Why no reviews of the Magnepan 3.7 in Stereophile

Tmsorosk, the reviews of the 3.7 that I've seen imply that it has superb rather than poor dispersion, better than the 3.6. The narrow ribbon tweeter inherently has almost perfect dispersion characteristics. I'm guessing that Magnepan improved the dispersion of the midrange using techniques similar to those they used on to improve the dispersion of the quasi ribbon tweeter on the 1.7's. And they don't want to let that technological cat out of the bag. But whatever the reason, I don't have any reason to disbelieve their explanation. Bass extension is presumably going to be similar to that of the 3.6's, and everybody knows that they don't go particularly deep, besides which the subjective reviews have all pointed out the limitations in bass response. So I don't see any reason to hide that; bass slam and extension are one area in which dynamic woofers have a distinct advantage over planar dipoles. That being said, near field measurements of dipoles tend to exaggerate the bass response, sometimes grotesquely. They don't have much of a bearing on what you actually hear in your room.

FWIW, Magnepan has been advertising in Stereophile. They just haven't sent in speakers for review (and John Atkinson gets pretty upset when people suggest that a manufacturer has to buy an ad to get a review).