"When set up properly the Magnepan system also offers incredibly compelling, 3D imaging—the kind that can seem almost scarily realistic at times. "-Chris Martens Magnepan CC5 review
The Magnepan CC5 is an ideal center channel for home theaters featuring Magnepan speakers. The CC5's ultra-fast planar-magnetic driver gives it one of the most realistic sounding presentations for voices that any speaker at any price can deliver.
The CC5 has a lighter weight presentation and does need to be about 8-10" from a rear wall to stay open sounding. An ideal pairing is a set of 1.7's on either side with on-wall Magnepan MC1 on-wall speakers for the sides and rears. The combination of several planar-magnetic speakers surrounding you gives movies a remarkable sense of speed and realism. The combination is untouchable at their price point really. You have to move into multi-thousand dollar high end on-walls to get the sheer resolution of a Maggie theater, although with those you do get more weight and dynamics, which can make a theater more exciting and gives a more uniform bass field.
A set of JL E or F series subwoofers bracketing the CC5/1.7's is ideal for a theater. The JL subs have enormous amplifiers allowing the woofers to keep up better than most. We strongly encourage twin subwoofers with a Magnepan theater to even out the bass carpet in the room.
If you do build a Magnepan theater, make sure you budget for high quality, high current amplification as the Magnepans don't suffer poor amplification well and will evidence a transistor haze and bring out the distortion or harshness in an inexpensive receiver. Typical receivers often don't have the current sourcing capability either and can be driven into protection or audible distortion. Consider a higher end, high up the wattage tree audiophile brand receiver for these or perhaps a processor and separate multi-channel amplifier with a stout power supply.
The CC5 mates well with the smaller .7 speakers and would actually be fine with some of the mail order LRS or MMG series speakers - you just get much better vocals. For the 3.7 or 20.7 we encourage moving up to the CCR/CC center channel because its true ribbon tweeter will mate better.
$1,595.00