Anyone ever hear of Magnepans? (1 Viewer)

[Robertto]

Had a friend reco them, anyone ever hear/see these things?
www.Magnepan.com

 

[Dustin B]

I'd suggest a search of the forum. There have been lots of threads on them.

 

[Joe Casey]

Try this place.

 

[Robertto]

Thanks, did not realize they where that well known

 

[Andrew Pratt]

you maight say I know them I'm in the final phases of setting up a 7.1 system using maggie speakers, an IB sub and the rotel 1066 pre amp. IMO there's few speakers have have the "air" that maggies have.

 

[Jed M]

I don't own them, but I love the sound of Magnepan. Great choice for music. (I am sure they sound great for HT too)

 

[Ron Boster]

Robertto:

I try to run a search on most topics prior to posting. 99% of the time that is the quickest way to find the answers. Then I will post follow up questions to my specific needs.

Welcome to the Forum and enjoy
Ron

 

[Jeffrey Chin]

I have had very positive experiences w/ Maggie planars.
I have owned the mmgs, 2.5rs, 1.4s, mgcc1 center.
Planars are a great way to start your audiophile grade system. You will find that Martin Logans are the granddaddy of planars.
I currently own BG Radia DX series planars
Also be sure to check the AudioAsylum MUG board (this will be your 2nd home in researching planars)

 

[Joe Casey]

You will find that Martin Logans are the granddaddy of planars.

Could you qualify that statement? I'm not saying that maggies are the best out there either, but find they differ (being planar magnetic i.e. ribbons) from ML's (electrostats).

 

[Mike Veroukis]

Andrew,
You will have to let me see your setup when your done. Sounds very cool! And I really am curious about that IB sub!!!
Btw, aren't magnaplaners a little weak when it comes to bass?
- Mike

 

[Jeffrey Chin]

By this I mean that for almost all Maggie owners, the common upgrade path is towards Martin Logans. Yes MLs are electrostats. Although planars/electrostats don't tend to have the bass "SLAM" and have a picky sweet spot, their bipolar designs are breathtaking.

 

[Tom Brennan]

I bought Maggies about 23 years ago; they sounded OK but were shoddily made. The driving wires broke and they stopped working after about 10 years. This is very poor quality considering I have Altec speakers made in 1957 that still work fine and some people use WE and RCA from the 1930s. I must say they looked quite stunning sitting on the curb on garbage day.

 

[Saurav]

They went through a phase where they lost a lot of customers (and people's faith) due to QC and maybe even customer service issues. In the last few years, word has it that things are turning around. New management perhaps?

 

[Mike Matheson]

Magnepan's biggest problem in the last several years has simply been that of building enough speakers to satisfy demand. . . (the wait for new speakers has sometimes extended past three months).

 

[ling_w]

I've had experience with MG-IIIa, MGCC1, MG10.1 and MG-Ic. They work really well. The hardest thing to integrate is the center speaker, which lacks bass below 160hz.

The maggies requires gobs of power, so don't expect receivers to power your HT to reference level.

I've also experimented with 7.1 setup with my Meridian processor. HT was better, but the thing that made a world of differnece was Ambisonic mode.

Many of my friends got magnepans after hearing my system. I guess it was such a drastic difference compared to their boxy old speakers.


Jeffrey,

I don't thing Maggie people upgrade to Martin Logans unless they came from the low end stuff like MMG or SMG speakers. ML's dynamic bass is a heresey for maggie people and it never sounds fully right.

Tom,

In the last few years, word has it that things are turning around. New management perhaps?

New management? It's the same 3 or 4 guys for the last eon or so.

 

[Tom Brennan]

Ling---Not a broken wire, multiple broken drive wires, you know, the wires that are glued to the kazoo membrane diaphragms of these Rube Goldberg, single-ended, 2nd harmonic distortion generators. To say that "practically" all dynamic speakers suffer from foamrot is untrue, most don't use foam and don't forget, Maggies are dynamics too.

 

[Jason Watson]

Several months ago we had a meet at my house which 12 HTF and HTT members attended. Turned out that four of us had Magnepan home theaters. An informal survey showed that the only speaker up-grades wished for, in this group of four, was to move up the Magnepan line! I do think there were a few who mumbled something about upgrading TO Magnepans though. Maggies do not have that always buttery smooth mids/highs presentation that M/Ls seem to offer.....however, neither does a real violin or saxophone.
Jason

 

[ling_w]

Tom,

Broken wire(s) are fixable, maybe you could have given them a 2nd home to someone who is willing to handle the task of joining the wires together. I think it would have been better than getting those non-uniform drive/boxy sounding speakers. Either that or go back to the honking horns of the 50's.

 

[Newton]

I demoed Martin-Logans Aeriusi a while back and then went with the Magnepans. The ML hybrid bass never sounded right to me. I think that most Maggie owners would consider upgading to the MG20.1s not the ML line.

I'm also starting to turn the 2channel system into a HT system also. I just picked up a pair of MGMC1 surrounds to go with my MG1.6s. Can't wait to get them hooked up.

 

[Tom Brennan]

Ling---I don't think you understand what single-ended means or you wouldn't be talking about "uniform drive", Maggies are far from uniform drive having the magnets on only one side of the diaphragm. This makes for unsymetrical drive as the diaphragm moves away and 2nd harmonic distortion. Now Eminent Technolgy makes a planar-magnetic that is driven by magnets on both sides of the disphragm, that's much closer to uniform drive than Maggies and neither is as uniform as a double-ended electrostat. The Maggies weren't worth fixing, cost more than they were worth. The entire drive "coil" needed stripping, the diaphragms cleaned and a new drive glued on. Way too much trouble.