Yusych,
Wow I can't believe it has been two years already sense I started this thread. I looked for a place to demo the Palladiums for a while and gave up. But one day about a year ago I made a trip to demo Magnepan 20.1, 3.6. I brought a lot of rock music because I knew that would be where the Magnepans would come up short (brought audiophile stuff too). After I was done with the Magnepan 3.6 the dealer looked at my music and instantly said I have Klipsch Palladiums in the other room. In the other room they had the Magnepan 20.1 and Klipsch P-38F ($12,000, three 8" woofers, etc) connected to an all Mcintosh front end.
Note, I used Metallica's "Black album" and Jack Johnsons' "On and on" for the following demo.
I started out listening to the P-38F right after the Magnepan 3.6 (also on Mcintosh stuff). My first thought was, wow that is a lot of bass. It seemed a little untextured though... but I blame the room, they were too close to the back wall IMO. The second thing that stood out to me is how small the soundstage seemed after the Magnepans. The speakers just sounded so small in space (left to right, front to back). I tried moving them around the room and playing with toe-in. Now keep in mind the soundstage on Magnepans is a little over-stated (as is the scale of voices) but the Klipsch are on the small side of the soundstage scale.
The mids of the P-38F were every bit as detailed as the Magnepan and maybe more so. They also seemed very natural even though logic told me there should be some horn coloration I did not hear it. The highs were also very detailed and not splashy at all.
After the Klipsch demo I immediately listened to the Magnepan 20.1 on Mcintosh's 1000 watt mono blocks. Compared to the Klipsch they seemed slow in the bass, lack midrange clarity but had great highs (I mean really great). All in all I feel the 20.1 is tonally a little bass heavy.
At the end of the day I did not buy any of these speakers. The 3.6 needs more bass in both extension and power for my tastes. I could not get over the soundstage of the Klipsch and I really wanted to like them. I really loved the corner horns back in the day. The 20.1 sounded ok, I don't think the Mcintosh is the right brand to pair with them. But at $13000 I want a speakers that is better build, I would need to demo them on different amps.
What else have you demoed? Thiel and Wilson will give you a lot of the good qualities of the Klipsch without as many short comings. If you are open to used speakers there are a lot of nice options out there for $5000-$6000.
