Look, if you’re going to compare a Magnepan, compare the 20.7 to the Quattro. That will be more of a horse race. Still cheaper than the Quattro but within $1K of each other I believe. I liked the Quattro ALOT and came very close to buying them in an exotic wood (I purchased Thiels from the same dealer 12 years ago also in a custom wood). I was auditioning numerous other speakers including Magicos and Von Schweikert at higher price points. The thing about Magnepans is that I really do feel like you have to have a fairly deep room so that you can bring them 5-6’ out from the front wall to really get them to sing. I have them 6’ out from my front wall and I’m having diffusion panels built to hang all across that front wall. The larger the room up to say 25 x 35, the better the 20.7’s will sound. If you haven’t heard the 20.7’s they do BASS in a way that speakers farther down the line simply can’t do: powerful deep and accurate. It requires alot from your powerful high current power amp to get them there but they are astonishing top to bottom when properly set up with the right electronics. For classical music, their soundstaging is unsurpassed in my opinion. That is with the possible exception of the big Sound Labs (I’ve had smaller Sound Labs so I’m guessing that the top end of that line would also be astonishingly coherent and quick top to bottom and quite likely even better.
Broken hearted...magnepan and vandersteen
I finally got an opportunity to hear the 1.7i magnepan. I will blame my ears and taste, but I was underwhelmed. I heard them with tweeters inside and outside for comparison. outside did sound a bit better. Then I allowed them to play the vandersteen quatro ct. The speakers disappeared into the music. Deep, tall, wide soundstage with excellent imaging and air around the different instruments. Full range sound. Thankfully the trio ct sounded almost the quatros equal. I really was ready to go with magnepan. I was surprised. All other speakers are sounding inferior now.