Magnepan 20R vs 20.1Rs

Bbro,

The only difference physically between a 20R and a 20.1R is that there is magnets both in the front and in back of the bass and midrange panels on a 20.1R and only magnets front/back on the bass panel on a 20R.

I have spent much time comparing the two speakers and can honestly say if there is a difference between the two speakers sonics it is very slight. Maybe, at very high volume the 20.1R's might hang together a little bit better, but I never play my system that loud anyways.

That's way I never upgraded from the 20R's when I had the chance years ago. In my opinion,both speakers only perform at a magical level when you use an active x-over, biamp, and put them on MyeSound stands. Hope this helps.

'only'?
The difference between push/pull Maggie drivers and 'the rest' is substantial.

The pole piece is a substantial part of the speaker. As a matter of fact, i rotate my panels to pole piece TO the listener. Magnepan all were this way until sometime in the 90's when, for some reason, they swapped sides.

My original MG-1s, which I had for 20+ years, were pole piece to the listener by design.

Magfan,
I am not quite sure what you mean by "pole piece"? And what do you mean by rotating the panels TO pole piece to the listener? Sorry if I am dense.

Thanks.

bbro

No problemo, Bb. I hang with Maggie owners and we all know the 'code'. My bad.
The pole piece is what holds the magnets. The panels therefore are NOT the same on each side.
Side one.......You can easily see the mylar with the wires or ribbon glued on. The ribbon is the source of the marketing term....'Quasi-ribbon'.
Side two.......The pole piece side has a bunch vertical slots in it to let the sound out and not create backpressure on the mylar.

Thus, the speaker is NOT perfectly symetrical. EXCEPT for the 20.1 which has a pole piece on EACH side of the mylar.
Original maggies were oriented so the pole piece faced the listener when the speaker bananas were in back, and out of site, as intended. My original MG-1s were also marked 'left' / 'right'.
Sometime in the 90's, Magnepan changed and began putting the pole piece side in BACK with the wiring connections and fuse.
To ME, it sounds a little hotter and beamier. I flipped my MG1.6s around and listen to the 'wrong' side. This gives me a wider image, better dispersion and a wider sweet spot.

Bbro, do a search for HP's Absolute Sound review of the 20.1, it's available online and he compares the two versions.

Hi Magfan, they said in a review at the time (of the 3.3? whenever they flipped it) that they flipped the pole piece to the back to get better high frequency response. JBen did some measurements of the MMG's from both sides, and with the MMG's anyway there's a bit of a peak above 10 kHz followed by rolloff from above 15 kHz from the pole piece side. But I think it's a matter of preference, with my MMG's anyway I think the imaging is better from the pole piece side, but that the top octave is better from the front.