The most placement forgiving planar speaker?

Teajay,

I completely agree with you: the Maggies are great speakers and great bargains to boot. Oh, I almost forgot, they are also easy loads for amplifiers.

I do have a few reservations about them. Their electromagnetic midrange is not quite as fast as their magical ribbon tweeters. The sound is outstandanding, mind you, but still not quite seamless. And even though I could hear improvement with each generation of Maggies--that's what so great about this wonderful company--they are still demanding with room placement. Few people have rooms that can accomodate 3 to 4 feet off the back wall and 2 to 3 feet off the side wall, plus 8 to 12 feet away from the speaker. Finally, the venetian-blind effect is still with all the Maggies, though less and less with each generation. I am talking about the noticeable discontinuity or abrupt shift in the image as you move you head side to side.

For these reasons, if money is no object, I much prefer the Soundlabs to the Maggies though both are great speakers.

Please explain the ventian blind effect?

Dont forget all the complaints about Martin Logans bass response with the panal...there are lots of threads that talk about this fault in Logan's

Drken, Re not wanting to put the speakers more than 2 ft from the rear wall....Don't know about the Soundlabs set up - I'd take Albert's and Duke's word on that issue.

However on other panels, or electrostats, 2 feet from a back wall may not be where they will sound best. To get them to do so you are likely to have to treat that back wall in some fashion to deal with the back wave from the speaker, even then it won't sound as good as pulled out further into the room.

But, that said, putting a full range speaker 2 feet from a back wall may not give you the smoothest bass response either, but at least you won't have to worry as much about the mids and highs except from sidewall reflections which are not as much a problem for most panels and electrostats).

I love Stats and panels, but I think its only fair to say that to get their best you have to make a real committment to set up. (Wish some one had told me that before I got the Quads, which was before the internet audio sites appeared). Good luch with whatever you choose.