Wow I am sold

I have been researching building a new 5.1 system for a couple of monthes now. I have, up until now, been very disappointed with the local availability of products for demo. Recently I have finally settled on Magnepan speakers, meridian processor and cd/dvd player. I am still undecided in regards to amplification. Anyways, I walked into a local store recently to demo the meridian gear, this is actually George Merrill's store. To my surprise they have recently added Magnepan to their available lines. I was previously going to make the speaker purchase based purely on faith, reviews and guidance of fellow 'goners. They had a Magnepan theater system based on the 1.6 setup in the same room as a B&W system based on the 801. All of this was driven by a meridian system for theater and a Cary system ($15,000) for 2 channel.

Impressions? Undescribably, by my limited audiophile vocabulary, in favor of the Maggies. Simply breath taking. They staff had truely spent some serios time setting up the two systems, but the spaciousness of the Maggies were something to be experienced not described. I must mention I am not a B&W fan, but they do/have make/made some good speakers. The most amazing aspect is the price difference. I could almost buy the rest of my desired equipment with the savings.

Now, I do understand all of the differences and associated issues. But, this was truely an A/B comparison. I can't argue with that.

Wow! I am sold!

And, the 50 inch Fujitsu plasma, properly calibrated, WOW! I am sold!

If you have the opportunity to demo a properly setup set of magnepans, DO IT!

I also listened to the setup using DVD-A and SACD multichannel formats.