In case you haven't seen the new Maggie?

I heard them at THE Show last weekend. They were running a very impressive demo there where they'd hidden the speakers behind a acoustically transparent curtain and played a few cuts of very well-recorded, simple, stark live music (I think this lent itself strongly to the presentation). The sound was very impressive, regardless of what was back there, but when you actually saw what was back there, well, even more so. But even the guy from Maggie doing the demos admitted it would not compare to their larger models. The only normally mixed piece of music I heard him play did not sound nearly as impressive as the live-recorded cuts, but still sounded very good. Those speakers were being played with low-standing bass driver cabinets of their design, which would be necessary to fill out the range (below 300hz as I recall). As far as comparative impressions; for me it was more a novelty than anything else and without hearing music I was familiar with it would be difficult for me to comment beyond that. They are certainly WAF friendly (they're tiny), though the bass cabinets are pretty large and I didn't find them very attractive. I think it will be another niche, as Mapman suggests. One of the demonstrators questions to the group was what pricepoint should they be asking for the rig - indicating that they had not yet decided. They also had an equally small computer panel speaker they showed, but did not play.

Here are some pictures of those minis:

Isn't that "Close View" a shot of the computer version? It sure looks like the one they did not play and passed around to show as being for computer-based systems.

Thanks for the pics, regardless.

Puerto - I don't think you'll have to worry about them replacing your 20.1's. My friend had 20.1's and I can tell you these new smaller speakers will not be in quite the same league as those. Don't get me wrong, they are impressive for what they are. They are well worth considering for specific reasons and purposes, WAF being high on that list, while 20.1's are probably at the bottom of the WAF list :-)

This is what I found interesting. I was in the front row and saw the clip indicators on the Bryston 28B 1000 wpc monoblocks light up. I used to have Bryston 7B St monoblocks on B&W 801's and never clipped them. The 28B's have an enourmous amount of power. I really don't see anyone driving them with 28's.

Maybe good candidates for Class D amps? Though those didn't work well with my friend's 20.1's. The other thing to note in considering this very relevant observation was that the demonstration was in a pretty large room with high ceilings and wall-to-wall carpet, and the music was being played at fairly realistic levels (at least in our session). They may do a bit better in a more moderately sized and lively room. Good point.