Magnepan vs. Martin Logan

I've owned both, and sell yet another planar.

I'll assume we're talking about hybrid Martin Logans, and leaving out the sadly discontinued CLS.

In general, the Martin Logans have a bit better detail and better imaging. The Maggies have better coherence and are more forgiving, and give you a wider sweet spot. The Martins have deeper bass (assuming good speaker/room interface - more on that later), while the Maggies tend to have better pitch definition in the bass region. The Prodigy and Odyssey had very good woofer/panel integration for a hybrid, with their innovative cardioid-pattern woofer system. I haven't heard the Summit. Electrostats are pretty much always a difficult load. The Maggies are an easier load (resistive 4 ohms) but their low efficiency (lower 80's) means you need lots of power.

If you peruse online evaluations, you'll find pretty consistent descriptions of the Maggies but a rather wide range of descriptions of the Martin Logans. The reason is the Maggies have fairly uniform radiation characteristics so their tonal balance doesn't vary a lot from room to room. Not so with the Martins - the panel approximates a line source, and the woofer a point source. Sound pressure level falls off more slowly with distance from a line source - specifically, at 3 dB per doubling of distance with a line source, and 6 dB per doubling of distance with a point source. So with the Martins, the relative loudness of woofer and panel at the listening position is dependent on room size and listening distance. If your room is too small for that particular model, the bass will be too prominent and may sound sluggish; if the the room is too big, the bass may be weak and the speaker may sound bright and forward. In either case, adjusting the placement of speakers and/or listeners will improve the tonal balance. I suspect that on-line accounts of Martin Logans having too much bass or too little bass come from setups where there was a gross mismatch between speaker size & room size.

Maggies and Martin Logans are both lovely loudspeakers, and in my opinion way ahead of the typical cones and domes in a box they compete with. If you're unable to listen to either, then here's my overgeneralized synopsis: The Martins are better sound for one person sitting in the sweet spot, while the Maggies are better sound for several people at once.

Duke

Wow, what an excellent response from Duke.

As an owner of Maggie 3.3 and 3.5 for 6 years, my experience with these speakers very much echo Duke's comments. And when I went to hear the various Martin Logan models on numerous occassions, I also experienced much of what Duke describes. But everytime I heard the MLs, I simply could not get attached to the music. The Maggies, with their set of weaknesses, i.e., mediocre resolution and not so good dynamics, simply brought on a level of emotional connection to the music because of how they portrayed voice, piano, sax, and other instruments of rich harmonic content. The MLs in comparison were simply too analytical and hifi sounding for me.

Ultimately, I moved onto the SoundLab speakers as they retained all of the Maggie magic and had a resolution and low-end extension that neither the Maggie nor the MLs can even begin to approach. And the SoundLab's sweet spot is wide wide wide.

John

Duke, nailed it. The only ML's I really liked were the CLS/Z'. Ultimatley for me too many issues to commit to. All in all I think the Maggies are for lack of a better expression, friendlier.

I own a pair of ML Prodigy's and a pair of Maggie 1.6's. I love both speakers but the Logan's flat out kill the Maggies accross the board......... as well they should given the price difference. I have auditioned the Maggie 3.6's at length in my two channel system, I wanted to love 'em but just couldn't warm up to them like the Logans. I am almost opposite from Jafox in that regard. The Logans are more emotionally involving for me......... I guess what I'm trying to say is you really need to listen for yourself. It's all about personal preference in the end.

A couple more points. FWIW, Even though my Prodigy's are bigger than the Maggie 3.6's, I thought the Maggies dominated the room more becouse I couldn't see through them like I can with the ML's. IMO, the ML's sound best with tubes and the Maggies sound better with SS. My experience was that the Logans are much easier to drive as well(than the 3.6's that is).

After hearing the Logans for an extended amount of time, and owning the Innersound Eros (stat hybrid) and owning and hearing Magnepans I can tell you that I would look really hard into VMPS speakers, they offer the great detail and speed of a Hybrid, less distortion then Maggies, easier load and much wider sweet spot then Logan's
VMPS simply fills in all strengths of these type speakers and gives you great value and excellent sound.