Can you ever go back and be happy?

Aroma: Since I suggested people look into Albert's writings here to learn about his progress of the Dali vs. his long time Soundlabs, I feel obligated to respond to many of your points:

1) The issue of why Albert changed from the Soundlabs: Rather than throw a lot of speculation as to the details of price of the competition, reliability of what he owned, or the deals he may have gotten on his latest components, why not let him speak this for himself? You do a big disservice by saying all this and then you close with the comment that if your speculations and comments are incorrect, you would like him to answer why he has changed to the Dalis. With your "delivery", who would be motivated to share in return?

And you've got to be kidding that such an audiophile would not buy the Magnepans because he did not get a discount. Please review his system, add up the cost of the products, and then see if you feel the same way. Is someone who has invested in a highly resolving $100k+ system for years and years going to push aside a product that might be THE perfect match because they did not get a few thousand dollars discount? Just one of his interconnects costs more than your speculative discount "that he did not get". Come on, be serious. Common sense went out the window on this one!

2) The issue of fairness and how "unknown" audiophiles are not treated fairly: Hello! What about magazine reviewers? IMO, they do not provide remotely the value of experience and willingness to share as Albert and others have done here. So please take a closer look at who has special treatment here. If it is to a business's advantage to give certain people a reduction in the cost of a product, then you can be certain they will do so. It's called advertising! And with all the exposure and respect that people like Albert get here, you can be be assured many people, including myself, take very seriously what he writes here. This would indicate that such an audiophile would be a prime candidate for which companies could expose their products. But again, why not let him address this rather than throw out your comments?

3) The issue of Magnepan 20.1s vs. Soundlabs: As I wrote before, I owned the series 3.x for 6 years and absolutely loved them. And when I heard the 20s, in the same system minutes later, they too were wonderful but just a marginal improvement over the 3.x. Yes, the difference was marginal.

In my view, the 3.x Maggies have no competition for the price point unless you need a more dynamic system. Where else can you pay less than $4k for such awesome sound? But once you hit the $10k+ range, such as the series 20, it's a different story. The Soundlabs are in a very different class altogether. The Maggies sound compressed, muffled, minimal bottom octave extension, lacking inner detail in the trebles, etc., etc., compared to the Soundlabs. This is NOT subtle at all. And again, this is coming from a long time Maggie diehard. So why on earth would someone who tweaks his sources, electronics, cables, speakers, etc., to significant levels beyond the off-the-shelf variation, move from the SL's to the Maggies? IMO, Maggies would be a huge step in the wrong direction in virtually every sonic attribute for such a system.

4) Comparing Maggies to other speakers like Avalon, B&W, etc.: Unless you heard these speakers back to back in the same exact system, such comparative comments have little merit. I heard B&W 802's at my home against my Maggie 3.3s and the B&Ws were VERY musical and natural but I prefered the Maggies for their midrange presence. The Thiel 3.6 and 2.3 that I used in my HT system were way too analytical compared to the Maggfie musicality. But I would be very careful to make comments on any Avalon models as my gut feeling tells me they would destroy the Maggies in many of the same sonic attributes as the Soundlabs over the Maggies.

5) The issue of Magnepan not having "home" dealers: I respect this but time and time again, the most impressive systems I have heard have been either at dealers who work from their home or at homes of other audiophiles. The home environment is far more stable from day to day vs. a shop with many rooms with ever-changing gear. And the home environment much more closely resembles what we will experience in our own system. Soundlabs does this and clearly with great success.

John

I personally think it's great that there are those die-hard "planner/electrostatic" guy's out there, that are into nothing else. Just don't expect to find many HT junkies, rock afficienado's, or metal junkies using these plannar genres for their tranducers any time soon.

Jafox, I found your critique of my HONEST opinion and feelings very interesting. I would like to respond to them.
1) My speculations about why Albert ultimately chose the Megaliners was not based on heresay or something that I made up, but based ON an actual conversation with him that I was engaged in. I know that my thread in no way personally attacked Albert. So when you talk about "my delivery" in some way is setting him up in a negative fashion, I think is unfair.
2) GIVE ME A BREAK! When you suggest that we are only talking about a "FEW" thousand dollars discounted off the price of the Magnepans! When an individual who is well known in the audio world gets a discount from a company, it is no where even close to wholesale price.
3) As I shared, I own MG1.6's which is the best I could afford for my system. The discussion was not revolving around what is the ultimate best planar speaker in the world but the sonic differences between them in a baffled speaker. You brought up the comparison of MG-20.1's vs. Sound Labs, as which is the better of the two speakers. Frankly, I hope that Sound Labs that costs $10-20,000 more than MG-20.1's DO SOUND SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER, otherwise, it WOULD BE a foolish expenditure for very little in return.
4) As a hard working blue collar woman who loves stereo equipment and good quality music, I AM REALITY BASED and accept that in the culture that we live in, people who are celebrities, athletes, and others with high social status DO GET their "toys" compt or at dramatically reduced prices. But I still find it irritating. That is why I have such respect for Magnepan as a company who sells a product at a fair price and that I know that what I paid for their speakers is what EVERYONE PAYS for their speakers.
5) Yes, there are certain retail home salon businesses that ARE legitimate enterprises that are set up to educate and also make a profit. My strong hunch is that the great majority of home salons are intelligently set up by home hobbyists who get great discounts on equipment that they want and then uses the business to write-off their hobby!! No argument that a highly tweaked and a consistent system in a home environment will sound better in most retail stores, but I do not know if that REALLY promotes information that is helpful to most audiophiles. Jafox, of course, Porsche, Ferrari, and BMW are going to be offering home dealerships to promote their cars in the near future!!! As I stated, I attacked no one including Albert whom I have respect for and I think it would only be fair to let him speak for himself without you and I speculating on the facts anymore. Remember, I heard it for myself Albert sharing the information that I originally posted on my thread and therefore it would only be fair to allow him to speak for himself!

Aroma:
1) You wrote it yourself:
"Albert, if my speculations regarding what happened with Magnepan or the pricing of the Dali's is incorrect, I would appreciate if you would share why you chose one speaker over the other." Yes, you did state that you had a conversation with him, but why not write the actual statements he told you here in your post and leave the "speculation" entirely out of the discussion? So were my comments unfair to you? I don't think so in the context of your speculative comment.

2) Even when a "celebrity" might get the 20.1s at half price, $7k or so, if they can already afford a system of the caliber that Albert owns, this cost savings insignificant in the whole picture. Such people do not change to gear because of the minimal cost savings here. When you live with a certain caliber audio system for a long time, it is very difficult to step back to a lesser quality system. If we get a few thousand $$ off, or half off, or even the product for free, if the sound is not at all to our liking in what we seek today, it's not going to last in our system very long anyway.

3) Even with the recent Soundlab price increase, the M1's are only about $3k more than the 20.1s. And the SLs are in a completely different league here. Concerning foolish expenditure, paying $14k for 20.1s is big time foolish when you can get the 3.6's for $4k. Next time you visit your Magnepan dealer, ask to hear these two speakers back to back and determine for yourself that either the 3.6's are way under priced or the 20.1's are way over priced. Are the 3.6's worth double the 1.6's? IMO, absolutely yes.

I am clearly not bashing Magnepan as I love the series 3.x but I just don't get it with the series 20. And the two times I had to go to the factory (10 minutes from where I work) to get tweeters replaced, the people there were incredibly helpful.

4) You continue to bring up the issue that it's not fair that you, the "unknown audiophile", is treated differently than the "celebrity". Life's too short to let something so insignificant be irritating. Again, it's a business decision that works in favor of the company. Like Nike quickly learned, put your shoe on a sports superstar at no charge and watch your sales go off scale.

And who cares what one person paid for a product vs. what another person paid. We all pay a different price for airfare, our car, our clothes, our groceries, etc., etc., etc. Why should we all be locked into paying the same price for our speakers? What we pay often has much to do with our relationship to the business.

5) On the issue of fairness, my gosh, how do I respond to your second statement here? I'm very tempted here, but I will behave myself for a change. I'm sure that many of the highly respected home dealers out there, two that I have met, Brian of EssentialAudio and GeneRubin of GeneRubinAudio, would have a very different opinion than yours here.

When a system is setup to allow far more potential of a product to be heard than an otherwise poorly setup would do, would this not result in "promoting information that was helpful" to the customer? If the system sounds poor or even mediocre, time and time again the speakers get unfairly blamed when it could be elsewhere. Or the customer thinks the entire system is terrible....and is likely to have no further interest to hear any of those products. I have heard so many poorly sounding systems in dealer shops and a few very good sounding systems. I have never heard a home based dealer have less than a first-rate sounding system. And I have never heard Magnepans sound remotely as good at any dealer as I have at various home installations. They need to quit using Bryston to demo their products as they don't show at all the potential of their product line.

What I suggest you do is to find such a local home dealer. I would not be surprised that you will end up learning far more from that person than you will at an audio "Salon".

Enough said.

John

Thought I'd stir up some muck here -

If you want box speakers to sound like planars - try two pairs with one pair facing you normally and the other pair 180 degrees, facing the REAR wall with the speaker wires on those OUT of phase.

You will experience much of the "openess" that people think is due to some magical aspect of planars. But you'll still image way, way more precisely.

It is what Von Schweikert does in a more controlled fashion with the rear firing tweeter, and what the Alon's and Vandersteens do with open baffles. Drives me nuts personally - when I had Alon's I partially covered the rear cage with padding to absorb the back wave, and their accuracy improved by leaps. But I certainly don't dispute anyone's ability to listen to what they like.

I prefer hearing what was actually recorded coming out of the front of my speakers, than hearing a mix of out of phase rear reflections thrown in, which do sound "airy" but are NOT, and can never be, what was actually recorded. Of course it's all a matter of degree since room reflections are a fact of life. But my short planar experience really defined what I personally like - which is a sealed box.