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A note from Magnepan about the "30.7 for Condos" tour

Wendell Diller of Magnepan asked me to pass this on:


No, Magnepan's tour is not scientific market research

Dear Press and Future Attendee,

Last night, I had the privilege to talk to Robert Deutsch of Stereophile at the "30.7 for Condos" event at Audio Excellence in Toronto. Robert was there to report on the concept of a public focus group (not on the speaker we were showing). As Robert noted, there has been a lot of research on the value of focus groups. Is a public focus group more effective? (good question)

Toronto was only the second stop on this tour, but it already has the same shortcoming as the 30.7 tour in terms of reliable feedback for Magnepan--- low participation. Attendees on all the 30.7 tours were very vocal about their opinions of the 30.7, but when it came to making their opinion public, approximately 1 out of 20 attendees (or less) went online to give Magnepan feedback. This tour is much the same.

There is one obvious question on the minds of attendees--- "Has Magnepan 'sold out"? They were too polite to say it in such stark terms. Most attendees are familiar with Maggies and the problem of integrating a dynamic woofer with a panel speaker. This issue is the focal point of these tours and there was much discussion.

If you are able to attend one of the upcoming events, you can see the response of the group for yourself. But, in terms of an online consensus, the sampling rate will rate will probably be too small for a reliable indicator.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ-R8MERlHQ&feature=youtu.be

https://www.canuckaudiomart.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=55342

- Wendell Diller, Magnepan


josh358

Showing 4 responses by bdp24

bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,510 posts
 
@andy2, before I had a friend who was a high end dealer (I bought some stuff from Brooks Berdan when he was a salesman at GNP in Pasadena, then followed him when he opened his own shop. Over the years our relationship evolved into a personal one.), I assumed demo units were provided to retailers at no cost. Uh, no, they are not. Dealers are shipped product, usually with 30-days dating (the dealer has 30 days to pay for the product). Whether that product is for demo use or to sell to a customer/client is immaterial.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,510 posts
 

@don_c55, isn't it odd that Wilson dealers have that company's mid-priced models on demo (those models costing more than Magnepan's 20.7i and even 30.7), yet no Magnepan dealer I'm aware of has a pair of 20.7i, let alone 30.7, to audition? How can a consumer be expected to spend $14,000 or $29,000 on a loudspeaker without hearing it first?

Buying a pair of 20.7i for demoing purposes is a major investment for a dealer, and to not do so indicates to me a lack of faith in the product. 

bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,510 posts
 

@mijostyn, allow me if I may to let you in on what Magnepan is up to with this new design. Planar enthusiasts have long searched for a woofer system to compensate for one of that design's major failings---output below, say, 100Hz, due to, amongst other reasons, the side-null dipole cancellation inherent in planars.

SoundLabs addresses the issue by making ESL speakers with very large radiating surfaces. Magnepan did the same with the original Tympani's in the 1970's, and most recently with the 30.7. But all of those require very large rooms---the bass panels of each channel of my Tympani T-IVa's are 36" wide!

Dynamic cone woofers have been tried in every way imaginable, including the way you suggest above, and all have been found to be unacceptable. With one exception: dynamic cone woofers implemented in not in sealed or ported enclosures, and not on an infinite baffle, but installed in an Open Baffle/Dipole frame---"H" and "W" or "M" being most common.

That is the woofer system Siegfried Linkwitz used in his LX521 loudspeaker, and GR Research/Rythmik use in their servo-feedback version. And it is an OB/Dipole sub that Magnepan is using in this new "dual-dipole" model. OB/Dipole subs are catching on with hardcore planar lovers, including owners of Maggies, Quads, Acoustats, Eminent Technology's, and even high-transparency non-planars. Using dynamic cones implemented as OB/Dipole radiators with planars cures the inability to get the two to blend seamlessly. Why that is is beyond the scope of this post.

bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,510 posts
 

@rbstehno, I understand why you have a negative impression of the 30.7, but that may be a result of the poor listening rooms in far too many dealer's showrooms, not the loudspeaker itself.

I attended the very first 30.7 demo, at Pearl Audio in Portland Oregon. As a longtime Magneplanar fan and owner (I bought Tympani T-I's in 1973, and currently own a pair of Tympani T-IVa's, which is what the 30.7 is a modern and improved reincarnation of), I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. I was rather disappointed, but not because of the 30.7 itself.

The demo room was perhaps the worst I've ever been in; a cement-walled bunker with absolutely no acoustical treatment save the carpeted floor. The mediocre source material was streamed from God-knows-what sources, all unfamiliar to me. The associated electronics were not up to the caliper of the speakers,, a fatal flaw.

Remember when dealers knew more about hi-fi than you did?

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