So Many Apogees for sale, and so few takers

One huge difference is that Maggies are still made, and supported by the company. They'll refurbish almost all of their speakers, even custom-build drivers for discontinued models if you need one, as I discovered when Fedex did a job on my Tympanis. You can replace a treble ribbon for a fraction of the cost of a Graz ribbon -- not criticizing Graz here, but he's a relatively small volume operation. If your bass drivers are delaminating and you have a weekend, you can fix them yourself with Magnepan's kit for $40, where a new Apogee bass driver would cost you thousands. It all makes Maggies a much more practical option.

I do wish I could get my hands on a couple of Apogee midrange ribbon drivers, though, and put them in my Tympanis. :-) This is one of the few areas I think in which an Apogee will beat a Tympani, but it's a crucial one, since the midrange is the soul of the music. There are some DIY midrange ribbon projects on DIY audio, but it looks like they'd take a summer.

I think it's also true that there are a lot more Maggies out there, and both the new and used prices offer inimitable bang for the buck. Apogees were more expensive to make and repair, which is apparently the main reason the company went out of business.

I think they went out of business as a result of Magneplanar suing them for patent infringement.

I sued to think that, too, but apparently it wasn't the case. It seems they went out because they were too expensive to make and repair (they had a large number of ribbon failures). The Grand in particular, while by all accounts one of the best speakers ever made, was too expensive to make. The company that bought them looked at what they owed and at the state of the high end audio market, and decided to close them down.

If you do a search you can find some accounts of what happened.

Essential Audio we gave the Lazarus H1A's a good try unfortunately it never came to pass. Hope you are doing well. Bob

Josh358,

"few areas an apogee will beat a tympani"

Depending on which Apogee you mean I doubt the Tympani could do dynamics like an apogee. The sound of rattling on bass drums would soon appear with the Tympani.

I had both apogee and maggies of all sorts. I loved them both. The Apogee with all new drivers and modern xover is hard to beat. Having said that a decent xover in a maggie is up there too, but those older maggies couldn't take dynamic swings. Although still a fabulous sound if a little constrained and woody.