is my response;

lack of sleep is the only negative, and i'm serious about that. it's very difficult to leave the room at night. and in the morning i'm drawn back. i am on vacation this week so hopefully i'll find some balance on that issue.....or not.

i'm not complaining mind you, this is what i've wanted.

i've had the complete 2 tower set-up since Tuesday night. the main towers were laser dialed in 2 weeks ago and have not been moved. the tweeter adjustment on those is set at flat (which is all the way full). all the bass adjustments on the bass towers are set to flat, 40hz on the crossover. the bass towers are just 'eyeball'd' into position. i've done zero adjustments of any kind, i've just listened.

i had considered the main towers to be perfectly coherent by themselves; but adding the bass towers had actually improved the coherency and seamlessness....which was surprising. i've listened to all kinds of music, from large orchestral, to organ, to string quartets, to blues, jazz, big band, rock, and lots of vocals. almost all is familiar to me and i've not heard one note out of place. i think part of this is the woofers cover the mid-bass so perfectly without issue, and that is the toughest frequencies to get clear and linear.

it's almost like great bass acts like 'glue' holding everything in place and adding body and completness to everything.....while balancing things out.

i spoke to Kevin Malmgren (the designer) about this as i really could not believe what i was hearing. he said in some ways he was not surprised, that he had a hunch that set to 'flat' it might just be right for my room.

i do expect that when Jonathan visits later this week and takes a look on the RTA that there will be some issues for him to deal with. and then later when Kevin comes that some improvements are made. that is simply logical.....how could a speaker with such capabilities be 'prefect' without any adjustments?

later today a few golden ears will be here for a listening session; maybe they will be able to avoid my 'expectation bias' and percieve some issues.

there is no doubt that tape has gone to a whole new level now, really silly good. but so has vinyl. i've not had any chance or inclination to do comparitive listening to answer your question at this point on whether vinyl still competes directly. ask me in a couple more weeks.

 

[A.wayne]

Hows the digital Mike ....(rhetorical)

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Hows the digital Mike ....(rhetorical)

like the other formats, the digital is really quite a bit better.....and i've listened to digital quite a bit. i'm not anti digital at all, lots of great music is only on digital so i'm there.

i have lots of hi-rez files, a few thousand, and lots of dsd downloads, 400-500 and those sound excellent. and redbook sounds great too. i've done playlists on my server software, just sat back and let the music wash over me.....can't do that with analog really. and i've just enjoyed hearing familiar music at a new level. the better the recording, the more the improvement.

i have so many reference digital tracks i've always used for testing and getting my bearings that i know them soooo well. so it's such a trip hearing them as god (the digital one of course) meant them to be heard.

i would say that analog has more 'headroom'; therefore the potential for improvement is on another level altogether.

 

[NorthStar]

-- But that 'headroom', isn't it mainly comin' from the MM7s' spatiality and coherence, more than the LP recording being reproduced by the needle in the grooves, attached to the cartridge which is suspended and balanced in the air from the tonearm? ...Or is it a combination of 'everything'? :b

* Reminds me a bit of an analog Graphic Equalizer versus a digital Parametric one.

 

[jazdoc]

Well I had the opportunity to listen for a couple of hours to the MM7's at Mike's yesterday. Not enough time to form a detailed assessment but a few things are clear...

1. The speakers are big! You'll need a large room to site them.
2. Sadly gents, size matters. I've never heard the scale of a full orchestra rendered as convincingly.
3. Yet the system was surprising nuanced...I heard heretofore unknown subtleties in well known recordings. Probably the best micro-dynamics I've ever heard.
4. Eight subwoofers are over the top, but it's surprising how much the LF energy enhances the illusion. We played a solo piano piece that really came alive.
5. I came away with an even healthier respect for the MM3's. No they don't have the scale or power of the MM7's but they are fine speakers.

I hope to spend some more time at Mike's on Thursday when JTinn does his magic and dials things in...

 

[NorthStar]

Well I had the opportunity to listen for a couple of hours to the MM7's at Mike's yesterday. Not enough time to form a detailed assessment but a few things are clear...

1. The speakers are big! You'll need a large room to site them.
2. Sadly gents, size matters. I've never heard the scale of a full orchestra rendered as convincingly.
3. Yet the system was surprising nuanced...I heard heretofore unknown subtleties in well known recordings. Probably the best micro-dynamics I've ever heard.
4. Eight subwoofers are over the top, but it's surprising how much the LF energy enhances the illusion. We played a solo piano piece that really came alive.
5. I came away with an even healthier respect for the MM3's. No they don't have the scale or power of the MM7's but they are fine speakers.

I hope to spend some more time at Mike's on Thursday when JTinn does his magic and dials things in...

---- Cool post Jaz.

I truly and fully believe you guys, and if I had some money to spare right now, I'll get on that ship with full sails deployed as well; you better believe it! :b

 

[MasterChief]

Dont forget that Mr. Lavigne only is halfway there...omg...458!

 

[NorthStar]

-- ...458?

 

[LL21]

-- ...458?

the Dartzeel monos (model 458)

 

[NorthStar]

-- Ahhhhhhhhh. :b

 

[Mike Lavigne]

i'm adjusting the room to the big boys, i've moved the racks on both sides farther away from the bass towers (thanks to my visitors yesterday for the assist to move the tt) just to not crowd them visually.....i had to get creative with my interconnects which cross the room from the tape repro to the dart pre to be able to do it. it seems like now they have a little room to breathe.....or maybe it's just my own comfort zone.



you can see the two power Absolute Fidelity power cords for the two separate amps on the bass towers. also; the jumper from the main towers to the splitter, then to each amp for the top and bottom pair of subs.

 

[AMP]

Hi Mike,

Way off topic.... is your TT on an Adona rack? If so, how do you like it?

 

[NorthStar]

-- Those pictures are truly scary Mike. :b

* The central amp seems so minuscule between the four 'statues'.

 

[Dimfer]

congrats Mike, for putting together such top notch system in a top notch room... an audiophile dream.

I admire that you are into music as much as you are into gears.. I hope to listen to your system one day.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

-- Those pictures are truly scary Mike. :b

* The central amp seems so minuscule between the four 'statues'.

i selected a picture of a mono 458, enlarged it to 'life-size' and made 2 prints.....and placed them in their positions and looked just to see how it would all look.

no i didn't.....i'm not quite that bad. but it did cross my mind for a moment.

oh and btw, the stereo dart 108 does not sound small in any way, shape or form.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Hi Mike,

Way off topic.... is your TT on an Adona rack? If so, how do you like it?

yes; the tt is on the Adona.

love the Adona, it plays above it's price point. solid, excellent build materials....good looking. and looks as good in person as the pictures. and since i'm a believer in decoupling footers with a grounded rack and not a very expensive decoupling rack it's perfect for me.

 

[LL21]

Mike -

I have to admit, once the shock and awe wears off (a little), i am starting to scrutinize your photos a bit more. Can you share with us a little about your speaker setup? I have seen most speaker/tower combinations with the sub towers outside and slightly behind the main towers. Tidal Sunrays, Genesis 1.2/Dragons and even Alexandria/Thors (though i suspect those might be slightly different)...the only ones I have seen setup this way are the Gryphon Poseidens. Curious if you tried other configurations before settling on this one? Thanks for any guidance!

Also curious about the toe-in compared with the MM3...is it the same? Seems like these speakers face your directly slightly more than the MM3s did?

And finally...enjoy!

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike -

I have to admit, once the shock and awe wears off (a little), i am starting to scrutinize your photos a bit more. Can you share with us a little about your speaker setup? I have seen most speaker/tower combinations with the sub towers outside and slightly behind the main towers. Tidal Sunrays, Genesis 1.2/Dragons and even Alexandria/Thors (though i suspect those might be slightly different)...the only ones I have seen setup this way are the Gryphon Poseidens. Curious if you tried other configurations before settling on this one? Thanks for any guidance!

Also curious about the toe-in compared with the MM3...is it the same? Seems like these speakers face your directly slightly more than the MM3s did?

And finally...enjoy!

Lloyd,

i'll start out by quoting the answer the speaker designer, Kevin Malmgren, gave me a month ago to the essentially same general question in an email.

Hello Mike,

I will try to simplify this as much as possible. The MM7 was designed to have the subwoofer towers side-by-side with the main towers in a complete time and phase aligned orientation, as shown in the picture on our website, and also as how you listened to the mono channel when you were at my place.
While it is true that the lower frequencies have much larger waves, getting them to integrate in phase with the main tower is really not much of an issue when it comes to room placement, meaning you will not experience much if any wave cancellation. However, the wave launch, when having the towers perfectly time aligned to the listening chair is needed to provide a tighter presentation with greater impact, and also to align the harmonic series from top to bottom to produce a seamless and tonally lifelike presentation. This is not to say that you can not move the towers around, because you can.
Remember, we are only talking about a subwoofer tower that is coming in at around 30 to 40Hz at most, so most all music information will be coming from the main towers. The benefit of being able to move the sub towers is if you have a room that is not friendly in the deep bass region (this would have to be a really bad room where even the amplifier controls on the subwoofer modules can not bring the bass up enough). In this case, you may want the main towers where you get the best sonic presentation, but you may have to push the sub towers to another region of the room to get bass all the way down below 40Hz flat. If this was a speaker system contained all in one tower and the best location for sub 40Hz range was all the way against the back wall, imagine how the mid-bass, midrange, depth, etc. would suffer.
The only other reason I could see for moving the sub towers is for aesthetic purposes within the listening space. Some people may not want to have a wall of speakers, and being able to push the sub towers to another location may be more acceptable.

In a nutshell, if you want to stay true to my design, then yes you must have the towers all perfectly time-aligned to the listening chair. However, if your room is not producing good frequency response in this situation and you value that over time domain launch, then you can always move the subs to get the best frequency bandwidth. Or, you may just want to visually downsize the appearance of the speakers in your room.

Please let me know if you have any questions.


Best regards,


Kevin Malmgren

On behalf of
Evolution Acoustics

my perspective is that if all the drivers are not in the same plane (same distance) relative to your ears there is a compromise. the question is only how much of a compromise and is it worth it. i'm not qualified to judge other 'two tower' designs other than listening. my opinion is that the extreme coherence and seamlessness along with the magical microdynamics is partially from the degree of driver integration.

i have not experimented with any other configuration yet; mostly since Kevin suggests where they are is how they were designed to be optimal.

as far as toe-in......

the main towers are slightly closer together than my MM3's were, maybe 3 inches closer on each side. this allows slightly more room for the bass towers. and i have them pointing to a point half way between my ears and edge of my shoulders in the listening position, whereas i had the MM3's pointing at the outside of my shoulders. so they are toed in slightly more. i wanted a bit more immediate presentation which was why i changed it.

i love how they sound and how the soundstage lays out right now.

when Kevin comes to fine tune it will be a clean slate and we'll see where they end up.

 

[NorthStar]

-- So Mike, how much longer till you have all the ingredients working in tandem (harmony)? :b

 

[A.wayne]

Mike ,

You have quite the LP collection , where are you purchasing from ..?