All those previously mentioned in other reviews

slightly lacking bass punch

I have just purchased some SMGa speakers from Audiolab of Des Moines, Iowa during a recent visit. I was encouraged to buy them after listening to the newer Maggies on demo at the store - finding the sonic performance to be highly comparable. The speakers have been refurbished and look as good as new (Thanks to Audiolab) In the store there seemed to be very little difference between the SMG's and the newer 12's and 1.6's except of course the price/performance factor - the SMGa's sounded like good value for money at $450!

Having got them home and plugged in to my own gear (Linn Axis / Naim 42-110 / Marantz CD-85, - I know it's all classic gear..) I've been drawn to the natural qualities of acoustic instrument sounds and the range and depth of vocals especially in harmony. The Records and CD's I've played have all been given a new depth of audible interest through being played on the SMGa's and continue to reveal hidden depths to recordings I'd previously become bored with. The shear "musicality" of these speakers is their most wonderful attribute. They seem able to create space in the music that I couldn't previously perceive - like a sense of time slowing down (!)

I may be looking for a Sub in the near future in order to get that impactful bass effect that's a little lacking in the SMG's (and is recreated to some extent by my old Kef C60's)but I think the SMG's have become household favourites already (sorry Kef...) -and they've revitalised my record collection to boot.

If you want a star rating I would have to give 4 overall but only because I know that Magnepan can make even better sounding speakers these days!

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very impressive detail for the price. such a quick and light sounding speaker.

lack of low end.

I have used these speakers SMGa since I bought them new in 1986 and have been pleased with their sound for the price. They are very inefficient and require lots of power. The system I used them with included a Adcom GFA-555 amplifier, PS Audio 4.5 preamp,Adcom GCD-575 CD player and Mirage BPS-150 sub. Even with the GFA-555 I had to really push the system to get moderately loud listening levels. The major complaint that I had with the speakers is that placement is very critical and they seemed to work best when situated 3 to 4 feet from the rear wall, which makes living with these speakers difficult if you want to get the most out of them. The addition of the sub really helped out on the low end and speaker placement was not as critical since I was able to place them closer to the rear wall without a loss of low end. They have withstood the test of time and have been recently replaced with a home theater setup.

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as before

as before

Please read my review of 2nd February - this is part two.

I just wanted to update my previous review of my SMGa's and to thank those who have contacted me by e-mail for further discussion. I'm pleased to tell you that I now have a Paradigm 100W subwoofer installed in the system (many thanks to Richer Sounds of London for their amazing value prices)and all my previous comments about SMG's lack of bass have prooved to be correct. I'm not sure about the rolloff frequency of the smg's but using the scaled controls on the sub allows for an easy match of frequency and level simply by listening for the "best" sound and as it's driven by the speaker level signal(into Hi Z Amp input) it automatically tracks the volume control on the Amp - wonderful! The missing bottom end is returned, although not as articulate as the maggies the sub is pretty convincing. I think the only way to improve on this would be with a servo sub (v. pricey) I was tempted by an M+K device until I found out the price - I guess it's the law of diminishing returns again! I'll wait and buy one used at some time in the future...

Anyway, my review of old records/cd's continues to provide much pleasure and I've been buying many more new discs to listen to. It's interesting to note the low freq' differences between old and newer recordings - modern recordings really do make full use of the freq' and dynamic range of the CD medium - so improving the speakers is a very cost effective measure for getting the best out of your cd's, old and new. I have it from a very serious source that we should really be spending about 100 times more money on speakers than we do on CD players !! The argument being that the CD source is so pure that anything less is simply distorting the orignal sound. The man who said this is of course very wealthy, but a highly regarded Digital Audio guru too.

The placement of the smg's now seems to be less critical although I find I can hear small misalignments still in terms of image rather than missing or boosted bass frequencies. The audio image will defocus with differences of a few inches between the speakers and the back wall. Also, I have the sub positioned in a bay window , centered behind a sofa and firing sideways ie, towards the smg's on either side. This seems to give the best bass image. Placing the sub on one side, close to the wall creates an off centred image and boosts certain frequencies artificially (although the manufacturers blurb claims no effect!) The sub is clearly a bipolar device too, having a cone at the front and port at the rear so I've tried to treat it the same way as the smg's, ie, give it some air-space all around.

I'm now very happy with the whole setup and can't really imagine improving on it hugely, I guess minor improvments can always be made with new or different bits of gear but that's really just upgrading fever and I'd rather get hot under the collar about the music...

I can't say that I have any problems with my Naim 110 Amp driving the smg's in fact the speakers seem to be very sensitive - that could be a psycho-acoustical effect of being surrounded by good clear sound. I think those who find them hard to drive may be making comparisons too closely with conventional speakers - if you think the smg's are tough you should try driving the old Quad electroststic speakers which a friend of mine owns - now there's a challenge! I'll ask him to send in a review.

my latest addition is a Sony MZ-R50 Minidisk recorder - I picked that up, used, for just 50 quid and it's amazing, watch out for another review soon.

Cheers to all who read this - I hope it helps someone else.

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