Magnepan 3.7

That's because the ren 90's tweeters are known to roll off a bit, the ren 90 is a good speaker but not in the class with the IRS series speakers, i know i had the ren 90's and compared them to my sigmas and epsilons, the crossovers that were used in the ren 90's were built with a budget in mind and were compromised to lower the cost of the speaker, when i listen to the big magnepans the first impression i get is that of a big sheet of plastic when you shake it back in forth in your hands, that sound is so prominent on them, maybe owners get use to that coloration but i can't, i think that is why infinity designed their drivers to specific frequencies so that they would not be to large for the delicate and faster high frequencies, thus adding less coloration.

My ears must be less evolved or i didnt hear the 20.1s set up properly. I prefer the sound of the 3.7s. Money/pocketbook had nothing to do with it. I was looking at and willing to buy speakers that cost more than the 20.1s. I agree the 20.1s have a bigger soundstage and go deeper.

Epsilonman,

As you point out, the IRS V -- surely one of the greatest speakers ever made -- cost $60,000, and that was when it was new. The priciest Maggie goes for 1/3 of that, 1/6 when you factor in inflation. So you're comparing apples and oranges.

I can't agree with you on comparisons with the smaller Infinity models. They had their virtues, and their problems. So did the IRS V, like any speaker, but it's virtues were so overwhelming that it's hard to argue with it.

I think the big Genesis 1.1's, the speakers most comparable to the IRS, are over $100,000. For that, you could get five pairs of 20.1's and 20 pairs of 3.7's! For which reason they are of practical interest to more of us.

Magenpan had the quasi ribbon before Infinity and Jim Winey apparently wanted to use it in his original production model but didn't, for reasons I'm not clear on. In any case, it's being used now. And it's worth noting that nothing, including the IRS V, has ever equaled Tympani midbass. Sure, the Infinites went lower and louder (although the only time my 1-D's ever bottomed was on cannon shots on the Telarc I812), but the servo woofers couldn't keep up with the planar mids and tweeters, and to my ears, the Tympani woofers are the best ever made, combining as they do planar clarity with dynamic slam. If I did want to go lower and deeper, I'd just add a sub -- one contributor here actually has Bruce Pick's rotary woofer mated with his Tympani IV panels! That goes down to 0 Hz.

By the way, I understand that the 1.7 and 3.7 no longer suffer from the "Mylar sound" that bedevils large planars. That at least is what the reviewers say, I haven't heard them. The foil conductor/Mylar sandwich seems to do a better job of damping traveling waves than the wires. It's never bothered me; I can hear it if I listen, but normally I just tune it out. Unfortunately, all speakers have self-noise of one kind or another. This of course is a matter of taste, it's a sonic flaw and if it bothers you, it does.

Also, as I understand it, Mylar is actually a better sounding material than Kapton for planar drivers. The reason Infinity and other manufacturers used/use Kapton in smaller drivers is that they have to dissipate more heat, and Mylar has a lower melting point.

The reason the smaller Maggies aren't push-pull is, again, one of cost. The 20.1 is push-pull. I don't think you can get away with single-ended in a small driver like the EMIM's and EMIT's, the distortion would be too high.

Kapton is much stronger than Mylar and being that it is stronger you can make the panels much thinner making them lighter, you made some good points, i wonder why magnepan didn't make the whole panels quasi back then, maybe they felt that the cost would be to high, you have to remember that back in 69 they didn't have the equipment to easily make the panels like they do today and it probably would have cost a fortune to make the speaker full quasi.

I was looking for the source that said that Mylar was less resonant than Kapton, but couldn't find it. I did find an old post from Mart at Planar Asylum to the effect that Magnepan uses Mylar because it's less expensive.

By the way, I just saw the price of the Genesis 1.2 -- $235,000! Guess I won't be using them for surround. :-)