Why no reviews of the Magnepan 3.7 in Stereophile

Funny, that's one reason I like JA. All solid state, no vinyl, no delusions. Well, maybe just one. He still argues that cables make a big difference now and again. No one is perfect. :)

Dear Halcro, The logic of your statement imply that you
can rely on Fremers opininons. We all, I think, respect JA
because of his intergrity. As if we are suprised that such
a character quality exist among HI-FI reviewers. Some time ago I had 4 (HI-FI) Magazine subscriptions but only one at present. This is a sad state of affairs for those magazines in my opinion. 'In the other side', as Raul is used to say,
this state of affairs may explain the flourish of our Forums.

Regards,

Dear Nandric,
When it comes to descriptions of the sound pertaining to various components, I always rely on Fremer above JA simply because he seems to 'hear' the way I do as he has steadfastly stuck to the supremacy of vinyl through the decades of contempt in the face of vinyl's demise?

What is better marketing - a good subjective review with a couple of questionable artifacts in measurements, or no review at all?"

James63 responds

"No review at all, I have passed on a few auditions because of bad measurements. Measurements are not everything, not by a long shot but if you listen to enough speakers and also analyze their measurements you can correlate the two with what you like and do not like."

Back to the question by the op. It seems that James63 sees it like I see it. Why risk a review whereby the measurements are going to reflect issues in the design regardless of subjective impressions? If Magenapan is selling speakers faster than they can make them there really is no reason for them to be subjected to measurements that might reveal issues. This might certainly dissuade some, maybe many, from even considering purchase. What could possibly be gained by Magenapan vs what could be lost? minimize risk. This aside from the obvious fact that audition is mandatory before any purchase.

Kal's response seems completely plausible to me as the REAL reason.

There is an article by the famous American phylosopher
Quine entitled 'On what there is'. The question is about
inpenetrable phylosphical issue of 'ontology'. But to know
'what there is' in our hobby we need at least some HI-FI
Magazine. Or so I thought. To know what to check or listen
to we need the names of the products and the names of the manufacturers. This to me is of more importance than the opinion of whatever reviewer. The same apply for me for the forums. If, for example, Halcro never mentioned AT 7V
how should I know what to look for? But in casu even the name was not sufficient. I needed the address of some dealer also. I am glad to have asked for.

Regards,

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.

Reading these posts, it seems that many of you think reviewers are on 'the take,' as it were.
I wrote for TAS, was the Equipment Manager for Fi Magazine and wrote again for UltraAudio.com.
There was no 'take,' on any of my reviews. Nor are there any on HP's reviews or a large majority of the TAS writers. I knew several of them. The reviews are honest. How so many of you can allow yourselves to speculate endlessly - and with no evidence - is pretty disgusting. HP may make mistakes, but he reviews what he hears, but his ears are his reputation. Same with JV and Neil Gader and Fred Kaplan, when they wrote for TAS. John Nork and Cordesman: beyond even thinking they would write other than what they heard.
Has it occurred to you that reviwers worry that others won't hear what they hear and call them frauds? I wrote a review of the Hurricanes on Ultraaudio and someone wrote to ask me if I didn't find the ASL Hurricanes "smeared." I thought, "What????? Is he high?!?!" Those amps are in no way smeared. HOWEVER, when I moved them to a smaller room (13 x 20) from a larger one (23 x 45), they did not have the absolute realism they had in the larger room. I still have them 10 years later, and am putting them back in the larger area (in the basement) when spring comes, just so my friends can hear the difference between the two rooms. in the larger room, they sounded so alive, that after 20 years of listening to components, I was instantly dazzled and I hadn't even made it back to the listening chair.
Now, I also heard these at Lyric Hi-Fi, one of the most venerable of audio salons. i can tell you it was a dismal failure, and only my belief in HP made me acquire them months later. And they sounded every bit as real as he said, and, i assure you, i did NOT have Nola Grand References. I had Hales Revelation 3s, but I'd had several amps on them and it was like going from a propeller plane to an F-16. No lie here whatsoever.
So, if you KNOW what you're talking about and you KNOW reviewers who took money for reviews (the idea that a reviewer did a good review so the manufacturer would advertise is stupid: we get NOTHING out of it, and were never, ever told to write a good review in order to generate income).
As my late mother would say, when her nieces and nephews would say they hated broccoli/spinach/green beans, or whatever, "Have you eaten them before?Invariably, the response was "No." I knew to duck, 'cuz I KNEW the exact wording that would fly out of her mouth: "if you haven't tasted them, you don't know what you're talking about, you stupe (stupid person), so shut your mouth."
I detest the petty speculation about dishonest reviewers and how we all do it to get the manufacturer to advertise. i knew Dave Wilson, Luke Manley, Mr. Nudell, and others, and owned their products long BEFORE I ever became a reviewer. They wouldn't even DREAM of suggesting a good review in order to advertise. They didn't need to: their products spoke for themselves, good review or not.
Kindly shut it, unless you have proof of this. Writing an accurate review is what gives us credibility. Missing obvious flaws diminishes it, and in the industry, that's a death rattle if you want to review someone's products, and they say, "Aren't you the guy who said so-and-so's speaker had a suckout in the mid bass??? Uh, no, thank you, I don't think we'll be providing you with samples." And you are dead - and usually fired. ESPECIALLY from TAS.

Advertisement can morph easily into bias and even bribery. Equipment held over for personal use is unethical at best. Me thinks the lady doth protest too much.

"Advertisement can morph..."
I'd make that "Advertisement could morph" unless someone has proof. The brain has a nasty habit of "knowing" stuff it couldn't possibly know, and we all need to keep a close watch on what it is coming up with.

That's why every honest and capable reviewer has had his/her
corpus callosum transsected. This permits each cerebral
hemisphere to operate independently as a check on the other.
The left hemisphere actually does the writing but the right
hemisphere assesses the sound while remaining unbiased by the
content of PR, advertising or other comments. Interhemispheric
communication is accomplished by diffusely-acting
neuromodulatory mechanisms. The small price for this is a
reduced appreciation of sound localization and imaging giving
rise to higher demands for these parameters.

Why be afraid if Stereophile posts the specs of the Maggie and they're not perfect?

They've posted a few reviews of SET amps which measured poorly but had a great sound, and most of those companies are still in business.

I think it would be somewhat of a nice way to advertise, the old reverse type-"Our speaker's measurements suck, but they sound great!".

Or howabout-"JA. said our measurments were a disaster, yet we've sold XXXX numbers of these speakers,"

Or -Thousands of proud and satisfied owners of our speakers are great,but one review says our specs are bad- so who's right?"

Or, just perhaps Magnepan is doing quite well without any reviews or ads in Stereophile, so the money saved will be spent elsewhere.
I don't think any of us want to see the prices rising on Maggies to pay for advertising and making them just another company that makes speakers for the rich.

I own the Maggie Onwall HT speakers in my separate HT system.
Thye do a great job, I don't care about the specs and I use a Depth sub anyway.

I do have a friend who just got a pair of MMG for his 2 channel set up and he is very happy he made the move.
He was apprehensive because of all the stuff he read about Maggies being bass shy and hard to drive.

I told him, just listen to them and make up your mind.
You ears will tell you if they are right for you or not, and reviews are just crack.

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).