Can Magnepan survive Wendell Diller?


I bought my first set of Magnepans in 1976, and I currently have a pair of 1.7i's.

It is difficult for me to upgrade to the 3.7i's because their are so many things that the company can do to improve their product that they simply won't offer; upgraded crossover components, a solid wood/rigid frames and better stands are examples.

Other companies are now doing this, but Magnepan always says Wendell doesn't think that is a good idea.

Can a man who suggests using lamp cord for his speaker line really have that much control over an otherwise unique technological approach to speaker design? I must be missing something obvious when a product is hand assembled in MN and any of these upgrades would, in my mind, warrant factory upgrades. Who wouldn't spend an extra $1k for a 1.7i with a hardwood frame and an upgraded x-over? Adding a ribbon tweeter to the 1.7i would warrant an additional $1k, still bringing them in $2k under the 3.7i.

Is it common for one person to hold an entire company back in high end audio? 
128x128william53b
Wendell is literally now hard of hearing and generations behind the times, I have had 1.6,and 3.6  just look at these horrible Junk steel Nickle crap bananas and jumpers = to a bent nail. The Xover parts pure garbage I rebuilt these $40 cent crap ceramic resistors 
and everything else  including the capacitors and junk $5 inductors I would not put in a $800 speaker never mind $1,000s . The frame and feet  is about as solid as a 🪁 and literally flex which = distortion  magnestand did a great job rebuilding Maggie’s ,stock 
totally worth less, their upgrade was just changing the Xover point 
save your money ,they are power hungry 🐷 s and need tons of space here is solid advise save for Spatial Audio labs open baffle speakers ,excellent build quality and sonics ,very efficient, and 
don’t require a lot of space . That is why I refuse to waste my money on them any more ,the whole speaker has to be rebuilt just to make them the way they should have been .in 20 years same old crap quality nothing more to be said , the smaller ones with a sub a good buy forthe money , other then thst save your money for a company that truly cares. The proof is in the build , or lack of. P.s the fuses are another thing just to create another bottleneck nice move 👍.been there done with that !!





Wondering why all the Magnepan haters even bought them. As for the OP, sounds like “I like this but dammit, make it better!”
SMH
@daveyf 


Really, saving me money? 
Has Magnepan ever offered a better crossover to see if I would willingly pay $2,500 instead of $2,200 on the 1.7 series? We are talking about a discretionary income purchase here, not a necessity and the convenience of getting this upgrade is more than worth the extra dollars to me. 
I'm not alone in this opinion as people that are inveterate tinkerers make YT videos showing us how cheap the stock product is made and what can be achieved with modifications, and some people take the time to record comparisons that a good dac and headphones will reveal a demonstrable difference. And some people make a living off of the modifications, either completely or as part of their line of upgrades to a number of speaker manufacturers.
If Mag can make a 15-20% better sounding speaker how many more people in this hobby would pay what some people consider an inadequate amount for speaker cables or interconnects to have "the only reasonable choice" in a price segment? There are only a handful of "full range" speakers in this price range that have adequate low level bass where a sub is not needed to have satisfactory bottom end, so whether they are smaller boxes or smaller panels, the person interested in the quality of sound is going to have to lay out at least $1k per side in addition to the speaker pair price. 
Wendell reminds me of an senior engineer I worked with at Polaroid back in the 90's who said that ccd cameras will never be inexpensive enough for the general public because $165 was the cheapest we could buy an LCD display to put in a camera. Because of him and his lack of understanding of what was going on in the markets and the offshoring of manufacturing, and others like him at that company they didn't jump into that market with both feet where other photography companies were, and they missed the digital boat and went out of business. 
Of course I could make a more convincing argument to that point by discussing their marketing department, but that would just be cruel in this context.
@nd1der

I don’t hate them, I bought them back in the beginning when there was more attention to cosmetics, and I have the current model.

I’m pointing out the fact that when someone has a question as to why the current models are underbilt, the answer is always "Wendell says...". And I know that to be true because I talked to him 3-4 years ago about my homemade Maggie’s Little Helpers, he was totally dismissive, insisting that the current product line is "good enough".
Since he’s a marketing professional, where are his side by side comparisons to prove to us that he is right?
Make one as well as it can be made with current technology and let the market give feedback on what improvements they would and would not pay for. Because now that I know what an upgraded crossover can do for my speakers I am compelled to buy the parts and install them myself. However, I am on the fence about the frame material and it's lake of resistance to torsion until I remove the grill cloth and see what can be done with lateral struts to improve rigidity.