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In Reply to: Magnepan 20.1 vs Similarly priced Box speakers. posted by Frank Footer on October 19, 2005 at 07:23:14:
Personally I would not buy them unless you can hear them first. The notion of compairing them to ALL boxed speakers is ludicrous to me. I have heard both the 1.6 and 3.6 and I liked the 1.6 a lot for the money and would seriously suggest anyone to give them a try because they do have a holographic veyr big soundstage compared to most any boxed speaker at the price -- but that applies left to right and not front to back and the speaker was better by many speakers in bass depth and quality of bass sound.The 3.6 ios a bigger version but I don't see as high a value in them because there are boxed speakers in the price range that sound just as open present bigger scale and much much much better bass and tonal cues. Add in that difficulty to position them (many never get them right so they end up selling them from people I know who've had them). The 20.1 is even bigger impradctical and tougher to get right. When confronted with speakers that are REALLY HARD to position and get right you have to listen to them first and in the room you intend to use them in.
Another suggestion you might consider is going to a dealer to hear the 3.6 - listen to a wide array of stuff including rock - if you like what they do then the 20.1 is bound to impress. I would suggest things you know have a 3dimensional stage and other stuff that has bass dynamics. I would listen for cohesive sound from top to bottom and decay on acoustic instruments that I find many boxes do much better. The thing is that all speakers make trade-offs so your job is to find the speaker with the trade-offs that you can live with in the long run and that you can get the best out of int he space they're to be put.
Follow Ups:
I find that when set up correctly, with amps that are neutral and that can play a high degree of detail in the bass reproduction, the Maggies will give you a much more natural and real quality of bass production. Real bass instruments right in the room n front of you and with real bass dynamics. Long time Maggie owners will understand your statements being suspect of Maggie bass. But those who have experimented with them over a long period of time know that there can be a night and day difference between how they reproduce bass frequencies and the other bands for that matter. At their best, after 25 years of playing with them, they are amazing. I have not heard any other high end box speaker do what I have heard the Maggies do and that includes Wilsons.
But I have never heard the 20 s.And the larger Wilson speakers can surely do low bass, even if you prefer the Maggie mid bass or bass.
- This signature is two channel only -
Well I would not trade you my $3500.00 standmounts for the Wilson Sophias -- iof this is what Wilson is about (in a professionally set up and treated room created FOR the speaker using $70k worth of Krell power amplification and Mark Levinson preamp and cd player) and my standmounts have better and very possibly deeper bass response and don;t need those amps to wrestle it out. So yes it's all in what one is directly comparing them to.The 1.6 had resopnably decent bass - no amopunt of positioning can make them better than they were because they don't like corners - they simply do not produce deep bass and even in the midbass, on rock, they sounded like they were well well down and distant. The soundstage was massive up and down and left to right but the depth of body of instrumental decay and tone were 2dimensional. The speaker was also bright in the upper mid lower treble - which caused the listeners to exclaim they were bright. They also don;t like any kind of volume.
I don't want this to sound negative because I have heard many of the dealers other boxed speakers and many boxed speakers over the years that have some of if not all of the same problems. Consider the more expensive B&W 705 for example - it has no bass, lousy dynamics, also does not do tonality very well, beams, lacks a deep stage (and when it does seems fake, so dollar for dollar the 1.6 with it's big stage and "clarity" and holographics despite its flaws lays a whole world of hurt on the 705 and most of the speakers tht I have heard "like" the B&W 705.
Hearing a live drum kit and then listening to any panel I have ever heard so far, and other than Martin Logan who KNOW that they need a boxed woofer to get real bass, I won't soon be going the panel route. I have been told that big Apogees are an exception but then the bigger the speaker the further away from a point source the speakers get. ML has obvious audible problems in their bigger panels as the soud is stretched over a bigger area when it should not be. ML also doesn't get those woofers to integrate -- but I like the effort and I like some of their speakers a great deal -- Though maggie offers a much better value in my opinion.
The 20.1 I have never ever heard so it may offer the panacea.
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