Maggie owners (past, present, future) what do (did) you love and or dislike about them?

@mewsickbuff
I agree with mljostyn, johnto and others, Your 400W @ 4ohm should do fine with the 3.7i Maggies and your room size, with care and patience in set up, should be fine
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To me, the Magnapans of the late 70s early 80s, while having the detail and timber nearly rivaling the Quad, ESLs, the sound seemed a bit thin and less engaging, by comparison. With the later models (particularly the .7, 1.7, 3.7 and 20.7 models) I am very impressed. They are dynamic, with clean accurate timber and detail, yet are very full and engaging.

In my 14’W x 23’D x 10H audio room, my 1.7s do a great job - presenting a deep, wide stage with a very detailed and solid image. Augmented with a ADS sub the sound is full and musical, yet detailed with convincingly good timber. I am driving them very well with a Rogue 100W per side integrated tube amp.
IWhen moving up to the 3.7i, I may need a bit more power, but even so Mike @ mijostyn thinks the Rogue may be enough.
In my, or your, space, I believe the 3.7i would provide the same incredible sound as the smaller 1.7s but with an even larger, fuller stage.


For most genres of music - particularly Jazz, Pop, Celtic Country or Old Rock (Bob Seger, Van Morison, Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, etc.) - I can not think of any speakers, at anywhere near the price, that do so many things so well, as the Maggies, when properly set up in a good room and integrated with a good sub......Jim

@mewsickbuff Regarding the large sound stage, I agree with Mike, I've never been to a live performance where, when seated or standing 5th or 6th row, the performance didn't sound large.

Speaker placement, sometimes even 1/2" one way or another, is critical with the Maggies, Also, dampening of the front wall behind the speakers is important. In my room, after dampening the wall behind with acoustic drapes and pains taking set up, the imaging and placement of vocals and instruments is incredible and stays that way - whether standing or setting and wether in or out of the sweet spot. In spite of their large size, the Magies have a way of disappearing from the performance, leaving only the performers the music and the stage....Jim

With my .7s I find that a good solid-state amp paired with an equally good tube preamp seems to work best.  I will say that speakers do sound "sweeter" with all-tube gear, but not as dynamic.
It's all about synergy, and of course, the room is an equally important element.  My listening room is small 11x13x8 and in some ways, I prefer my old, partially modified (half-razor) MMG's  ie: they were less "vivid"  and bright.  The .7's can sound "too vivid" to me at times.  I have experimented with resistors in the .7s but that zinginess is often still present, no matter what the source is.

 Again- all is relative. I'm kinda sorry I sold the MMG's- so much so, that  I may get another pair and sell the .7s.  :)

I have owned 3 different sets of Maggies over the years.

Currently, I have a pair of MGIII. I bought them from a seller who had them in storage for a couple of decades, for $300.

I had to do some work to them, i.e. relaminate the coils in a few places, buy new socks and recover them, build new bases. On top of that, I upgraded all the caps in the crossovers (Magnepan was notorious for using mediocre parts in their crossovers) and built my own stands for them (similar to Mye stands).

As for the stands, Maggies are fairly unsupported, so they tend to move forward and backward with audio output, causing a slight amount of blurring, that is not really noticeable, UNTIL you hear a pair with stands. Putting stands on them, makes them clearer, better imaging, tighter midbass, and some other improvements.

The things I like about them: very coherent, great detail and transient response, big soundstage (width and depth), great midbass.

Things I don’t like about them: compress dynamics a bit, images are a bit larger than life (better with newest Maggies), images are not as specified as dynamic speakers.

Even though I like them a lot, I am in the process of selling them to move to dynamic speakers*.

*Yes Kenjit, even though I enjoy the hell out of my Maggies, I am still going to get something else. What a concept.