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Puzzled about reasons why there seems to be no shortage of used planner speakers

All the over the top reviews of the Magnepan LRS has awakened the old puzzlement of how good are my DIY speakers and is it worth it to make a change?

I am very satisfied with my current system as far as my analog sources go.  I have a Denon direct drive turntable in a custom plinth, a Jelco tone arm  and a Transfiguration Temper Supreme cartridge. The phono pre is the octal version of the Hagerman Coronet with Lundahl step up transformers. I'm using a Toshiba HD DVD player for playing CD's. I'm using a Rotel RSP-1098 in analogue bypass for all sources. My amp is a VTL 50/50 tube amp.

My speakers are transmission line and utilizing parts from North Creek including hand wound coils and Harmony capacitors. Any one who has heard them has been impressed with them and with one being brought to tears of joy having never heard his favorite song played through a system such as mine.

That leaves me with a dilemma. If I go with the LRS, I will have to sell the VTL amp to get a used amp that can power the LRS. 

What is troubling me is seeing so many used planar speakers for sale on Ebay and Audiogon. Is that because they grow tired of them, or feel a need to try something new? Or are they upgrading to another planar speaker, or all of these reasons?
 
I'd like to hear from those that sold or are selling their planar speakers. 

I've only ever heard one planar speaker in my life and that was for about 5 minutes when I was taking my daughter through one of Seattle's high end stores to let her hear the differences between between differing levels of quality speakers as she was planning to get a her own system in the near future.  I've never heard a Maggie.

I don't want to get in the position of having sold my VTL to make this change and winding up with probably an amplifier that really doesn't come up to the same level quality and would most likely be a SS amp.

My goal here is to try get the best information I can from those that felt the need make similar decisions. I am retired now and living on a fixed income in a town in New Mexico (Las Cruses) that has no real Hi-end stores.

Any offers from anyone locally to let me hear their system would be most appreciated.  
rogue_angel

Showing 2 responses by millercarbon

millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
It was the Magnolia HiFi in the university district. We also went over to Hawthorn after Magnolia so she could get a feel for how different used gear was selling for. It just happened that we went there directly after listening a $ 100K system. With in a month she was buying some used speakers in LA. From the reviews I was able to find, she made a good choice.

Yeah on Roosevelt, to be precise. The $100k system had to have been Definitive Audio, although that would be cheap for them even years ago. Definitive holds the world record for the most years of the worst sounding most expensive system in a state. At last visit they are up to $1.3M and sucking strong! My best audio bud for years made a good living just off of Microsoft millionaires who would ditch their entire Definitive systems when they heard a real music system.

Once you get to the point where you’ve built not only your own satisfying system but your own satisfying speakers, your whole system is so tuned to where you want it, its very hard to imagine going into any shop and finding anything any good. The $1.3M at Definitive sounds to me like absolute dreck. But probably not because its all truly dreck. In reality only some of it is crap. Some is dreck. Some of it might even be good. But in a store? Where they don’t know the first thing about how to set it up? Warm it up? Tune it up? Where they plug components together because this is what they want to sell, or this is what some customer wants to buy, but NEVER because this is what sounds good??? Or, worse, what some guy is selling on some website? Anyone can post on those sites, you know. Even clowns like me.

Sorry, I don’t know you from Adam, but based on what I do know its hard to see you doing that. Or if you do then swallowing hard like I would have to do.

Are you sure you wouldn’t rather patiently tweak away with what you have?





millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
Its hard enough building a really satisfying music system without making things even harder by choosing components that narrow your choices and flexibility. You don't have to have owned a pair to understand this. I even get the impression from your post that you do understand this. And you are right to be concerned.

Maybe you heard Martin Logans at the old Magnolia HiFi. Couldn't have been Hawthorne, unless they were used, and I don't recall Definitive carrying ML they tend to go with worse hyper-technical hi-fi sounding everything. Or who knows somewhere else. Point is, if in those 5 minutes you fell head over heels in love that would be one thing. Instead it sounds like the ones you love are the ones you have.

Which is great. You built them, so you know what you got. Almost certainly if you look at them critically you will easily be able to find several, maybe even a whole bunch, of little things you could tweak to make better. Better wire, or wire geometry. Better caps. Better material or reinforcement here or there. Maybe relocate the crossovers outside the cabinet. Whole long list of little tweaks. Even a few of which are likely to have your already impressive speakers singing even better.

Take it from a guy who had a magical pair of speakers and regrets ever letting them go. You ever get lucky enough to find yourself with a diamond, you'll do a lot better to polish the rough edges than go hunting another diamond.
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