Review: Magnepan MG-3.6r Speaker

Category: Speakers

I listen to a wide variety of music. Mostly smooth jazz and guitar, but a lot of rock, pop, and other things thrown in too. I also plan to use these speakers for home theater. My goal was to find a speaker that best duplicated a live performance. I wanted to feel that the musicians were in the room with me. I did not want the music to sound processed nor like it was coming out of a box. I recently decided to purchase these speakers and begin building a hi-fi HT from scratch. My previous system was basic college material, with bookshelf Infinity speakers.

The Maggies do a really nice job with 3-D soundstaging, probably better than any cabinet speaker, and better than some other planars, like Martin Logan. The high frequencies are beautiful, without being shrilly. Some folks like more laser-like highs, such as Thiel speakers, but for me that sounds a bit tiring and unnatural. The deep bass is fantastic (if you can divorce yourself from the woofer sound), better than any Maggie I've heard in the past. The midrange blends in very nicely with the rest, to give a very "natural" sound. I will say that the speaker is sensitive to placement, angling, etc., and I particularly noticed that in the mids. Toeing them in makes the vocalist sound more "in your face" and less veiled.

Overall, the 3.6 is a great reproducer of sound. It is a wonderful value, as are nearly all speakers of the Magnepan line. In my opinion, they only compete with each other for best value, not with any other speaker brand. The 3.6 is a particularly good value, since you have to go over $10k even in the Maggie lineup (20.1s) to do any better. If price were no object, I'd own the 20.1s, but for my taste, the 3.6 is better than virtually any other speaker out there.

Associated gear
Audio Research tube amp, Mark Levinson preamp and CD player

Similar products
Many other Magnepans, Several B&Ws, A few Thiels