Broken hearted...magnepan and vandersteen

Ain’t it great to have choices ?????

i will admit to thinking about bringing home a couple of Vandy subs and telling the war Department that Crate and Barrel had an end table sale..,,

your results may vary, as might the length of my marriage....

@markpop how cool :-) Vandersteen powered bass is a wonderful thing indeed !

One thing to be aware of when listening to Vandersteen powered bass models at a dealer is where they set contour or Q at... and why ? .7 and slightly below is lean very flat low bass. Want a better rock speaker, dial it towards .8
easy to do.....
back to our regularly scheduled duel.....

hopefully the OP is still having fun on the quest!!!!

jim

...but with 11 bands of analog EQ you can tune any powered bass Vandersteen FOR the room you are in. I recently moved my pair 9” and reran the EQ, not massive differences but certainly a few tweaks, THEN listen and set level and Q. BTW a nice review of the Quattro CT and matching 5 high pass amplifiers in this month Stereophile, including measurements built on a tower of salt....

fun, enjoy the music....

Also full disclosure, while I don’t currently own a set of Magneplaners I have in the past and also sold them for many years. The current stable includes Klipsch, Thiel, Quad, Dynaco , ADS , Totem and Vandersteen 

IF you want the Maggie’s to do what Quattro can do on the low end, you are in to subs and the right amplifiers to drive the main panels, total system cost is about the same ....

kenjitholidayinn let us know when Wilson, Magico exceed 250 K speaker pairs sold, your idea of “niche” may need redefining. Steep slopes with a singular focus on frequency response are easy, I did those in 1980, graduating to time and phase are another matter. But a few intrepid souls have worked this vein, some deceased but legendary- can you name them  from your position of internet obscurity?

IF all goes to plan, I will see the “ wizard of Hanford “ later this week and I will let him know team Holiday Inn thinks you have been doing it all wrong since 1977.....i plan this revelation over cheap wine unless he sprays it everywhere...save that bottle of Davis Vineyards for later...

for those with ears, as I said many dealers carry both, one such is Stereo Unlimited in San Diego. The larger Maggies can sing with the MC601 with the Revox B77 Jacintha tape, the Quattro CT with the Bardo are sublime with smaller amps...ya pays your money and takes your pick...

have fun
enjoy the music..i

Salt and talk are cheap, You do have to admire the willful ignorance of a holiday inn speaker designer

salt and talk and steep slide filters are cheap Pistonic drivers in the pass band, not so much. 
To each his own on sound and value @noromance my offer stands and I guessing the vino is better here than at the hotel :-) oMG what a boring world if we all like the same stuff....

As for the troll who does not understand that the human ear is MUCH more sensitive to timing information than to frequency response, you have much to learn.....or perhaps discern 

Lot’s of good inputs and the trolls input. There are more than a few dealers in the USA that carry both Vandersteen AND Magneplaners- for a reason, properly setup and powered w decent electronics they both sound wonderful. I don’t agree that Quatros vs 20 series is appropriate because of the amplifier needed w the 20, but that is a nit. You can run Treo CT w 40 wpc as I do every day. @noromance stop by Seattle sometime and listen awhile to 7’s and the 7 amps:-)
finally to the OP, enjoy the journey and the music - Vandy and Maggie owners are a passionate lot, I would venture to say many of us own or have owned both.