Magnepan Service HORRIBLE???

Etmerritt,
I think anyone who has experienced the kind of frustration you have described has a right to expect more and every right to be angry. It is really a moot point that you should have made the seller deal with this in the first place. Magnepan needs to do right by you regardless. I think most of us recognize the value of customer service and get pretty frustrated if our repairs aren't handled in a timely fashion. I agree with many of the comments above and encourage Magnepan to rethink the value proposition associated with better packaging for shipment, good 5 way binding posts, better jumpers etc.

That said, I very much appreciate the net result of Magnepan's frugality. I've been running maggies for over 20 years, going from SMGa's to 1.6's to 3.7's. In each case, I could not find anything at 2x the price that matched sonic performance, and in all that time I did not need service once. I avoided shipping issues by either buying new or buying locally, and sold both the SMGa's and 1.6's locally. That is just a downside that I am willing to accept given the unique value of Magnepan products. I expect that when I replace the 3.7's, a likely path will be trade in at the local dealer for new 20.7's. If I went in another direction on replacements, I would likely only sell the 3.7's within a reasonable driving distance so I could personally deliver them to the buyer. I think it is just the nature of the beast.

In the end I do hope Wendel gets involved and makes this right for you.

Magnepan just called. They inspected the damage and both speakers were damaged, not just the top one. The tweeters are ok but they will need to replace the aluminum trim rails on both, the wooden spacers, and the socks have to be replaced. They are going to get a return shipping estimate and add that in and send me a repair estimate today hopefully. This syncs with our theory about FedEx dropping the box on its edge.

The kicker is that I was told it would take 3-4 more weeks to do this simple repair because warranty claims go in front of shipping damage claims. The speakers were delivered to Magnepan on June 25th so despite what they claim this is the 5th week they have had them so it appears I am looking at a total (if I am lucky) of 8-9 weeks total from June 25th not including the time to ship back to Richmond which will likely be about a week.

So, I'll be lucky to see them back by the end of August and that will be 3 months since the time they were purchased during the last week of May. Some of the time was wait time on my end as I could not ship to Magnepan until the FedEx inspector came by and that was a couple weeks after I filed the claim.

More later as this unfolds.

Does Magnapan know about this thread? I'm always amazed at how lame businesses can be about bad publicity. I wish there was a way to calculate the damage being done to Magnapan, and any other company ignoring the modern forum based wrath machines. I for one will remember this issue, and it's unlikely I'll ever share my cash with Magnapan.

Honestly, this morning I felt like she knew or someone has said something to her because her tone made me feel that way. I could have been imagining it but that is what my gut was telling me.

I love the company and the products. Audio Art here in Richmond was the biggest ARC and Magnepan dealer in the U.S. when I became involved in 1975. My first pair of high end speakers was the MG 2's. This is the first time I have ever needed anything from them relative to service.

But, this current experience has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I am not even sure if I will unpack them and set them up when they get back. I know that would likely be stupid but I just don't like being in this situation and not being able to do much about it. The problem is that I have other equipment sales and purchases contingent on these speakers so everything is on hold at the moment.

Brownsfan,

Thanks for your post. I've been so angry recently that I started researching speaker alternatives and as you say there aren't any good ones for anywhere near the price. I am wishing I had not sold the Soundlab M-2's we had.

What makes this worse is that I bought a Conrad Johnson preamp at the same time and that arrived damaged also and it has been sitting at Conrad Johnson (I drove to northern Va. and hand delivered it to CJ) for 5 weeks and not damage estimate either. The seller has refunded my money so I will also be in the market for another preamp. I also have a pair of MG-1.7's at home and if the CJ preamp had not been damaged I at least could have run the CJ preamp, the Krell FPB-300 amp, and the MG-1.7's while waiting for the MG3.7's to be fixed. But, that all got messed up too and we were out about $ 10K with nothing to show for it when we should have been enjoying the MG3.7's and the C.J. preamp with the Krell. The entire thing just got hosed up.

Tom