Replacement for Maggie's?

I've heard the GT Audio speakers twice now at different shows. Yes, they definitely do something special, and at a great price too. They are a wee bit smaller than a Maggie, but not by much.

Harri009, if one could get a speaker for close to $5000(used) that fit your requirements I think we'd all be looking to own them!

Seriously, what Josh358 suggets is probably the best choice for your needs.

To me the decision to stick with Maggies or not revolves largely around the types of music listened to and how important associated macrodynamics are to you.

Macrodynamics, punch, meat on the bones, or whatever you want to call it matter most with pop/rock music, and larger scale classical and jazz works.

This is where planars in general are challenged to pressurize the air in the room to the level that good dynamic speakers can.

The other issue with Maggies is that they are very sensitive to placement within the room, usually needing to be placed well out into the room away from the rear wall, and doing that optimally may not be practical in some cases.

Those are the big decision points that I have experienced with Maggies in the past. I owned a pair for almost 20 years but eventually had to switch for the reasons related.

Mapman, good comments, although I take a different view in some respects. You are absolutely correct in pointing out that music preference plays a huge role in deciding how to go. However, I chose maggies precisely because of the fact that I listen to a lot of large scale orchestral works. While the Maggies may struggle a bit at 105 dB peaks, I could not find a dynamic speaker for under 30K that could through a big enough sound stage to work.

If you really like the basic sound of the 1.6, but, cannot move up in size to the 3.7, I take it that getting a subwoofer would also be problematic. That probably means you are looking for a small system with the sound of a dipole speaker. Perhaps an electrostatic/dynamic woofer hybrid would fit the bill. Martin Logan makes such systems, and to me, much better still, would be speakers from Sanders Sound. These are not small in size, but, they are considerably less imposing in looks than maggies.