30.7 MAGNEPAN Tour in Indy

Wendell was quite clear that the 30.7 is more of a technical exercise to show the Power Response benefits than a product they want to build and sell. It’s not a particularly practical speaker due to its size and how that requires a huge room. They also need a boatload of power. When I heard them they were powered by the Parasound 400W into 8ohm John Curl designed power amp. 

Demonstrate power response???
Who heard the term before ?
The power response does vary throughout the room even with Maggie’s.
If the Power Response was perfect there would be no “sweet spot”?
The 30.7 does have a “sweet spot”.
What does making the speaker prove, if not to sell?

The old Tympani requires a room no bigger than the 30.7 needs.

Look, Magnepan”s brand does not have snob appeal and the rich will not spend on them.

Most all Magnepan dealers do not even have the 20.7 to demo in their stores?

Why?? Very poor marketing!

So you’re saying the brand is in trouble? That’s a huge stretch. By the way few dealers stock many higher priced speakers. I’m in the Detroit Metro area and only one dealer has anything over $10k/pair and that’s Paragon who is one of the top dealers in the country. The local Magnepan dealer has a pair of 20.7’s that’s he’s had for years. They are for the owner’s listening pleasure. 

Winey(maggie) and Johnson(ARC), teamed up and were trucking around the country, in the 70’s, demonstrating one new technology(magnetic-planars) and one reintroduction to music lovers(tubes). Both companies are still alive and well, after going on 50 years(well- McIntosh Group bought the ARC marque). Yeah, sure...."poor marketing!" Made in the USA/ sold in China

don_c55:
"If the Power Response was perfect there would be no “sweet spot”?
The 30.7 does have a “sweet spot”.
What does making the speaker prove, if not to sell?"

Hello don,
     Yes, when I heard the 30.7s at Ovation in Indy, they did have the normal sweet spot when I stood in the middle between the speakers about 6' away, which remained as I walked closer to them.  The interesting part was as I continued walking forward, past the front plane of the panels and between them, it seemed like I was walking straight into the middle of the soundstage.
     As I walked around behind the speakers (they were positioned about 8' away from the front wall and played at about 80-90 db.), the 3D imaging lost some of its distinction but the full, detailed and balanced full-range sound of all the instruments and single voice still gave me the impression I was among and surrounded by the musicians as they were performing.  I think this is what Wendell means by the power response being very good.  No matter where I stood and listened to the speakers in the room, the music sounded very full, detailed, dynamic and well balanced from top to bottom.  
     But they still sounded best to me from the traditional sweet spot location between the speakers and several feet away, although I understand the exact number of feet away from the midpoint between the panels would be a matter of personal preference.  My point being the 30.7s still have a traditional and generally accepted “sweet spot”.
     I expressed my opinion to Wendell that I believe a similar in-room sound quality could be attained by just simply using a single pair of the 30.7s' very impressive thinner midrange/true ribbon treble panels and substituting four relatively small high quality subs properly positioned in the room in a distributed bass array system or Swarm format for the very wide and tall pair of bass/upper bass panels he was currently using. 
     I further stated that this would be less imposing visually in the room, the likely sound quality performance would be at least equally as high, the cost of production would be significantly less, resulting in the suggested retail price of the 30.7 speaker system to be significantly lowered while maintaining profit margins and b  four panel with large and sales would likely increase.
     He didn't appear to be very welcoming to my suggestion but he didn't offer a reasoned explanatory response of why a pair of 6.5' x2.5' bass/mid bass panels achieve better in-room bass performance than two pairs of 1' x1' x 2' subs positioned in a distributed bass array method, either.
     I'm thinking of experimenting with the combination of the 4-sub Audio Kinesis Swarm distributed bass array and the  Magnepan 1.7 and .7 in my 23' x16' room.  I'm using the Swarm with a pair of older 2.7QR 3-way speakers now with very good results and I'm curious whether substituting either new Magnepan would sound even better. 
     My experience with the performance of the 2.7s and the 4-sub Swarm bass system makes me wonder if the combo of the Swarm with the .7s ($2,800 for the Swarm and $1,400 for a pair of .7s =$4,200 total cost) or the 1.7s ($4,900 total cost) would perform, sound quality wise, like a mini 30.7 system with both being excellent bargains.

Tim