Magnepan owners : past / present

i unhooked my 500 watt [into 4 ohm load] emotiva from my mmgs and hooked up my decco integrated [50 into 8 ohms i don,t know about 4]. nope.....no way. this isn,t exactly the final word at all, but for me i will keep magnepans and power. thanks john. when i get a larger home i will get some 1.7s..one day//ha

I had 1.6's (twice), and 3.6's in Mye stands. I enjoyed both, but could not get the 3.6's to mate well with my room. i went down in size and bought Merlin TSM-mme's. I have had no desire to upgrade from the Merlin's. They do the job for my room.

"i went down in size and bought Merlin TSM-mme"

Good small monitors are a reasonable option to Maggies for many IMHO.

Not exactly the same in terms of the nature of the sound, but a lot of the same strengths in a slightly different flavor.

Good small monitors are a reasonable alternative especially if what you are seeking is more kick and impact in the dynamics than one typically gets with planars alone.

I started with Magneplanar - Magnepan speakers when they first arrived on the scene - Tympani 1U, a couple of other Tympani, ending with the Tympani IV-A, also owned MG-3.6r and MG-20.1 speakers.

To my way of thinking, nothing at similar price points to the various Magnepan speakers comes close in direct comparison.

The biggest problem with the Magnepan speakers, in my situation, is the physical size. My several music rooms have required that speakers be placed in front of windows and the wonderful things do mess up a view.

I replaced my last pair of Maggies (the 20.1's) with a pair of Avalon Eidolons which cost almost twice as much and sounded so good that I was reasonably satisfied with the trade. But note that as I stated earlier, I had to spend a lot more money to equal the Magnepan sound.

I went from Dynaudio Contour 3.0 to Maggie 3.6R after a 20yr maggie hiatus. I became disillusioned with the bass again- 'who pulled the plug on the bass player?'. I don't like the idea of integrating with a subwoofer. Instead of investing further in maggie modifications and more power, I built a Scan-Speak DIY design from Zaphaudio and have never looked back. The only sacrifice to me being soundstage size at low volume. IMO the maggie 'boxless' sound is not as 'transparent' as the Zaphs. I hear more musical information and satisfying bass.
However,I would still take the 3.6Rs over the Dyns.