QUAD vs Martin Logan vs Magnepan

Newbee tells it like it is.

I've owned three pairs of Quads, five pairs of Maggies, and one pair of Martin Logans.

Here's the way I'd put it: The larger Maggies tend to have a relaxing and forgiving tonal balance, but are a little lacking in upper harmonic detail compared with the Quads. The Quads are (to my ears) a little bit forward in the lower treble region. Martin Logans don't have quite the detail of the Quads, nor the coherence of the Quads or Maggies, but they will play deeper in the bass and are in my opinion the most physically beautiful electrostats. Getting a good blend between point source woofer and line source panel isn't easy, and is somewhat distance-dependent, so I would say that either the Quads or the Maggies are going to sound more consistent from one room to another.

As Mrderrick notes, Maggies generally need to be cranked up a bit to really "come to life". If your listening style includes a lot of low-level, late night listening, then an electrostat might make more sense.

The good news is, I don't think there's a bad choice among these three brands. I'd call the Maggies the most forgiving with the widest sweet spot, the Quads the most detailed and revealing with a fairly small sweet spot, and the ML's in between with deeper bass but possible bass/panel integration problems.

Duke

My listening room is 28X32 with vaulted ceings. I run 3.6's with a Sunfire Architectural Signature Sub. The sound is astounding. As previously mentioned they do require a lot of clean power. And they do require to be at a bare minimum of two feet from the rear wall. I owned the 1.6's prior to this. The performance of the 1.6's pushed me getting the 3.6's. I have no complaints whatsover on the 3.6's. I have to be careful over my love for the Maggies! Those 20.1's have my heart pumping but not at three times the price. Well ........ maybe?

Thanks for the advice guys, I really appreciate your opinion. I suppose I should provide you with a bit more detail regarding my interest in the above speakers. I'd always had an interest in hifi and while searching for a Rega Planar 3 turntable found myself in a fairly hi-end store. While there I experienced a real 'freak-out' moment, I literally heard Tracy Chapman appear over my left shoulder, the effect was a bit bewildering to be honest as I'd never any idea that electronics/hifi equipment could be so convincing - to be specific had I been blindfolded I would have been convince there was a real person present, but not only that I could pinpoint exactly wher the 'voice' appeared as it had an uncanny 3d quality to it. Upon enquiry I was informed that the sound was coming from a pair of electrostatic speakers (the brand name escapes me) - but these were nowhere near the apparent location of the 'voice'. Anyways that moment has been a BIG influence on my current inerests. For those of you experienced with, well. general mid-range hifi gear I have a further question. Was that 'real person in the room' effect simply down to the traits & charactoristics of the electrostatic ?....or do box speakers, when partnered with good components, perform that trick similarly.

Again, many thanks

You can do this with well set up 'box' speakers as well as panels and electrostats. In fact the first time I heard this holographic effect was with a small pair of Thiel 04's (box 2 way floorstanders) driven by a Threshold class A amp, a Conrad Johnson tube pre-amp and a TT (I forget the make etc) playing an LP of Depth of Image by Opus Three - about 25 years ago! You felt you could walk in amoungst the musicians.

Its far more about set up (including room treatments if necessary) than speaker type. And its not particularily easy to get holographic imaging with panel speakers or Quads either although these speakers can sound more atmospheric with less effort because of the back wave from the speaker, which is not to say they are easy to set up. Quite to the contrary, for what goes as excellent sound its much easier to set up appropriate box speakers.

As with other things in this hobby its all about some sort of trade offs, but I've always found that careful attention to matching speakers to room size then proper set up is FAR FAR more important than speaker type or electronics. You can get excellent sound with well selected but ordinary stuff if you can match up the components and perfect the set up. Conversely outstanding components not matched up or not properly set up can sound like, and often do sound like, crap! JMHO of course.

Oh, BTW it goes without saying fine full range highly resolving speakers properly set up and driven can sound amazing..........

Hey Safox. Just to make sure you are in the loop on a new product. Quad recently released 2 new 'stat speakers. These are both sonically better and look significantly better than the 988 and 989 models. Price might be higher than the 988s and 989s, but if so not by much.

Heard the bigger one during a 20 minute demo in July and was impressed. More low end, more dynamics, probably more extended upper end, though don't quote me there. (I must qualify myself as a former Quad US Monitor owner and a Quad lover.)