Whenever I try to read anything about MBL speakers here on audiogon I stumble on this Dev character attacking people, making fun of their systems, repeating over and over than nothing compares to the sound of HIS MBL based set-up ... I am not quite sure what his agenda is. Is he trying to convince people that MBL are SOTA speakers or is he trying to prevent people to get any useful information about these speakers ...
Coming back to the original questions. MBL is a very serious company and I find it very hard to believe it will not stand behind its products irrespectively whether they were bought form the previous or current MBL official distributor. The new distributor should provide support also for the older MBL models (at least this is how thing usually work here in Europe). Of course, as already suggested it is best to call MBL in Germany (speaking English with them should not be a problem).
Regarding differences between Magnepan and MBL speakers, it is definitively worth mentioning that because the MBLs are omnidirectional they need tons of power (they are literally the opposite of horn speakers), larger rooms than the Magnepans, and are even more tricker to set up than dipoles.
Regarding the reports above about not very positive experiences with MBL set-ups, I should say that I too often heard MBL set-ups sounded unimpressive even though the MBL representative (a big typical geman guy) seemed every time quite happy with the sound. A few times, though, I was very impressed by the sound stage and the purity of their midrange and high frequencies. I should also say that I was never impressed with their imaging capability. I am not saying that they are incapable of imaging with pin point accuracy, just that because of the omnidirectional nature it is very difficult to achieve this - one needs a nearly perfect room.
