MG 20.1 or Wisdom audio m-75

Don't even think of the 20.1's if you don't want to modify them you'll be getting 15% at best of there potential performance.

Duke that last paragraph cracked me up! It really is a shame more dealers aren't like you- and I mean that.

Bin- Its clear you haven't heard the speakers modified.

I never said they were bad speakers stock, I am just telling you that you are not experiencing what the speakers are REALLY capable of without fairly involved modifications. Check with Gladstone here at audiogon- he was doubtful until he tried some improvements himself.

And I agree with Brian that most all 20.1 users are more then likely using them stock- and they have NO clue what they are missing. ¡que lastimo! :o)

I do not own the speakers but have listened to them stock more then a few times. Gladstone has the 20.1's with a very similar system to mine and has upgraded them- his comparison of the speaker stock vs. modified was EXACTLY what I have experienced with my modified 3.6's. In fact my modified 3.6's outperform the 20.1's I've heard in every area, the only thing that is close is dynamics in the lower octaves and that very easily could have been the room or more then likely the push pull driver on the bass.

Vladimir- The upgrades are sort of a homegrown tweak. I have worked with highly regarded audio guru's(most in the biz) paired with a little common sense and a LOT of experimenting. What Gladstone and I have done is some what involved, first you MUST bypass the fuse and midrange fuses and attenuators and all of magnepans factory connection(except where they go into the drivers themselves) for that matter. An all external passive crossover network, made with high end components, internally rewire the speaker(though not the panel itself) and then get some form of stand that does more then just hold the speakers up. I have also removed the internal grill from the front of the speaker, it still has the external grill that you see with the fancy trim. You must be even some what technically capable and willing to perform surgery on your speakers, no company makes full hot rod conversions for magnepans. I was thinking of doing it, but not only is there not much money in doing it, I think its fun to have a real knowledge of what's really going on in your speakers. Even if someone made a kit that they could ship you, you'd still need to "gut" the speaker yourself. I know cardas makes some sort of wiring kit, but there is no way its an internal rewiring of the speaker. If you have any specefic question contact me privately and I can give you all the information/experiences I have gathered.

Vladimir- That's not really true, you really should NOT alter the signal going to the mids/highs in any way. Even a high end active crossover will add/remove artifacts from the signal and I have found it removes the overall musicality of the speakers(one of the main reasons I like these speakers so much). However if you were to make a simpler passive network only for the mids/highs and feed it a non-altered signal and use an active low pass crossover for the bass panel I think you would be on to something- though would it be worth it? Both Gladstone and I are bi-wiring our speakers and the improvement from doing that was tremendous! However, there are added costs and circumstances that make me not interested in bi-amping the speakers. For me I don't have the room to have 2 more mono-blocks, not to mention the desire for the added heat in the summer(my central air can hardly keep up as is). And I don't think Gladstone is going to be in a rush to pick up another set of Class Omicron mono's, for similar reasons.

He has been experimenting with a REL sub with superb results, he has it crossed over at 22hz and we spoke the other day about how EVERYTHING has gotten better. I am thinking about it, but right now I am so happy, why mess with anything :)

There are many ways to achieve an amazing system around maggies, but you've got to do a little work to get around there shortcomings. A lot of folks use active's and rave about the results, I know of a small handful who have done passives and raved about the results, and most who have tried both(who have a true reference quality system) prefer passive. There is also more flexibility to tune the sound to your liking with passives, a simple cascading bypass on your caps. and you can get a significantly different sound from using a different cap.

Now I am starting to ramble......... so I'll stop before I get carried away with myself :)