panel speaker purchase

thank you gentlemen for your suggestions. i tend to favor full range panel speakers. thanks again Bob Reynolds. i spoke to roger sanders today and he is sending me his stereo version of his solid state design especially suitable for magnepans and electrostatic speakers.

i am a bit skeptical, as i generally prefer the sound of tubes. i will use a passive pre to avoid sending a dc signal. we'll see how it sounds.

Roger is a great guy to deal with, I wish him all the best in his new venture.

Hi Mrtennis
Did you by any chance you get a pair of new panel speakers, if so, can you pls say which brand and how it is working out.
I have been a Magnepan listener for 25 years and hoping to find something else. I have managed to order a pair of Amphityron from Analysis Audio and hopefully will add an extra pair of bass panels.

thx Terry

hi terry:

i almost bought one of the models from analysis audio but didn't because of distribution issues. at this point i will probably wait to hear the martin logan clx, the replacement for the cls 2z. expected release date is early 2008.

i also was tempted to purchase quad els, but have not so far.

Mrtennis, I have owned Apogees for the past 15 years (Slant 6s, Studio Grands) and was very satisfied until listening to a pair of Ambience Reference 1600 ribbon hybrids ($12,900) last year. They are 96 db efficient, easy to drive, and can play very loudly for those special occasions (much louder than electrostats auditioned) and are a true dipole so soundstaging is huge. They have a forward, clean, very detailed sound that I simply could not find with cone speakers even in the $30,000+ range and are a nice match with tube gear. The biggest problem is that they are made in Australia and there is not a large dealer network here in the States; it took 4 weeks to receive mine. Definitely worth checking out.