Can Magnepan survive Wendell Diller?
"...As an aside, all ribbon tweeters have a Mylar plastic backing, to one extent or another, a solid metal aluminum ribbon would immediately deform upon flexation, because Aluminium has no stretch in it’s pure metal form; once stretched, it will never return to it’s past dimensions..." True ribbons are solid metal and not on a substrate. And that makes them a little fragile. |
"...By the way, the lowest button on my left panel is 4” lower than it’s twin. Why do you think that is?..." We don't really know why that is but the "buttons" are to control membrane vibrations/resonances we think. The mylar might have uneven tension and Magnepan might have a way to measure or find the areas and apply a button to control it. |
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@drbarney1 I hope they do pursue Tri-eo, it is better than stereo and works well for audiophiles who happen to want to use their stereo with movies. Both Bryson and Parasound make very good 3 channel amps. The devotion to 2 channel evades me, especially when considering soundstage. It is plain wrong headed to pretend that a soundstage does not have a center. And a singer is usually at the center of a stage of one, ergo a a +60hz center channel, not unlike Paul Klipsh envisioned for the Heresy. The thing that saves my 1.7i’s is my KEF R600 in the middle to fill in the highs. I did not know that Wedell’s wife works for Magnepan as well. |
I met Wendell and his wife at a demonstration they gave at the shop where I purchased a pair of 0.7s. The 0.7's were right for my little 26 foot diameter house which has a dome ceiling and walls because it was the biggest speaker that would fit with room to be far enough away from reflecting surfaces. It also has only two quasi-ribbon elements and no pure ribbon which I fear because it is more fragile than quasi-ribbons. It also has a simplified crossover which I do not think needs any upgrade. I did get after market upgraded stands for them. I chose the 0.7s because when I auditioned them they sounded more like the live orchestra in the 19th Century built opera house I go to and its acoustics than speakers costing $50,000. For the audition I heard them with a solid state amplifier. At home I hooked them up to an SET using 833A radio station transmitter tubes using 1000 Volts and Hammond 1642SE output transformer which sounded better to me than the solid state amplifier the store used when I auditioned them. I showed Wendell and his wife pictures of the amplifier with its quart-sized vacuum tubes and they told me such an amplifier would suffer wife acceptance factor problems, much as they liked the idea. But I can see why Magnepan does not make specific brand name recommendations for amplifiers. I can also not blame him for dismissing many "high end" speaker cables costing thousands of dollars designed by people who have no advanced graduate school education on the physics, which does not calculate out to support their designs. They are as independent as hell. For instance, they did listener tests with untrained listeners experimenting with three channel stereo using Pro Logic for the center channel. I hope they remain in business for a long time. Some upgrades do not hurt. For the 0.7s, the crossover inductor they chose out of several iron core or air core which need more wire and might not be any better is probably as good as any and I do not know that a Teflon capacitor for the tweeter would be worthwhile, but I did get better stands for them. |
@bdp24 One of my major shortcomings on this forum is that I have never attended a stereo show. There are so many speakers made that I will never hear because of availability, and I am not in a large market and what is available locally is limited. One of the dealers happened to carry Magnepan’s and I was drawn directly into that location and did not look farther. The Eminent Technology LFT-8b look like an excellent choice in this price range. |
Lots of points made here, all valid and of interest imo. After all, we're all planar lovers first-and-foremost, right? If you're not, get lost ;-) . I would just like to remind everyone that Magnepan is far from the only loudspeaker company using crappy x/o parts. If you watch Danny Richies' GR Research YouTube videos---in which he shows you what is inside the mass-produced speakers people send him for upgrades---you know the x/o parts in almost all speakers are junk. Magnepan chooses to make their speakers that way to be able to sell them at a given price point, as do all the other company's (well, not Wilson, etc.). Hi-fi fanatics have always looked for ways to make better sound, and it's easier now than ever. As for you guys who like your 1.7's, but would love to own 3.7's were it not for their size: why, why, why, do you all continue to ignore the Eminent Technology LFT-8b? 13" wide, 5' tall, 1' deep, and at $2499/pr an absolute giant killer! The UK reviewers soiled themselves while describing the sound of this marvel, as did Robert E. Greene in TAS, and VPI's Harry Weisfeld, who described the LFT-8b as having the best midrange he has EVER heard, including that of the QUAD ESL. |
Spatial Audio labs open baffle speakers ,excellent build quality and sonics ,very efficient, and I owned the Spatial M4s, both Turbos and Triode Masters. Great speakers, though I now own and prefer the Maggie .7s. They’re not as detailed and don’t play as low as the Spatials but they disappear better and the imaging is tighter. Magnepans are some of the very best at what they do well — remove box resonance from the equation. All speakers have trade-offs, no matter the price tag. Speakers in the ~$2K/pair range tend to have major trade-offs. That’s just the way the industry operates. What you sacrifice in a pair of Magnepans for $2K are bass dynamics and resolution, in exchange for an open transparency that rivals or surpasses some $50K speakers. If Magnepan suddenly decided to use Mundorf or Jantzen caps and Mills resistors in the crossovers, the $2K/pair 1.7s would likely become $3K/pair 1.7s. The same sort of economics apply when you have your car serviced by a dealer. They’re going to charge double or triple what you’d pay for the same part if you were to source it yourself. Not surprisingly, most speakers employing crossover parts of that quality level, that are sold through a traditional dealer model, cost upwards of $5K/pair. If you want better stands, buy the Mye Stands. If you want better caps, you can buy them from Madisound. Jeesh, you got panel speakers that were hand-built buy American labor for only $2K/pair. Quit the bellyaching and pick up a soldering pen. |
When I first started in this hobby, I bought a pair of Maggie 1’s improved. They were, at least to me, not only a spectacular sounding speaker at the time, but compared to anything else I could buy for the same money ( or even considerably more), a real eye opener. At the time, i had a choice between a big box stores' Magnavox speaker or the Maggies...the choice was easy. I remember thinking at the time that the sales person must have misquoted me on the price of the Maggie’s, and was expecting something not even close to my budget. As a twenty something year old novice, it was a pleasure to have a speaker like these available to me. Today, i continue to applaud Magnepan for their ongoing value in the market. I would suspect that there are a lot of folks on this forum, and others, that are in the hobby solely due to their products, and the value that they offer. Just as an aside, i have a very good a’phile friend who happens to be a pro audio reviewer....and yes- he uses Maggies as his reference! |
Well the only pair of Maggies I owned where the Tympani 1-D's back in the 70's. Even they looked like Room Dividers, they played the female voice like no other speaker I have heard. They required a lot of juice to make them sing...I drove them with a Phase Linear 400 and did all right once it was modded with huge capacitors to help with the power supply. |
Then buy something else... These are one of the few Audio Manufacturers left in this country and clearly have been very successful. They’ve been in business for 47 years... Possibly longer than many here have been on the planet..but you’re going to diss their leadership and straighten out their very successful business model!😂 This has got to be Satire... Right? |
For everyone who is saying Magnepan is about value. Exactly how bad could they make them for you to still want to buy them? I can live with the paperboard circuit board and the cheap connectors, and the imprecisely applied diaphragm conductor tape, but you must realize that those are more a result of lack of manufacturing savvy than necessities to keep the price down. Handmade can have several connotations. |
If you could not get Maggies to sound good you may have been lacking in proper room space /acoustics or... Most likely adequate QUALITY power.... They need a good POWERFUL amp to shine. I’ve heard multiple accounts of people being disappointed in the sound... Having hooked them up to a low power home theater receiver. What a surprise my $300, 40 watt receiver doesn’t sound good through my Maggies 😂! |
Magnepan has survived very nicely... Probably due to the fact they have NOT gotten unnecessarily exotic... And remain very affordable. I’ll bet their established supply chain simplicity has made them somewhat immune from the Covid excuses too. I had the 1.6s....favorite speakers I’ve ever owned.... Wife loved them too... Unfortunately our new listening space/position can’t accommodate. Manufacturers are damned if they do and damned if they don’t with some of you guys. P. S. OP and others... I think it’s very rude to call out an individual’s name like this. |
True story. Years ago I bought a pair of 1.7's. As I was reading the owner's manual, it became clear to me that the narrative and graphics paled in comparison to the 1.6 manual. Using the 1.6 manual as a template, I red inked a copy of the 1.7 manual with arrows, comments, rewording, and suggestions etc. I mailed it to ATTN: Mark Winey. Crickets... |
Wow, interesting and loaded post and responses. I have owned 3.7i for several years. Non-fatiguing and nothing matches speed, wide sound staging and imaging. That said i have a big room and have have added 2 Bass Panels to add fullness and warmth. I actually think the musical bass of these Maggies are one of their biggest strengths. To me most box speakers produce false or boomy lows. That said they still have trouble filling up the room.
Don't tell Wendall, but i now sometimes use the dual 6 inch woofers on my old towers with a spare amp running at maybe 50% volume. Offering "upgrades" as many have suggested has its pros and cons. Obviously, if the demand warrants at the price offered, the company may find it beneficial and may decide to just upgrade the base product at the higher price. The downside is you are pointing out or even documenting the flaws and component compromises of your product. Magnepan and Wendell have to balance these things out. If there is and improvement to be had and even a moderate aftermarket for these improvements it would seem they should incorporate the upgrade. I'm not a physicist, but I don't buy all this talk about the need for a stiffer structure. The need for a stiff structure on the higher frequencies is fairly low - even on box speakers. For planar designs on the low frequencies, we are dealing with a large, very low mass panel. It would seem to me the energy or torque being spread very evenly over a large area makes them entirely different than the woofer section of a box speaker where a super stiff cabinet is essential. On top of that it's a completely open back dipole design - the pressure on one side should be equal to the pressure on the other side. the structure is really just there to hold the panels and mylar in place. Magnepan's design allows them to save the expense of an elaborate and expensive enclosure. If you think Magnepan's would benefit from an acoustically tuned enclosure - non bipole design i disagree, but that's a whole different subject. I was given Mye aftermarket stands with stiffening struts. i tried them and heard no benefit so they are boxed up. |
There have been a lot of posts on this thread already. I haven’t had the time to read them all. So I apologize if I state something here that has already been mentioned. As an owner of a pair of 1.7i, I understand the frustration of the OP. However, the things that we need to optimize the Maggies are readily available in the market. So if Magnepan doesn’t wish to provide these items, it’s their decision and an opportunity for others in the high end audio economy. So you can tweak your Maggies with stands from Grant Vander Mye and others. You can get Mike Powell’s Ag upgrade to the fuse and jumper. You can get a supertweeter if you want. You can get a pair of RELs. These tweaks will transform your Maggie system and still keep you within a reasonable cumulative price point that competes very well against other speakers. By the way, don’t other speakers need tweaking? I put Isoacoustic Gaia I feet on the Magico A3s in my other system. Viewing Maggies as the foundation upon which to build is a productive way of viewing them. |
OP, you seem to keep on missing the point that Magnepan are trying to offer a ’value for money’ product...and NOT a high cost ’bling’ product. They are appealing to the entry level hobbyist with their entry level models by not requiring the new hobbyist to dig too deep into their pocket. This allows the newbie to buy a high end product at not much more than a mid-fi mass produced big box product. If that consumer wants to spend more and go up the ladder a little, they offer higher priced products, but none that will be getting away from the basic ’value for money’ area. Let me ask you how many folk who are happy to shell out Wilson Chronosonic money would ever consider Magnepans ( regardless of their parts quality)?? Maybe your answer will also answer your point about what the market will bear? |
@jfuguay I asked and did not get a reasonable reply. Because the market won’t bear the cost is absurd in a hobby where people spend so much money. It is totally counter-intuitive. As I said, and upgraded XOver for the 1.7i, I have yet to look up the prices of all of the stock components, would add about $30 total for the pair, cost to the manufacturer. The markup in this hobby is enormous, and the reality of that if extrapolated over the cost to the consumer is in the neighborhood of $1k retail, on the Maggie’s if you follow what the cost of the original parts is. If your not the kind of person that likes to take things apart and tinker with them, you will never see the difference, only hear it. When I took my R300’s apart I was blown away by the quality of these not top of the line KEF’s, custom everything and of excellent quality. So it is not a stretch to expect similar quality of components in like costing products. I would still like someone to explain to me why a company will not offer the consumer better quality based on the the manufactures terms of costing the parts forward. But I will say at the end of my experiments whether the quality of the upgrades warrant the cost in my opinion, and I’ll back that up with audio samples. And if the difference is not noticeable on my iPad with under $100 headphones, I will say that I am wrong, that I was fooled by snake oil claims. |
This is a game of trade-offs. Every product has them. It’s really pretty foolish to condemn one person’s choices because they don’t match yours. The car analogies are appropriate. You can spend $ or $$$$$, and someone will still declare a part to be crap and want to rip it out in favor of their gold-plated flux capacitor. People who have a history of competence generally have good reasons for doing things. The best way to find out why is to ask. You might learn something. In the event you don’t agree, you have a multitude of options in the market. |
I will document the entire experiment from beginning to end. So far I have them depantsed, which is appropriate for No Pants Day, and the the circuit diagramed, it's very simple. I got GR Research's XO upgrade yesterday, it too is a first order with better components. But with that I'm really not buying parts, I bought Danny's knowledge and research. I am going to put those on a separate board for the time being. I may buy top of the line components, at least Clarity Caps and Goertz flat wire inductors to see how those would work, and go up an order on the XOver depending on how GR's work. I'll know buy this weekend, and I'll keep you posted. |
@hartf36 I was happy with my Maggie 1.7i, but thought they lacked something, clarity in midrange and highs. Why would I not want any speaker I buy to sound better than it does, ever? The interesting thing to try with them is to place them on top of your subs if you have them. Solves the spacing problem. You may also want to try raising them with the radiating panel equidistant from the floor and ceiling, that gives you very nice sound, much better than on the floor; it is sort of the embodiment of the "floor to ceiling line source" view of speaker design. |
I'm perfectly happy with my MMGs and B&K EX-442 Sonata setup. Other than making some custom stands that raise them about 5" off the floor (holding them vertical and stabilizing them), replacing the jumper with copper and replacing the fuse with silver tubing, they're stock. I toyed with getting them Gunned and had a pleasant exchange with Pete, but couldn't justify the cost considering the sound I'm getting out of them in stock form. I feel no need to touch them at this point in time and am supremely happy with the sound:cost value aspect of these speakers. They're amazing. |
@jaytor I know, I was referring that comment to the person who said we we were speaker designer wannabe's for criticizing a manufacturer. I ordered his 1.7 upgrade package today and it will be here Thursday. I want to hear what an experienced designer of his caliber can do with these before I go off on a tangent. If it is what I expect, I may not pursue this any further, except to try a return baffle on the back for rigidity and deeper bass. I also have to chamfer the MDF around the panel, everything in me says it is wrong to have a right angle next to a radiating surface. I would like to try his open baffle subs in the future also, as they are servo controlled. Sorry for the mixup. You wouldn't happen to need any De'WooferMagnapan panels in Oak, would you? 😉 |
A wannabe speaker designer.@william53b - Hardly "wannabe". Danny has designed some of the best speakers available - winning best sound at show at a number of audiophile shows. He offers designs, drivers and crossover components at a bargain price to those interested in building their own speakers, and, for a price, is willing to do crossover and other design optimization of any speaker you can provide. I was going to respond to your thread saying that if you really want to improve on the base Magnepan model, just do it yourself with or without the help of someone like Danny Ritchie from GR Research. There are also a number of artisans that can help with the actual modifications if you don't feel comfortable doing it yourself. |
@speakermaster I don’t know what’s going on there, so I can’t say. I just know who everyone points at when you ask "why" of Magnepan’s corporate decisions. It's the same guy that I have a bone to pick with. If, once Wendell is gone, Mark wants to keep a steady course, that’s just the way it is I guess. |
@panzrwagen All good points. I do that with my Mustang, I love to drive and I get a lot of satisfaction from wrenching this car. I love GTI’s too, I’ve had 2 of them including a prototype that I bought off one of their engineers in 1986. Man did that thing eat electrical relays! Why give the money to the modders when you can mod them and sell them? That’s why Civics go from about $22-36k, right? |
I am a car guy as well as an audiophile. In the automobile world, there are dozens of modding sites and vendors galore for nearly every brand, old or new. Take a really fun car to drive - a VW Golf. From that base, from the factory, you can step up I to a GTI, or all the way to the Type R. I can tell you from personal experience that for about $300, I can significantly improve the handling performance. For $1,000, the handling and get you 20% more power, and for $3,000 even better handing, braking, and power. That's part of the fun - planning your upgrades. I also know how to do that with Maggie's. For 3-5% of the cost I can rebuild the crossovers, and as we go up I can improve the frames, use more transparent grill cloth. The genius in both cases is a affordable platform with enough innate goodness to make it worthwhile, and for that, Magnepan should be thanked, not demonized. |
@phillyb We will never know for certain until they do the logical thing from a manufacturing/development process; offer a standard and a high grade and let the consumer decide. Much more cost effective than building new designs as an x-over upgrade would simply involve having two bins at that assembly point in manufacturing. Better components from wire to caps, perhaps a better design? Logically, would Magnepan rather maintain their market presence, or would they rather sell every $2,500 dollar speaker sold for those that have the space for them? I'm ordering the GR Research kit today to see how Danny's take on this sounds. |
I have nothing but respect for Magnepan. They offer high sound quality at reasonable prices and they have done so for decades. Try and name another audiophile company that can make that claim. There aren't that many. That implies that despite the whining and complaining by some that Magnepan knows what they are doing. |
Magnepan cost vs. sound quality is off the charts, sure they could build them to the 9th degree and charge considerably more for them, but they know who their buyer is and their niche in pricing that contributes to sales in an ever-swinking marketplace. I think they know who they are as a company, and if you want a better built higher price speaker they are out there for your consideration but say they build as good as Sanders Electrostatics, Quads, and other panel speakers, Spatial Audio OB speakers are well built, but not overbuilt and they also offer sound quality off the charts at a reasonable price. My view is to enjoy what they all do right and accept they build quality to their price points, but sound-wise for most us normal people they offer a huge amount of music enjoyment. |
@richopp No, the lamp wire comment was from and interview or their website. In fact my dealer lamented that this comment was ever published, that he in fact knew this was a Wendell quote when I bought them, as it hurt his cable sales. And if he would have been able to convince me I would have never bought the DWM panels. Why? Because of the old audio ax of speakers in the showroom not sounding the same in your home. I assumed the lack of bass was because of all of our overstuffed furniture and lined drapes. Yes, there is in fact tons of science and published research on cable quality and orientation, twist rates and basket weaving. I was dismissive about this until I did my own research on the matter not in audio circles but through research web sites, NASA, and neurobiological science testing of neurons. As an example I did not know that the reason a conductor is called that is because the signal travels over the surface, so if you have multi stranded cables they should have Litz wire or at the least individually coated strands to prevent the signal from jumping from strand to strand and degrading the signal. Oxygen free equals a smoother finish, and you would preferably have a mirror finish on every strand. Also, there is no correlation between AWG for a constant state signal like the current that comes into your home and signal carrying, Audioquest's woven speaker cables are derived from the military, and theirs from the Apollo project at NASA. You will always see twisted pairs on signal cable in planes and rockets, someplace that a confused by RF signal cannot happen. Best bang for the buck I have found is Benchmark's cables, but I can hear a difference between them an $800 dollar cables as well. The Benchmarks are designed with conveying the dynamic range in mind, they source their wire from Japan. But, say Cardas? They source some of theirs from New England Wire. https://www.newenglandwire.com |
Thanks for the info @tom8999. I agree. I love the presence of a dipole design, and I do like to tinker, so I bought the right speakers. 😉 Yes, I saw Peters web site, and I also agree with him on the foil wires in the bass part of the diaphragm, but that can be upgraded by adding another layer or two of foil tape over the existing ones on the surface of the diaphragm. Foil tape is the future of Maggie’s I think, because it transfers the electric signal so effectively, since the signal travels over the surface of the conductor, not through it, and industry has years of experience manufacturing thin film with a near perfect surface from the audio tape industry. I expect they will add multiple layers separated by thin film inside the diaphragm in the future. But this is something I don't expect them to do now as they are probably limited by a concern for deformation of the diaphragm material. i have been experimenting with stronger magnets, neodymium, on the bass parts of the panel, especially near the center. As for the De’WooferMagnepan panels, I have not tried them with serious speaker cables yet. But here is the thing about them. If I had bought decent cables when I bought the speakers I wouldn’t have thought I needed more bass from the main panel, in fact, this weekend, just for yucks I ran 8 gauge cable to one side, and this brought about better dynamics, just with solid copper 8-2wg, so who knows where this will go. I have 2 KEF R400b subs that I bought with my R300's and they pair really well with the 1.7i's. But they are finicky so I have to move them out into the room and rotate them when I listen as I place them in unison with the panels phase corrected. Thanks so much for the positive response, and if I am up that way I will contact you! |
Wendell was old when he worked for Bill Johnson in the 1970's. I can't imagine how old he is today as I am pretty far along myself! He was always kind of a mid-western-type nerdy guy, but pretty decent most of the time. He had his moments--don't we all?--but his experience and age level today, I would guess, give him some gravity in the industry. In the end, he is just a sales guy who luckily got to work with the two best companies in the business and has seen pretty much all of it over the years, I imagine. The lamp cord comment was tongue-in-cheek, I would guess. Basically, like many of us, he knows electrons travel on the surface of a wire regardless of what it is made of or encased in. Are there wires that are not as "good" as others? Sure. Are they worth thousands of dollars a foot? I doubt it, and I would guess after so many years in the business, so does Wendell, thus the throw-away comment. As for Maggie components, if they want to upgrade them, they will. The cost of those little items is minuscule when compared to the cost of running a manufacturing company that is making the best speaker on the planet. I would guess they tried everything on the market and if they heard a difference, they would make the change. Don't let the personality (or lack of it) of a person decide what you buy. Have your dealer correctly set up a pair of Maggies IN YOUR ROOM. THEN, you too can enjoy the music, which is what it is all about, right? Cheers! |
@jkf011 The reason passenger car engines are getting smaller is the use of advanced technology in their design, and that has historically come from race car technology trickling down to the consumer market. Race car engines, of any kind, have almost always been blueprinted. And only the finest custom made components are used in them, even the casting of the block and headers, something that is cost prohibitive in consumer cars. In fact, most consumer cars are de-tuned to increase mileage. Better tolerances equal higher hp per displacement unit. Smaller, lighter engines increase speed and response, just like light strong diaphragms increase speed and reduce latency in speaker drivers. |
William53b - Thank you for this thread. I have enjoyed all of the comments - I have been a Maggie owner since 1982, and have gone thru the MG11s, 1.6qrs, and now own a set of 1.7is with a DWM base panel. I got my 1.6qrs modded by Peter Gunn - he puts the panels into a custom wood frame for you (mine are ambrosia maple with zebra wood trim. I then added the Audiokenesis SWARM subwoofer system to my modded 1.6s. Peter Gunn puts in his own high quality crossover network. The midrange and high end on my modded 1.6a is much better than my 1.7is. Vocals are amazing. I use the modded system in my Mancave and also run movies Thur the system - the subs do a great job with most movies soundtracks and I do not overstress the 1.6 panels trying to fill the room with strong base. The only way I got my DWM panel to really work well with my 1.7is was to biamp it. Running it as Maggie suggests in parallel with the 1.7s overheated my Krell integrated amp( Krell K300i). Once I biamped my system I got more bass into the room to where I am happy with this system. per Peter Gunn - the change in manufacturing of the 1.6 panel (using copper wire for the midrange and bass and foil for the quasi ribbon tweeter) and the 1.7is (using all foil for the bass, midrange and tweeter) is a major limiting factor on the 1.7 design. After living with my two systems now - I agree with him. . So I agree the Magnepan design can be improved - people are doing it. This is the beauty of our hobby - for my home - for my budget - my two systems ‘knock it out of the park’ - if you are ever near Greenville SC come by for a listen! |
I was an early Magnepan user in the late 70's and early 80's. Somehow I moved away looking for better audiophile sound. I moved up over the years to a full Meridian top of the line system. Last year I chucked it all in and bought a big Classe amp and a pair of 1.7s. After working with them for about a month, I had great sound. This year I bought a pair of 3.7i's with Mye stands. I just about have them dialed in. I have only put in better jumpers and have replaced the fuses with copper tubing. I love the sound. I do not see any other speaker in my future. Most speakers are flawed in some way. I can joyfully live with the flaws of the Magnepans |
The guy sounds lazy. Rather than cheap and greedy, like klipsch, as a corporate strategy. But it’s working for him. Until it doesn’t. Fortunately there’s a lot of innovation going on with parts and designs for those of us who care. Magnepan doesn’t owe anybody anything, so file your grievance and make the most of your own ingenuity. |
