martin logan vs magnepan sound

I have heard ML speakers over time, but I must say that I prefer Maggies for the sound stage. The ability to listen to the Maggies for long periods of time without fatigue won me over compared to the ML's also.

As for the date of writing (April 2013), I think the situation re ML hybrids is considerably improved at this point in time since the last comments here. The recent vintages of ML hybrids (Vantage, Spire, Summit, etc.) use a powered subwoofer which decreases the need of tremendously high powered amplification. Also, the sub is adjustable in level which makes these speakers more adaptable to a wider variety of rooms. Plus, the integration between the woofer and the electrostatic panel is much improved over the earlier versions. Both Magnepans and ML's can sound wonderful in the right system, but I prefer these modern ML's because of their greater low level resolution, more natural mids and highs, greater efficiency and deeper bass. Nothing is perfect of course, but the tradeoffs in the MLs seem to my ears to be good ones and the problems relatively minimal.

If I had the right room for them, I would really like to give newer MLs a test run. One of the things I like most about audio is trying out products that demonstrate a unique design approach. MLs fall into that category.

As a Magnepan owner I understand anything I say will sound biased BUT at one time I was considering both. To me, the difference was between a great "in theory" design compared to a "less perfect" theory but better execution situation.

A planar speaker fused to a very dynamic woofer seemed like a great idea. It should provide the lower octave that the planars, including the Maggies, were missing. However the Martin Logans, while sounding very clean and open upon initial listening, started to bother me after 15 minutes or so. There was a noticeable difference between the speed of the electrostatic driver and the much-too-slow woofer.

It just didn't work for me... and I went in WANTING it to. (I loved the look of he M-L's and thought the closer to "full-range" speaker would be perfect.)

The Magnepan 3.7, to me, had a much more coherent sound, a very nice three-dimensionality and better ability to locate instruments in space. They also just sounded more like real music, especially on vocals and acoustic music.

Just one man's opinion.

I have owned both the MG 3.6 and currently the ML Montis, with Audio Physic Avanti III in between. The Midrange of the maggies was incredible, however even with great wattage from Bryston amps, you can't get Bass from them and in the 90's, no subwoofer could integrate with them. I have heard a demo system with two subs and sounding great, but adding 6k is a stretch. Also with the wide panels, they require a large space to get that disappearing effect. For 9k, my Montis speakers disappear, can go down to 29 hertz. Perhaps using a pure tone at the 340 hz crossover, there will be some incoherence between the panel and cone, but I challenge anyone listening blindly to a musical passage to identify it. If 44 thousand dollars falls into my lap, I'm off to by the Vanderseen 7's. Until then, I'm loving my music.