Can Magnepan survive Wendell Diller?

This is a game of trade-offs. Every product has them. It’s really pretty foolish to condemn one person’s choices because they don’t match yours. The car analogies are appropriate. You can spend $ or $$$$$, and someone will still declare a part to be crap and want to rip it out in favor of their gold-plated flux capacitor. People who have a history of competence generally have good reasons for doing things. The best way to find out why is to ask. You might learn something. In the event you don’t agree, you have a multitude of options in the market. 

@jfuguay


I asked and did not get a reasonable reply. 

Because the market won’t bear the cost is absurd in a hobby where people spend so much money. It is totally counter-intuitive.

As I said, and upgraded XOver for the 1.7i, I have yet to look up the prices of all of the stock components, would add about $30 total for the pair, cost to the manufacturer. The markup in this hobby is enormous, and the reality of that if extrapolated over the cost to the consumer is in the neighborhood of $1k retail, on the Maggie’s if you follow what the cost of the original parts is.

If your not the kind of person that likes to take things apart and tinker with them, you will never see the difference, only hear it.

When I took my R300’s apart I was blown away by the quality of these not top of the line KEF’s, custom everything and of excellent quality. So it is not a stretch to expect similar quality of components in like costing products. 

I would still like someone to explain to me why a company will not offer the consumer better quality based on the the manufactures terms of costing the parts forward.

But I will say at the end of my experiments whether the quality of the upgrades warrant the cost in my opinion, and I’ll back that up with audio samples. And if the difference is not noticeable on my iPad with under $100 headphones, I will say that I am wrong, that I was fooled by snake oil claims.

OP, you seem to keep on missing the point that Magnepan are trying to offer a ’value for money’ product...and NOT a high cost ’bling’ product. They are appealing to the entry level hobbyist with their entry level models by not requiring the new hobbyist to dig too deep into their pocket. This allows the newbie to buy a high end product at not much more than a mid-fi mass produced big box product. If that consumer wants to spend more and go up the ladder a little, they offer higher priced products, but none that will be getting away from the basic ’value for money’ area. Let me ask you how many folk who are happy to shell out Wilson Chronosonic money would ever consider Magnepans ( regardless of their parts quality)?? Maybe your answer will also answer your point about what the market will bear?

There have been a lot of posts on this thread already. I haven’t had the time to read them all. So I apologize if I state something here that has already been mentioned. As an owner of a pair of 1.7i, I understand the frustration of the OP. However, the things that we need to optimize the Maggies are readily available in the market. So if Magnepan doesn’t wish to provide these items, it’s their decision and an opportunity for others in the high end audio economy. So you can tweak your Maggies with stands from Grant Vander Mye and others. You can get Mike Powell’s Ag upgrade to the fuse and jumper. You can get a supertweeter if you want. You can get a pair of RELs. These tweaks will transform your Maggie system and still keep you within a reasonable cumulative price point that competes very well against other speakers. By the way, don’t other speakers need tweaking? I put Isoacoustic Gaia I feet on the Magico A3s in my other system. Viewing Maggies as the foundation upon which to build is a productive way of viewing them. 

Wow, interesting and loaded post and responses.  I have owned 3.7i for several years.  Non-fatiguing and nothing matches speed, wide sound staging and imaging.  That said i have a big room and have have added 2 Bass Panels to add fullness and warmth.  I actually think the musical bass of these Maggies are one of their biggest strengths.  To me most box speakers produce false or boomy lows.  That said they still have trouble filling up the room.  Don't tell Wendall, but i now sometimes use the dual 6 inch woofers on my old towers with a spare amp running at maybe 50% volume. 
Offering "upgrades" as many have suggested has its pros and cons.  Obviously, if the demand warrants at the price offered,  the company may find it beneficial and may decide to just upgrade the base product at the higher price.  The downside is you are pointing out or even documenting the flaws and component compromises of your product.  Magnepan and Wendell have to balance these things out. If there is and improvement to be had and even a moderate aftermarket for these improvements it would seem they should incorporate the upgrade.

I'm not a physicist, but I don't buy all this talk about the need for a stiffer structure.  The need for a stiff structure on the higher frequencies is fairly low - even on box speakers.  For planar designs on the low frequencies, we are dealing with a large, very low mass panel.  It would seem to me the energy or torque being spread very evenly over a large area makes them entirely different than the woofer section of a box speaker where a super stiff cabinet is essential.  On top of that it's a completely open back dipole design - the pressure on one side should be equal to the pressure on the other side.  the structure is really just there to hold the panels and mylar in place.  Magnepan's design allows them to save the expense of an elaborate and expensive enclosure.  If you think Magnepan's would benefit from an acoustically tuned enclosure - non bipole design i disagree, but that's a whole different subject. 
I was given Mye aftermarket stands with stiffening struts.  i tried them and heard no benefit so they are boxed up.