QUAD vs Martin Logan vs Magnepan


Probably a turn-off to most readers, it's one of those 'how long is a piece of string' type questions. But here goes...
To those of you with experience of 2 or more of the above company's modern speaker products, which have you found to be the more persuasive speaker. In other words which is best. I realise Magnepan & ML have an extensive range of speakers but I guess my question is aimed at which evermodel they put out to compete with the Quad (ESL 989?)

My reasoning is simple, it's difficult to find a dealer where I live who would have any of the above never mind all three to do a 'shootout'. I have recently joined the ranks of Maggie owners with the MMG's which I'm impressed with - but I'm just curious to see how good things can get if you start to spend a few more $$$
safoxda10
stick with the maggies, even if you upgrade. the quads are good too, but you will spend more for less.
You get what you pay for!
MMG's are cheap and may sound really good in the "right" position with the "right" amp in a really narrow sweet spot. Bigger Maggies are a much better comparison to ML & Quad.
The ML's are more forgiving of listening position and easier on your amp. My favorites for the money.
If money doesn't matter, I'd pick the Quads.
Keep in mind that power matters with these speakers more than most. I wouldn't even dream of running these with less than 100 watts and would prefer 200+.
My final rant: Room size matters. These all like big rooms. What are your room dimensions? Ceiling height? Can you place the speakers 3 feet from any wall? I heard the quads in an amazing room but they were 5 feet from any wall, in a room about 20 x 35 with 11 foot ceilings and ran on huge parasound monoblocks.
Of those brands...Maggie 20 series would be my top choice (you will need a very large room)...none of the other Maggies beat the Quads IMHO. Matin Logan...I could only own the CLS's (with subs)...maybe?...I've never heard them with subs to be honest.

Dave
Newbee tells it like it is.

I've owned three pairs of Quads, five pairs of Maggies, and one pair of Martin Logans.

Here's the way I'd put it: The larger Maggies tend to have a relaxing and forgiving tonal balance, but are a little lacking in upper harmonic detail compared with the Quads. The Quads are (to my ears) a little bit forward in the lower treble region. Martin Logans don't have quite the detail of the Quads, nor the coherence of the Quads or Maggies, but they will play deeper in the bass and are in my opinion the most physically beautiful electrostats. Getting a good blend between point source woofer and line source panel isn't easy, and is somewhat distance-dependent, so I would say that either the Quads or the Maggies are going to sound more consistent from one room to another.

As Mrderrick notes, Maggies generally need to be cranked up a bit to really "come to life". If your listening style includes a lot of low-level, late night listening, then an electrostat might make more sense.

The good news is, I don't think there's a bad choice among these three brands. I'd call the Maggies the most forgiving with the widest sweet spot, the Quads the most detailed and revealing with a fairly small sweet spot, and the ML's in between with deeper bass but possible bass/panel integration problems.

Duke
My listening room is 28X32 with vaulted ceings. I run 3.6's with a Sunfire Architectural Signature Sub. The sound is astounding. As previously mentioned they do require a lot of clean power. And they do require to be at a bare minimum of two feet from the rear wall. I owned the 1.6's prior to this. The performance of the 1.6's pushed me getting the 3.6's. I have no complaints whatsover on the 3.6's. I have to be careful over my love for the Maggies! Those 20.1's have my heart pumping but not at three times the price. Well ........ maybe?