Magnepan LRS compared to the .7 or the 1.7i ?


With all the hype about magnepan’s new LRS, I am wondering if anyone has compared them to the slightly bigger and slightly more expensive .7 or even the 1.7i?  (I assume they are better than the MMGi that they are replacing, so no comments about these two are necessary.)

I suspect they are new enough that there may not have been many chances for such a comparison.  

So, lacking a side by side, I wonder if anyone who heard them at Axpona or otherwise (I was only there Friday and missed them) is familiar enough with the other Maggies to offer comments/thoughts/opinions between the LRS, .7, and 1.7i.  Comments from dealers who sell Maggies are welcome.

finally, brief conversation with one area dealer suggests they will be more of a factory direct item that he will not carry, while another area dealer hoped to get a pair but did not know the time frame. Has anyone heard a more definitive story on availability?
meiatflask
Since most models roll off the bass is there a NEED for a cross over with subs? I ask because I like bass heavy music and worried about wrecking these even though I have subs.
It’s exciting to hear all the positive reviews about .7. Some questions as I’m considering a similar system: 

1. Is LRS sonically different from .7? The form factor is more condo friendly in city apartments. But I’d like to get decent sound too. 
2. Is the bass emaciated on these two smaller models in the MagnePan lineup? I’m no bass head and listen to a whole range of music including jazz and classical. But on 70s rock or some of the modern electronic stuff it helps to have a solid low end. I hear REL subs mentioned, but that’ll be way too much cabling and setup. I’d prefer to avoid that. 
3. My source is a Mac Mini. Would a Schiitt saga + vidar be enough to drive both LRS and .7? Brystons mentioned earlier in the thread are way too pricey. A Hegel 190 is somewhere lower but still pricey. I hear Schiitt Vidar is a good match for Magnepans? 
Many thanks. 
The LRS is a great choice for most rooms for two reasons. First, it has nearly all the best qualities of the bigger Maggies, and particular the magic midrange. It also has pretty decent bass for its size in a normal size room. With my RTA with pink noise the speaker is flat down to 80 Hz, but falls fairly quickly below that. If you are familiar with the Quad ESL-57, the LRS is essentially a Quad reincarnation tonally, but with MUCH better dynamics. Second, the speaker is "right sized’ for the room. The larger Maggies are too big for their own good, IMHO. The small ones (LRS / 0.7 / 1.7i) work MUCH better in the midrange in most normal size rooms. Imaging in particular is much improved over the big guys, which really need a large room to work geometrically. You end up sitting on top of them if the room is too small and that is not good.

Subwoofers - as Tim says, the Duke LeJuene / Earl Geddes Audio Kinesis 4-speaker SWARM is the best WOOFER system you can buy - period, for ANY room. That is because the assymetric distribution of four subwoofers around the room is the only way to defeat the room modes.  (If you are not familiar with the system, read Dr. Robert Greene's review of the system in The Absolute Sound.)  Room correction helps, but cannot correct for suck-out which plagues most listening rooms with one or two monopole woofers. That is true for any speaker - even the vaunted Magicos which are great but don’t work in anything short of the near field in a room typical of the Biltmore House.

Fortunately, there is a new DSP-enabled dipole subwoofer (the VPE Little Dipole Woofer - Model 1) coming out shortly which matches the radiation pattern of the small Maggies, AND solves the room mode problem via use of a true dipole radiation architecture. The recommendation is one LDW per Maggie with the back port radiating in phase and UNDER the bottom of the speaker standing up on MagnaRiser or Mye stands, and the driver radiating backwards out of phase. This provides a perfect match for the Maggie dipole pattern in the upper bass / lower midrange, and two of these woofers solve the room mode problem as well as the four-speaker Audio Kinesis SWARM does, but at half the cost. Stay tuned for more details soon.
Some have described their experiences with having difficulties integrating subwoofers with their Magnepan speakers.  Well, based on my own personal experience, it's not so difficult to beautifully and seamlessly integrate a sub or a pair of subs with Magnepan speakers, not in the least.  Everything, and I mean everything, depends on which sub you're trying to integrate, especially when it comes to Maggies.  All to often, people make the same mistake, trying to integrate the wrong type of sub with Maggies.  Subs that are too slow and do not manage to mimic the tone of the base panel of the Maggies very well at all.  It is imperative that Maggies be mated with a proper sub and you will be absolutely astonished at the results.  Try REL subwoofers.  I run my .7's with a pair of REL subs.   The RELs are not difficult to dial-in at all.  And, they are the very best that I have heard in having the ability to seamlessly blend in with Magnepan speakers.  You will be "Astonished" by REL/Maggie combo, just like I was when I auditioned them.  The sound rendered by the Maggie/REL combo was nothing short of captivating.  You will not be disappointed!!!