Magnepan’s On-Wall Surround Sound Speaker System--Part 1 (TPV 96)

The Magneplanars Nobody Knows

CC5 Center Channel Speaker
To complement the MMC2 (and several of the firm’s other full-size floorstanding speakers), Magnepan has created the brand new CC5 2-way, quasi-ribbon type, dipolar center channel speaker, which—by design—can be wall mounted via an optional Omnimount-type bracket, or stand-mounted. Three things make the CC5 particularly attractive.

First, it’s voicing is a very close match to the MMC2, and to the MG 3.6 and MG 1.7 floorstanders. This is important, since midrange/treble purity and cohesiveness are hallmarks of all Magnepan designs, so that the last place you would want to make a compromise would be in the critical center-channel speaker of a Maggie home theater system. With the CC5, no compromises are necessary (in fact, you could almost view the CC5 as a “junior version” of the firm’s much more costly, flagship CCR center channel speaker). Second, as mentioned above, the CC5 can be used as a wall- or stand-mount design, which gives the end user a lot of flexibility in placement. Third, the CC5 ($1095) is well priced for the level of quality on offer, so that it makes good sense as a logical companion to the MMC2 (or to the MG 1.7, etc.). The CC5 covers frequencies from 200 Hz – 20kHz.

DWM Compact Woofer
As any avid Magnepan enthusiast will tell you, Maggies are not easy speakers to match with traditional subwoofers, and once you hear them in action it is easy to understand why. Magnepans offer, from top to bottom, exceptional transient speed and freedom from the cabinet resonances your might hear in typical box-type speakers. As a result, when you attempt to marry Maggies with traditional subs, the subs almost invariably wind up sounding slow, thick, and sluggish in comparison.

To provide more appropriate bass support for the MMC2 (and CC5), then, Magnepan created the DWM planar magnetic, dipolar woofer system ($795/each). The DWM is surprisingly compact (19.25” high x 22.5” wide x 1.25” deep) and weighs just 19 pounds, so that it is easy move around within the room portable, but also lends itself to in-cabinet mounting schemes. The DWM handles frequencies from 40Hz on up to the crossover point for the MMC2 or CC5, though the wideband DWM offers frequency response that extends all the way up to 5kHz (a much higher frequency higher than, in practice, the woofer will ever need to reach).

By design, the DWM is set up with onboard crossover networks so that you feed a full-range signal to the DWM module’s “Amp In” inputs, and then use the provided “High Out” taps to feed the MMC2 (or CC5). Interestingly, each DWM provide not one but two sets of crossover inputs/outputs, so that a single DWM can conceivably be used to provide bass support for a pair of MMC2’s (though for more dynamic clout, I would recommend using one DWM for each of the front-channel MMC2’s).

From a technical standpoint, the DWM leverages the woofer design technology of Magnepan’s flagship MG 20.1 loudspeaker. This means that the DWM, like the woofer section of the 20.1, uses dual magnet plates* with “opposing magnetic fields” that “compress the magnetic field, allowing more spacing and a longer ‘throw” for the woofer diaphragm.” *Note: some enthusiasts have taken to calling the dual magnet plate design a “push-pull” motor structure, but this is not really the case.

To be clear, then, the combination of one DWM plus one MMC2 (or CC5) constitutes a more or less full-range, dipolar loudspeaker, but one where the woofer can, if necessary, be positioned some distance away from its on-wall counterpart to better fit the owner’s décor scheme.

It is also worthwhile to note that Magnepan offers two higher-priced versions of the DWM. One is a dressed-up version called the DW-1, which looks, says Wendell Diller, like “a modern Scandinavian end-table/coffee table. The other is a version called the “CC Speaker Stand” that is configured to serve as a companion floor stand for the CC5 (or CCR) center-channel speaker.

And One Finishing Touch…
As eagle-eyed readers will note, the DWM woofer does not plumb the very lowest octave (20 Hz – 40Hz) of the audio spectrum, so that performance minded enthusiasts will likely want to add a good, conventional subwoofer to provide some very low bass support from about 40 Hz on down (this frequency is low enough that it keeps speed differences between the lightning-fast Maggies and the sub from becoming apparent).