I'm no Maggie lover I've had the 1.6 and 3.6 I found both to be very frustrating, they had good qualities but what they did wrong I just could not get over. Lack of bass is a major issue for me too just a weak sound in terms of dynamics in general to my ear. The only way I could get a somewhat decent sound was with the 3.6s about halfway into the smaller room I tried them in and while it was a very open and spacious sound it was still quite weak in terms of dynamics and bass especially given the size of the speaker. I think of them as a speaker that is more suited to delicate music and low level playback. If you value you mostly highly the things they do great then maybe you are a maggie guy for life and you just learn to live with the weaknesses. Personally I'd take a good dynamic box speaker any day I'd even take a set of stand mount monitors over the 3.6s. You have a great system it would be easy to find a good match that will fix what you don't like about the 1.6s and make your wife much happier. Im prob gonna get the wrath from the maggie lovers, sorry its what i think. Oh and I'd upgrade the speaker cable to while you are at it, you can do much better with your system.
Replacement for Maggie's?
So I have been thrilled with my magnepan 1.6's to the point that I have upgraded every component to the point that even the power conditioner costs more than the speakers. My question as the headline suggests is that where do I go from here for speakers? I love the Maggie sound for its wonderful depth, life like size, and soundstage. Dislike its lack of bass. The rest of my gear consists of Ayre C5xeMP, Ayre K5xe soon to be MP, Pass Labs X250, APC S15, Grover Huffman XLR's, Signal Cable bi wired speaker cables. Thanks