Speakers under $50k that rival $200k+ speakers?

Agree with the Magnepan 30.7. But as others say, it depends on what your priorities are. The Maggies excel on acoustical music, they have a spooky realism to them. Even my old Tympani IVa’s can be jaw-droppingly realistic (talk about bargains -- maybe $3000 used), and the 30.7’s better them in every respect.

   - whats the downside to the maggies?

Well, Jonathan Valin said they didn’t have the most bass impact on rock. To put that in perspective, they measure flat to 20 Hz and my old Tympani IVa’s, which have less panel area, will do chest compression in my small room. But I don’t think Maggies and other planars are the best choice if you listen primarily to rock -- some will disagree. My IVa’s will cruise at 110 dB, which is plenty loud, but they won’t give you the ear-destroying SPL’s of something like a big Wilson, or the incredible dynamics of a horn.

I think the main drawback for most though is their size. They don’t really require a huge room, they place nicely in a room that’s 14’ wide -- but they are big and they have to be at least 5’ out from the wall behind them to sound their best (3’ is the minimum).

Still, Jonathan said you’d have to spend $100,000 to find speakers that sound as good and having heard them twice now I suspect he’s right.

The Persona 7H / 9H midband is excellent. Tonally more forward than B&W 800 / 802D3 in a side-by-side compare, but I would judge different rather than better, but dependent on genre of music. The big B&W's excel in casting a larger soundstage, and a bit more warmth and bottom end.

I'd take an educated guess that the Linkwitz LX521 will match or surpass anything at $200k for a great deal less than $50k.

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/LX521/Description.htm

The Japanese have never been able to make a decent speaker.

Directly or indirectly Ralph is affiliated with both Classic Audio and Sound Labs, so of course they are great speakers.

@smodtactical, Maggies needing "a nice big space to sound good" is only partially true. They, like any and all dipoles, have to be a good distance from the wall they are in front of. What that distance is, is a matter of opinion; in a recent posting on Audiogon, Ralph Karsten of Atma-Sphere stated outright that the distance should be no less than 5’. I said the same a few months ago, and one Maggie owner reacted by saying that was an over-statement, that people are now saying it just because everyone else is saying it.

I can’t speak for everybody else, but I (and, I believe, Ralph) say it because you want the sound from the rear of the panels to reach your ears no less than 10ms after that from the front of the speakers. Two sounds coming from the same direction less than 10ms apart in time are perceived by the brain as being part of the same acoustic event. The rear wave "smears" the sound of the front wave. It also creates comb-filtering, a concept too involved to go into here. The panels don’t HAVE to be 5’ from the wall; it is the 10ms delay that is important---any way you achieve that is fine.

My preferred loudspeakers since 1972 have been dipoles, and I’ve had them (magnetic-planars, ESL’s, ribbons) in ALL kinds of rooms. In my opinion, the further from the front wall (that behind the speakers), the better. There is one hardcore Japanese Maggie lover who came up with a room-positioning technique that got nicknamed "Limage"; he proposes bringing the panels almost to the center of the length of the room (about 40% from the front towards the back), and placed almost touching the side walls. That of course requires a room longer than many have; if you want to be 8’ from the panels (a minimum, I would say), and want the panels to be at least 5’ from the wall behind them, and the Limage technique demands the panels be 40% down the length of the room, how long must that room be? I’ll leave the math to you!

I would say that if you have a room about 14’ wide and 16’ long, you have enough space for a pair of Maggies. Put each panel 18" from its’ side wall, and the panels 8’ apart (18" for each side space, 18" for each Maggie---assuming it’s the 1.7i; the 3.7i is 24" wide, and 8’ between the panels adds up to 14’), and 5’ from the front wall. 5’ from the room’s 16’ length allows you to sit 8’ from the panels and 3’ from the rear wall, all totaling 16’. If one dimension has to be sacrificed, make it the length. Sitting closer to the back wall will require that wall be treated with sound-absorbing panels (you’ll be too close to it for diffusion to be an option), but that is better than positioning the speakers closer to the front wall.

Dipoles can, however, be put almost right up against side walls, unlike monopoles. Their front-to-back dipole cancellation creates a figure-of-8 radiation pattern, creating a null (little sound) to either side of the panel. In his recent demonstrations of the new flagship MG30.7, Magnepan’s Wendell Diller did just that with the bass panels, positioning them about a foot from the left and right walls. When you do that, the tweeter drivers should of course be on the inside edge of each speaker, closest to each other.

Maggies also need to be toed in towards the listening area, not just because of off-axis high frequency drop-off, but to bring the speaker’s drivers into time alignment with one another. Then there is the matter of the acoustical treatment of the room. Because of dipole cancellation, side wall reflections are less of a concern than with monopoles. But the front wall (again, behind the speakers) is MORE of a concern. Diffraction of the rear wave---the random "scattering" of the sound reaching that wall from the rear of the panels, is preferred by many dipole users, though not all.