Ideas on speaker like Magnepan but with high WAF

In light of some of the humorous suggestions above (ET LFT-8, seriously???) I would offer that you need to apply a little psychology to the situation.

When a married man hears his wife say something like "Gee honey, those speakers are awfully big" or "It sure would be nice to be able to walk into the living room from the main entry, instead of having to come into the room through the garage", he assumes that that his bride is simply wishing that he would immediately go out and purchase some new speakers that are a little more attractive or a little smaller.

That would be incorrect. What his wife almost always means is that she wants the speakers to disappear completely. As in Poof!, gone. Now if you have a particularly loving and agreeable wife, she may graciously allow you to play music, as long as she doesn't have to see those unsightly box things. And if you are unlucky, you will probably be instructed to also rid her room of the equally unsightly rack or cabinet, sell the gear and put the money into the kids 529B college fund. Or braces for Jr. Or a couples retreat to work on your relationship skills. You get the idea...

Hmmm. AFAIK, your quest is impossible. A full-height dipole line source is going to have a different soundstage than a smaller speaker. Omnis are one possibility, as someone mentioned. But you run into problem two, which is that it's hard to match the bang for the buck of the Maggies.

I think I'd consider the Magnepan on-walls, which sound close to the floor standers but are quite unobtrusive compared to floorstanding dipoles. Also, if you can listen in the near field (from a few feet away), the remarkable Mini Maggies, which give you 3.7-level sound. But they won't fill a big room with sound, they aren't designed for that.

Most well design speaker will give you 3d soundstage and imagine if you got them set up right. It will all depend on how you choose your gears and how sacrified your room estate is. Just my 2cts.

Audionuts, agree that other well-designed speakers will give you a 3 dimensional soundstage when set up right. They can't do height, though. Only a line source can do that. Also, many speakers aren't well designed. At a minimum, polar response has to be consistent for an optimal soundstage. Dipoles do this, and omnis, but most boxes are omnidirectional in the bass and cardioid in the highs. In addition, the polar pattern matters. A dipole will make a different sound stage than an omni.

Bottom line I think is that if you want a Maggie-style soundstage, you pretty much need a full-height dipole or an omni (which will have more lateral spread but typically not do height as well).