# My setup



## nickwin (Dec 10, 2007)

HT:
Magnepan MC1 fronts and surround
Magnepan CC3 center
Def Tech Super Cube 1
Pioneer 50" kuro display (8g)
Emotiva XPA-5
Denon AVR-3808ci
Denon DVD-2500BDCI
Panamax 5400pm
Xbox 360
Wii

Stereo:
Paradigm studio 20's
PS Audio PCA-2
Emotiva ERC-1
Emotiva UPA-2
AV123 MFW 15
Rythmik Audio DIY ds1200 
APC h15


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## jackley (Nov 1, 2008)

Hello,
What do you think of you MC1's?
I also have MC1's and am curious what sub you are using and how you like it?

I'm using the AV123 MFW-15 and think it does movie "boom" great but doesn't carry well high enough to reach the bottom of the MC1's.

I'm really curious about the new woofer coming from Magnepan and maybe that would fix my music low end problem and I could just keep the MFW for 40hz and below which it does great.

Also, what do you think of the CC3, I'm using 2 MC1's for center and am mostly happy.


james


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## nickwin (Dec 10, 2007)

I'm using a Definitive Technologies Super Cube 1. Its quite an amazing little sub for how small it is, but it has the same limitations as any small subwoofer. It matches up alright with the MC1's but not perfectly. My room is a bass nightmare, so that doesn't help out at all. I have my crossover set at 100hz and I am pretty happy with it. I don't use this system for stereo, but for movies the bass matches up good enough. I have noticed that the Maggies tend to bring out the worst of bad recordings. Some regular DD soundtracks sound pretty thin, but when you get a really good lossless audio track it sounds amazing. I am also very interested in Magnepans new woofer. I first heard about it about a year ago and haven't heard anything since. I haven't figured out how to get REW to work on my Macbook Pro yet, but when I do I should be able to greatly improve the bass response in my room. Right now I am using Auddyssee and although I feel it improves the overall sound, I think it has kind of a hard time with the Maggie's being dipoles.

The CC3 is a great center channel IF your room allows it to be set up right. It needs to be at least a foot out from any walls, 3-4 feet would be even better. I have mine mounted above my tv on some custom brackets that put it out about 14" from the wall. I noticed a slight degradation is sound from when I had it 4 feet from the wall on a stand, but that was sitting right in front of a fireplace so that wasn't an long term option. Plus it looks awesome mounted above the tv angled down at the viewer. My biggest complaint with the CC3 is its horizontal dispersion. If you had a deep and narrow room it might not be an issue, but in my short and wide room its not perfect. I loose 3-4 db from the speaker just by moving 2 feet from center and the farther out you go the more you loose. Because of this it can be a little hard to hear dialog if you are not sitting dead center. I will say though, that when I'm in the sweet spot its one of the clearest more detailed center speakers I have heard.

Another thing I should mention about the CC3 is that it is a complete power hog. When I first got it I was using my AVR-3808's internal amp and it just didn't have enough headroom. Switching to a XPA-5 was a major improvement, but I still feel the CC3 needs more power.


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## jackley (Nov 1, 2008)

I've just changed my speaker set up and moved the MC1's that were centers from the side of my screen to the top and mounted them side by side with some fairly heavy toe in to help the room coverage. They worked great on the sides but my stereo set up was suffering and I decided to be more critical of that over my 5.1 set up.

I'm also using the Emotiva XPA-5 and love it, there's no replacement for displacement (sorry, motor analogy).

I'll have some new pictures up soon of before and after, i'll let you know when I get them up.

Have you done much damping to your room?

I just recently added some thick curtains and bass traps to the corners behind my L/R MC1's and am very happy. It made it a little less "Roomy big sounding" but focused it more and I think has made it more accurate and cleaned up the sound stage some, less messy.


james


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