Maggie owners (past, present, future) what do (did) you love and or dislike about them?

I have owned 3 different sets of Maggies over the years.

Currently, I have a pair of MGIII. I bought them from a seller who had them in storage for a couple of decades, for $300.

I had to do some work to them, i.e. relaminate the coils in a few places, buy new socks and recover them, build new bases. On top of that, I upgraded all the caps in the crossovers (Magnepan was notorious for using mediocre parts in their crossovers) and built my own stands for them (similar to Mye stands).

As for the stands, Maggies are fairly unsupported, so they tend to move forward and backward with audio output, causing a slight amount of blurring, that is not really noticeable, UNTIL you hear a pair with stands. Putting stands on them, makes them clearer, better imaging, tighter midbass, and some other improvements.

The things I like about them: very coherent, great detail and transient response, big soundstage (width and depth), great midbass.

Things I don’t like about them: compress dynamics a bit, images are a bit larger than life (better with newest Maggies), images are not as specified as dynamic speakers.

Even though I like them a lot, I am in the process of selling them to move to dynamic speakers*.

*Yes Kenjit, even though I enjoy the hell out of my Maggies, I am still going to get something else. What a concept.

I had a set of 1.6QRs that I really enjoyed. The only reason I sold them is that we moved and the room at the new house was simply unsuitable for bipolar panel speakers.

That's probably my only contribution to this discussion -- take a good look at your listening room and how the speakers will interact with it.

Over the weekend I moved my stereo to a bedroom, 12 x 10 x 8. I know the 3.7i's are too big for this room. For the first time I plan to do some room acoustic treatment with some diffusion panels and see what happens. Without it, though, I'm enjoying the privacy. My speakers are 3 feet from my front wall and 3 feet from the side wall. I sit in an equilateral triangle which is only about 2 1/2 feet from my back wall. The sound stage is fairly wide with most music (wall to wall) and every now and then deep, but not so much high. Imaging is good. Perhaps now, the 1.7's would work best.

simonmoon, it also helps if you add mass to the top of the speaker. I made lead caps for my Maggies back in the 80's by melting fishing weights into a form. My 2+2's have a 1/4 inch thick steel plate embedded in the top. They came with a 1/8" thick plate from the factory. This is even more important for the Acoustats as there are no magnets in it's construction. For the Soundlabs you can get the Ultimate frame which is made of sand filled steel tubes. I am not sure if they add any weight to their wood frame speakers. 

+4... for the PG Magnestand Maggie 1.6’s, which I have also. His mods do resolve the weaknesses of Maggies, which are dynamics and bass - they add dynamics, bass and resolution. And yes they are best with all things acoustic - jazz, classical quartets, country, cellos, violins, guitars, piano, sax, trumpet, vocals, etc. Diana Krall never sounded better.

So... Mye stands, or similar, and upgrades in the crossovers are likely required to achieve similar improvements.

About as close as you will get to the ESL 57’s - if - acoustic sounds is your thing.

Or... you can go the Open Baffle (OB) route - Emerald Physics, Spatial Audio, Linkwitz Orion / LX521, Legacy Audio, Nola route and have the Maggie sound on steroids - with much of the same sound as the Magnestand Maggies. Most of these will cost more. Or, of course, some of the GT Audioworks planars are superb, but pricey.  I omit the Golden Ear products because, while they have great ribbon tweeters, their bass and mids are veiled - they’re really meant for home theater sounds, not great 2 channel, audiophile sound.

Most of these alternatives will do better with rock, and similar sounds.

If your into acoustic sounds, and have a limited budget, and limited room size, its very hard to beat the lower end Maggies. But for a little more, you can have most of the Maggie mids and soundstage, with dynamics and bass with the OB alternatives, with a wee bit less, clarity and resolution. Or... for a bit more you can have it all with the Legacy Audio Aeris - which almost nothing can match at any price. Your choice.