Can Magnepan survive Wendell Diller?

@phillyb

We will never know for certain until they do the logical thing from a manufacturing/development process; offer a standard and a high grade and let the consumer decide.

Much more cost effective than building new designs as an x-over upgrade would simply involve having two bins at that assembly point in manufacturing.  Better components from wire to caps, perhaps a better design?
Logically, would Magnepan rather maintain their market presence, or would they rather sell every $2,500 dollar speaker sold for those that have the space for them? 

I'm ordering the GR Research kit today to see how Danny's take on this sounds.

Update.

Sock off. There are lateral structural braces on the metal panel to help tame frame deformation in that direction. So maybe the frame is as strong as the old ply ones on my MGII's on the 1.7i laterally and that is the reason they don't sound that much better when modded?

A wannabe speaker designer.

https://www.gr-research.com/store/p70/Magnepan_1.7_Upgrade.html

One person can change and hold back a company for sure as well as remove the company founder and ruin the company in no time and i agree that magnepan should offer better frames, components, and hookups for their speakers.

Magnepan's 50 year anniversary is coming up in a few years. Hopefully they'll make an anniversary edition speaker fully boated in a limited run for the occasion.

I'd definitely buy a pair.

I am a car guy as well as an audiophile. In the automobile world, there are dozens of modding sites and vendors galore for nearly every brand, old or new.
Take a really fun car to drive - a VW Golf. From that base, from the factory, you can step up I to a GTI, or all the way to the Type R. I can tell you from personal experience that for about $300, I can significantly improve the handling performance. For $1,000, the handling and get you 20% more power, and for $3,000 even better handing, braking, and power. That's part of the fun - planning your upgrades. I also know how to do that with Maggie's. For 3-5% of the cost I can rebuild the crossovers, and as we go up I can improve the frames, use more transparent grill cloth. The genius in both cases is a affordable platform with enough innate goodness to make it worthwhile, and for that, Magnepan should be thanked, not demonized. 

@panzrwagen

All good points. I do that with my Mustang, I love to drive and I get a lot of satisfaction from wrenching this car.

I love GTI’s too, I’ve had 2 of them including a prototype that I bought off one of their engineers in 1986. Man did that thing eat electrical relays! Why give the money to the modders when you can mod them and sell them?

That’s why Civics go from about $22-36k, right?

@speakermaster

I don’t know what’s going on there, so I can’t say. I just know who everyone points at when you ask "why" of Magnepan’s corporate decisions. It's the same guy that I have a bone to pick with.

If, once Wendell is gone, Mark wants to keep a steady course, that’s just the way it is I guess.

A wannabe speaker designer.

@william53b - Hardly "wannabe". Danny has designed some of the best speakers available - winning best sound at show at a number of audiophile shows. He offers designs, drivers and crossover components at a bargain price to those interested in building their own speakers, and, for a price, is willing to do crossover and other design optimization of any speaker you can provide. 

I was going to respond to your thread saying that if you really want to improve on the base Magnepan model, just do it yourself with or without the help of someone like Danny Ritchie from GR Research. There are also a number of artisans that can help with the actual modifications if you don't feel comfortable doing it yourself. 

@jaytor 

I know, I was referring that comment to the person who said we we were speaker designer wannabe's for criticizing a manufacturer.

I ordered his 1.7 upgrade package today and it will be here Thursday. I want to hear what an experienced designer of his caliber  can do with these before I go off on a tangent. If it is what I expect, I may not pursue this any further, except to try a return baffle on the back for rigidity and deeper bass. I also have to chamfer the MDF around the panel, everything in me says it is wrong to have a right angle next to a radiating surface.

I would like to try his open baffle subs in the future also, as they are servo controlled.

Sorry for the mixup.

You wouldn't happen to need any De'WooferMagnapan panels in Oak, would you? 😉

I look forward to hearing what you think of the upgrades. 

I'm perfectly happy with my MMGs and B&K EX-442 Sonata setup.

Other than making some custom stands that raise them about 5" off the floor (holding them vertical and stabilizing them), replacing the jumper with copper and replacing the fuse with silver tubing, they're stock. 

I toyed with getting them Gunned and had a pleasant exchange with Pete, but couldn't justify the cost considering the sound I'm getting out of them in stock form.  I feel no need to touch them at this point in time and am supremely happy with the sound:cost value aspect of these speakers.  They're amazing.

@hartf36

I was happy with my Maggie 1.7i, but thought they lacked something, clarity in midrange and highs.

Why would I not want any speaker I buy to sound better than it does, ever?

The interesting thing to try with them is to place them on top of your subs if you have them. Solves the spacing problem. You may also want to try raising them with the radiating panel equidistant from the floor and ceiling, that gives you very nice sound, much better than on the floor; it is sort of the embodiment of the "floor to ceiling line source" view of speaker design.

I will document the entire experiment from beginning to end.

So far I have them depantsed, which is appropriate for No Pants Day, and the the circuit diagramed, it's very simple.

I got GR Research's XO upgrade yesterday, it too is a first order with better components. But with that I'm really not buying parts, I bought Danny's knowledge and research. I am going to put those on a separate board for the time being.

I  may buy top of the line components, at least Clarity Caps and Goertz flat wire inductors to see how those would work, and go up an order on the XOver depending on how GR's work. I'll know buy this weekend, and I'll keep you posted.

This is a game of trade-offs. Every product has them. It’s really pretty foolish to condemn one person’s choices because they don’t match yours. The car analogies are appropriate. You can spend $ or $$$$$, and someone will still declare a part to be crap and want to rip it out in favor of their gold-plated flux capacitor. People who have a history of competence generally have good reasons for doing things. The best way to find out why is to ask. You might learn something. In the event you don’t agree, you have a multitude of options in the market. 

@jfuguay


I asked and did not get a reasonable reply. 

Because the market won’t bear the cost is absurd in a hobby where people spend so much money. It is totally counter-intuitive.

As I said, and upgraded XOver for the 1.7i, I have yet to look up the prices of all of the stock components, would add about $30 total for the pair, cost to the manufacturer. The markup in this hobby is enormous, and the reality of that if extrapolated over the cost to the consumer is in the neighborhood of $1k retail, on the Maggie’s if you follow what the cost of the original parts is.

If your not the kind of person that likes to take things apart and tinker with them, you will never see the difference, only hear it.

When I took my R300’s apart I was blown away by the quality of these not top of the line KEF’s, custom everything and of excellent quality. So it is not a stretch to expect similar quality of components in like costing products. 

I would still like someone to explain to me why a company will not offer the consumer better quality based on the the manufactures terms of costing the parts forward.

But I will say at the end of my experiments whether the quality of the upgrades warrant the cost in my opinion, and I’ll back that up with audio samples. And if the difference is not noticeable on my iPad with under $100 headphones, I will say that I am wrong, that I was fooled by snake oil claims.

OP, you seem to keep on missing the point that Magnepan are trying to offer a ’value for money’ product...and NOT a high cost ’bling’ product. They are appealing to the entry level hobbyist with their entry level models by not requiring the new hobbyist to dig too deep into their pocket. This allows the newbie to buy a high end product at not much more than a mid-fi mass produced big box product. If that consumer wants to spend more and go up the ladder a little, they offer higher priced products, but none that will be getting away from the basic ’value for money’ area. Let me ask you how many folk who are happy to shell out Wilson Chronosonic money would ever consider Magnepans ( regardless of their parts quality)?? Maybe your answer will also answer your point about what the market will bear?

There have been a lot of posts on this thread already. I haven’t had the time to read them all. So I apologize if I state something here that has already been mentioned. As an owner of a pair of 1.7i, I understand the frustration of the OP. However, the things that we need to optimize the Maggies are readily available in the market. So if Magnepan doesn’t wish to provide these items, it’s their decision and an opportunity for others in the high end audio economy. So you can tweak your Maggies with stands from Grant Vander Mye and others. You can get Mike Powell’s Ag upgrade to the fuse and jumper. You can get a supertweeter if you want. You can get a pair of RELs. These tweaks will transform your Maggie system and still keep you within a reasonable cumulative price point that competes very well against other speakers. By the way, don’t other speakers need tweaking? I put Isoacoustic Gaia I feet on the Magico A3s in my other system. Viewing Maggies as the foundation upon which to build is a productive way of viewing them. 

Wow, interesting and loaded post and responses.  I have owned 3.7i for several years.  Non-fatiguing and nothing matches speed, wide sound staging and imaging.  That said i have a big room and have have added 2 Bass Panels to add fullness and warmth.  I actually think the musical bass of these Maggies are one of their biggest strengths.  To me most box speakers produce false or boomy lows.  That said they still have trouble filling up the room.  Don't tell Wendall, but i now sometimes use the dual 6 inch woofers on my old towers with a spare amp running at maybe 50% volume. 
Offering "upgrades" as many have suggested has its pros and cons.  Obviously, if the demand warrants at the price offered,  the company may find it beneficial and may decide to just upgrade the base product at the higher price.  The downside is you are pointing out or even documenting the flaws and component compromises of your product.  Magnepan and Wendell have to balance these things out. If there is and improvement to be had and even a moderate aftermarket for these improvements it would seem they should incorporate the upgrade.

I'm not a physicist, but I don't buy all this talk about the need for a stiffer structure.  The need for a stiff structure on the higher frequencies is fairly low - even on box speakers.  For planar designs on the low frequencies, we are dealing with a large, very low mass panel.  It would seem to me the energy or torque being spread very evenly over a large area makes them entirely different than the woofer section of a box speaker where a super stiff cabinet is essential.  On top of that it's a completely open back dipole design - the pressure on one side should be equal to the pressure on the other side.  the structure is really just there to hold the panels and mylar in place.  Magnepan's design allows them to save the expense of an elaborate and expensive enclosure.  If you think Magnepan's would benefit from an acoustically tuned enclosure - non bipole design i disagree, but that's a whole different subject. 
I was given Mye aftermarket stands with stiffening struts.  i tried them and heard no benefit so they are boxed up.   

True story. Years ago I bought a pair of 1.7's. As I was reading the owner's manual, it became clear to me that the narrative and graphics paled in comparison to the 1.6 manual. Using the 1.6 manual as a template, I red inked a copy of the 1.7 manual with arrows, comments, rewording, and suggestions etc. I mailed it to ATTN: Mark Winey. Crickets...

Magnepan has survived very nicely... Probably due to the fact they have NOT gotten unnecessarily exotic... And remain very affordable. I’ll bet their established supply chain simplicity has made them somewhat immune from the Covid excuses too.

I had the 1.6s....favorite speakers I’ve ever owned.... Wife loved them too... Unfortunately our new listening space/position can’t accommodate.

Manufacturers are damned if they do and damned if they don’t with some of you guys.

P. S. OP and others... I think it’s very rude to call out an individual’s name like this.

If you could not get Maggies to sound good you may have been lacking in proper room space /acoustics or... Most likely adequate QUALITY power.... They need a good POWERFUL amp to shine.

I’ve heard multiple accounts of people being disappointed in the sound... Having hooked them up to a low power home theater receiver. What a surprise my $300, 40 watt receiver doesn’t sound good through my Maggies 😂!

For everyone who is saying Magnepan is about value.

Exactly how bad could they make them for you to still want to buy them? 

I can live with the paperboard circuit board and the cheap connectors, and the imprecisely applied diaphragm conductor tape, but you must realize that those are more a result of lack of manufacturing savvy than necessities to keep the price down.

Handmade can have several connotations.

Then buy something else... These are one of the few Audio Manufacturers left in this country and clearly have been very successful.

They’ve been in business for 47 years... Possibly longer than many here have been on the planet..but you’re going to diss their leadership and straighten out their very successful business model!😂

This has got to be Satire... Right?

Well the only pair of Maggies I owned where the Tympani 1-D's back in the 70's.  Even they looked like Room Dividers, they played the female voice like no other speaker I have heard.   

They required a lot of juice to make them sing...I drove them with a Phase Linear 400  and did all right once it was modded with huge capacitors to help with the power supply.

I love mine!!!
I've upgraded the fuses and replaced the the factory tweeter/attenuatorwith a pure silver one. Other than that the are stock and sound great.    

When I first started in this hobby, I bought a pair of Maggie 1’s improved. They were, at least to me, not only a spectacular sounding speaker at the time, but compared to anything else I could buy for the same money ( or even considerably more), a real eye opener. At the time, i had a choice between a big box stores' Magnavox speaker or the Maggies...the choice was easy. I remember thinking at the time that the sales person must have misquoted me on the price of the Maggie’s, and was expecting something not even close to my budget. As a twenty something year old novice, it was a pleasure to have a speaker like these available to me. Today, i continue to applaud Magnepan for their ongoing value in the market. I would suspect that there are a lot of folks on this forum, and others, that are in the hobby solely due to their products, and the value that they offer. Just as an aside, i have a very good a’phile friend who happens to be a pro audio reviewer....and yes- he uses Maggies as his reference!

Spatial Audio labs open baffle speakers ,excellent build quality and sonics ,very efficient, and
don’t require a lot of space .

I owned the Spatial M4s, both Turbos and Triode Masters. Great speakers, though I now own and prefer the Maggie .7s. They’re not as detailed and don’t play as low as the Spatials but they disappear better and the imaging is tighter.

Magnepans are some of the very best at what they do well — remove box resonance from the equation. All speakers have trade-offs, no matter the price tag. Speakers in the ~$2K/pair range tend to have major trade-offs. That’s just the way the industry operates. What you sacrifice in a pair of Magnepans for $2K are bass dynamics and resolution, in exchange for an open transparency that rivals or surpasses some $50K speakers.

If Magnepan suddenly decided to use Mundorf or Jantzen caps and Mills resistors in the crossovers, the $2K/pair 1.7s would likely become $3K/pair 1.7s. The same sort of economics apply when you have your car serviced by a dealer. They’re going to charge double or triple what you’d pay for the same part if you were to source it yourself. Not surprisingly, most speakers employing crossover parts of that quality level, that are sold through a traditional dealer model, cost upwards of $5K/pair.

If you want better stands, buy the Mye Stands. If you want better caps, you can buy them from Madisound. Jeesh, you got panel speakers that were hand-built buy American labor for only $2K/pair. Quit the bellyaching and pick up a soldering pen.

Lots of points made here, all valid and of interest imo. After all, we're all planar lovers first-and-foremost, right? If you're not, get lost ;-) .

I would just like to remind everyone that Magnepan is far from the only loudspeaker company using crappy x/o parts. If you watch Danny Richies' GR Research YouTube videos---in which he shows you what is inside the mass-produced speakers people send him for upgrades---you know the x/o parts in almost all speakers are junk. Magnepan chooses to make their speakers that way to be able to sell them at a given price point, as do all the other company's (well, not Wilson, etc.). Hi-fi fanatics have always looked for ways to make better sound, and it's easier now than ever.

As for you guys who like your 1.7's, but would love to own 3.7's were it not for their size: why, why, why, do you all continue to ignore the Eminent Technology LFT-8b? 13" wide, 5' tall, 1' deep, and at $2499/pr an absolute giant killer! The UK reviewers soiled themselves while describing the sound of this marvel, as did Robert E. Greene in TAS, and VPI's Harry Weisfeld, who described the LFT-8b as having the best midrange he has EVER heard, including that of the QUAD ESL.  

We are an audio dealer but not a dealer for Magnepan
At the CEOs shows we found Wendell to be quite short it's not very receptive 

@hardtobeme


Teritorial?

@bdp24

One of my major shortcomings on this forum is that I have never attended a stereo show. There are so many speakers made that I will never hear because of availability, and I am not in a large market and what is available locally is limited. One of the dealers happened to carry Magnepan’s and I was drawn directly into that location and did not look farther.

The Eminent Technology LFT-8b look like an excellent choice in this price range.

No offence intended, @william53b. Eminent Technology is an even smaller company than Magnepan, has far fewer dealers, and doesn't advertise or attend CES regularly to sell their wares. But like Magnepan, they have survived in this tough business. They're both doing something right!

@bdp24 

I am never offended when people offer me honest informed advice, about anything really. I will attend a show once they start having them again, I was thinking RMAF.

The best upgrade path for Magnepan owners is to move up the product line. The 20.7 has satisfied many and the 30.7 takes it to another level.

I met Wendell and his wife at a demonstration they gave at the shop where I purchased a pair of 0.7s. The 0.7's were right for my little 26 foot diameter house which has a dome ceiling and walls because it was the biggest speaker that would fit with room to be far enough away from reflecting surfaces. It also has only two quasi-ribbon elements and no pure ribbon which I fear because it is more fragile than quasi-ribbons. It also has a simplified crossover which I do not think needs any upgrade. I did get after market upgraded stands for them.
I chose the 0.7s because when I auditioned them they sounded more like the live orchestra in the 19th Century built opera house I go to and its acoustics than speakers costing $50,000. For the audition I heard them with a solid state amplifier. At home I hooked them up to an SET using 833A radio station transmitter tubes using 1000 Volts and Hammond 1642SE output transformer which sounded better to me than the solid state amplifier the store used when I auditioned them.
I showed Wendell and his wife pictures of the amplifier with its quart-sized vacuum tubes and they told me such an amplifier would suffer wife acceptance factor problems, much as they liked the idea. But I can see why Magnepan does not make specific brand name recommendations for amplifiers. I can also not blame him for dismissing many "high end" speaker cables costing thousands of dollars designed by people who have no advanced graduate school education on the physics, which does not calculate out to support their designs. They are as independent as hell. For instance, they did listener tests with untrained listeners experimenting with three channel stereo using Pro Logic for the center channel.
I hope they remain in business for a long time. Some upgrades do not hurt. For the 0.7s, the crossover inductor they chose out of several iron core or air core which need more wire and might not be any better is probably as good as any and I do not know that a Teflon capacitor for the tweeter would be worthwhile, but I did get better stands for them.

@drbarney1

I hope they do pursue Tri-eo, it is better than stereo and works well for audiophiles who happen to want to use their stereo with movies. 
Both Bryson and Parasound make very good 3 channel amps. The devotion to 2 channel evades me, especially when considering soundstage. It is plain wrong headed to pretend that a soundstage does not have a center. And a singer is usually at the center of a stage of one, ergo a a +60hz center channel, not unlike Paul Klipsh envisioned for the Heresy.

The thing that saves my 1.7i’s is my KEF R600 in the middle to fill in the highs.

I did not know that Wedell’s wife works for Magnepan as well.

"...By the way, the lowest button on my left panel is 4” lower than it’s twin. Why do you think that is?..."

We don't really know why that is but the "buttons" are to control membrane vibrations/resonances we think. The mylar might have uneven tension and Magnepan might have a way to measure or find the areas and apply a button to control it. 

"...As an aside, all ribbon tweeters have a Mylar plastic backing, to one extent or another, a solid metal aluminum ribbon would immediately deform upon flexation, because Aluminium has no stretch in it’s pure metal form; once stretched, it will never return to it’s past dimensions..."

True ribbons are solid metal and not on a substrate. And that makes them a little fragile. 

I am running 3.6 Maggie’s and two things stand out about them.  One, they crave power.  Until I bought mono block amps that put out real measured 750 WPC, the sounded thin.  The other is that room treatment is more important than ANY other tweak with regard to Maggie’s.   

I understand various comments regarding crossovers and other components, but at their price point, nothing in my experience compares, YMMV

Duder,   if the man needs to he will.   Magnepan is probably saying .  Why is this  Mr. big Nose talking about how i should be running the place.   Plus the Speaker company wants to let the 
upgrade / tweaker guys  also  make some money  

@russ69

Yes, you caught me. I mixed up film and foil while trying to make a point about the limitations of a true ribbon. Sorry. I have a bad habit of admitting my mistakes.

This isn't getting anywhere. I thought someone might lift a veil that helped me to understand why the company is so ridged regarding all of their customer base, but that hasn't happened.

Maybe It's Wendell or maybe it's part of his job is to take the heat for company decisions, apparently no one knows.

Several agree that they would like to have an upgrade option, and that would satisfy both the people that like the product as it is and those who would prefer to spend more on factory upgrades. But nothing has been accomplished and I didn't post this to bash the guy or the company; I do have their speakers in my system and that is a testament to their brand.

We are planning on expanding the listening room in the fall to enlarge it from 12x22x8 to 14x22x9 and with that additional space I can rotate the system 90 degrees to accommodate our furniture and our system and will then have the room for 3.7i's if they are needed/desired.

I don't expect the world to accommodate me, but if enough people left responses that encouraged them to offer factory upgrades, there may be enough public sentiment to institute a new policy at the company. I don't see that happening from this informal poll, so I will fiddle with expanding the upper range of mine and see what I can do without adding Maggie’s Little Helpers. Then if I'm successful I will post those plans and any XOver info info someone else might need if they would like to mod theirs.

Peace

I don’t agree that Magnepan doesn’t work to improve their speakers… they just don’t turn over new models every year or two as some speaker companies do. I’ve owned several of their speakers over the last 35 years, including every “1” series since then (1C, 1.4, 1.5qr, 1.6qr, 1.7qr, and 1.7i), as well as the 3.3r, and 3.5r. Each revision was a clear improvement over the outgoing model. I’ve also had other brands/types of speakers in other systems while the Maggies were in house, so I was able to swap them out, using various amps, and rooms. I’ve fallen in love with other speakers briefly, only to eventually return to Magneplanars. They just present music in a way that I find very appealing, and “real-sounding”. While I agree that they can be improved (all speakers at all price points can), I can say that, for Me, in stock form they handily outdo other speakers I’ve spent time with that are multiples of the respective retail prices of the Maggies I’ve had at the time. 
Regarding the notion that the company should offer “upgrades”, I also disagree. I’ve considered this in the past.. eg: a modern version of a 2.5/2.6, which were in the market for several years.. a bridge model between 1.x and 3.x.. but realize that if these were a hot models, they would’ve continued in the line. They just didn’t sell well. So customers “told” Magnepan with their wallets that they didn’t need a bridge model. Something those of you throwing “upgrade numbers” around are not considering this: The cost to the end user would be MUCH higher than the cost of the upgraded parts (frames, xovers, wiring, etc.). Why? Because there is (and should be) a Process to this. Beyond the design and engineering phase, there would be the making of prototypes, testing, listening, adjusting, retesting, re-listening, etc..etc.. In addition to that, machines would have to be built to make new frames (and exist alongside the current machines), and employees would need to be trained in incorporating these new parts (These speakers are hand-built by real people, not by robots)… All these things have their own cost components, which would drive the retail prices to a point beyond reasonable value. And, for what? A small incremental “difference”? As some others have pointed out, if an owner WANTS to tinker.. have at it. Magnepan is providing an excellent platform to build off of! Have a blast! Or just listen to them as they are, which is great, and know that every single speaker out there will have strengths and weaknesses that can be nit picked. Find the compromises that you’re willing to live with and be happy 😊. 
As for “surviving Wendell”, the original posted question…. I would answer “They have, and they are”! And quite well. With or without your approval! There are definitely people who share your dissatisfaction with certain aspects of the company, but there are many times more people who Love their Maggies, and will continue to support the company into the future. You have to remember that Wendell has been in this game a very long time, and has heard it ALL! If you think you’re the first to suggest they change “this or that” to make their speakers better, I’ll tell you, you’re not. He’s human, so may not respond to your suggestions with the enthusiasm you expect. He knows most customers love their speakers, and he’s likely sick of hearing uneducated (in planar speaker design) suggestions after 40 years. I would be. He’s worked tirelessly FOR Magnepan all these years, and it would be more appropriate to say that they’ve survived so long, in part, BECAUSE of him. So take it easy on the guy. 
One more point, from a long time owner of this brand: Set up, and amplifier choice are extremely important to successfully getting the best from these speakers.. that goes for most speakers, but especially these. IMO, more important than which capacitors are used in the crossover, or using a “better” frame. All things will make some kind of a difference, but positioning, and amp choice are tops. I’ve used over a dozen amplifiers over the years. How you listen will determine which amp works for you. Also, time spent adjusting the position of these speakers will reward you with amazing sound quality. Again, all speakers benefit from this exercise, but it has a major influence on the sound of planars. As always, this is only my experience. Ymmv. 

I’ve heard Magnepan speakers at audio shows here on the left coast and was generally impressed with their sound.

But, both times, I will say the demos were some of the most bizarrely conducted I’ve ever been to.

Strict sign up slots, then ushered into a dimly lit room with the speakers hidden behind a curtain so you can’t see the set up, quietly seated while the demo of sound effects and musical excerpts are shuffled into a CD player by an assistant. Then ushered out of the room with no Q&A for the next group.

I'm in agreement with op as to in house upgrade paths. Being an inveterate modder I often can't leave things alone. There have been a number of instances in which I was able to directly contact owner/designer of said equipment to relate my experience with mods. In all cases these owners/designers felt offended that I even felt the need to improve their product. While I can empathize with their perspective of having designed and built a great product, I can't understand their unwillingness to improve it.

Now, in one case I modified an unnamed speaker with upgraded capacitors;  contacted the owner/designer with my findings, no positive response. Low and behold, a few months later those very same speakers had those capacitors in an upgraded version!
Iconoclasts at work here, many of these guys only like their own ideas. While I still modify some of my equipment, I no longer contact manufacture as I don't expect positive response.
I see so much equipment that could be improved by simple parts substitutions, resistance comes from positive reviews and sales figures of stock configuration equipment. I do see some manufacturers are beginning to grasp the idea of high quality parts such that I've  now been able to limit my purchases to equipment that doesn't need my mods.

Winey invented the first Magnepan drivers, back in 1969.         50+ years later: the company is alive, well and prospering nicely.          I've not yet found a piece of audio equipment, that couldn't be improved upon with well chosen/upgraded, component parts and/or some judicious tweaking.         On the other hand: if your business model is working for you, DON'T FIX IT!                                                                                                                                 "Made in America.  Sold in China."

@krelldreams

I am a retired product designer/developer and have a fairly good idea of what it would take to offer a factory upgraded XOver; a second set of picking bins at the XOver assembly station.

Like everyone here you offer good insight from the customers perspective on the issue, but I disagree with other points you make, and so I will address these.

I drive mine to from low to moderately loud volumes, from time to time, with a AHB2 amp. With upgraded cables it sounds as rich and dynamic as a Para A21 or a Bryston. It has all of the power I need. If I got the 3.7i's I’d just use two of them. So this discussion is not about what I'm doing wrong, or all of the old saws we already know about the speaker line, it's about what the factory can do for us as consumers and if there is a need for that.

Another example of where this company lets customers down is contacting them for amp recommendations. They go to great lengths to point out that these speakers require a "special amp" before a purchase, and then tell you that they don’t have time to test amps to tell you which ones work better? How do they know the speakers require a Special Amp if they have listened to some they have rejected?

 A company that makes speakers doesn’t have the time to review amps? What do they do all day at work, watch television? Perhaps they should listen to their speakers with different amps while working? That would require doing two things at once, I know, but I am sure that as a professional courtesy amp companies would provide "loaners" so that they could be on a thumbs up list? Amp arrives on Monday, put in house system and listen for a week or two, ship back to manufacturer. Does that sound like a difficult task to anyone?

There simply is no rhyme or reason to their persnickety behavior, and there are no shortage of complaints about these things on this or other forums regarding this company. I am not the first person to broach this subject, and I know I won't be the last. It's part of Magnepan's job to listen to the consumer, even if it isn’t about how broke they are, that is called only hearing what you want to, and that is the exact opposite of what someone with a marketing background would recommend, in most cases. 
This is how companies stay in business, and why some have to close their doors. Their story isn’t over, so cut me a break on defending abusive behavior, I would prefer a company pretend to be listening to me, and then ignore what I have to say, rather than have them tell me openly to piss off, I'm bothering them. If that's too much to ask of a manufacturer, I must be mistaken about all the companies I have dealt with over the last 65 years where I walked away feeling reassured that I am important to them and that I and others are the reason they have a successful business.