A note from Magnepan about the "30.7 for Condos" tour


Wendell Diller of Magnepan asked me to pass this on:


No, Magnepan's tour is not scientific market research

Dear Press and Future Attendee,

Last night, I had the privilege to talk to Robert Deutsch of Stereophile at the "30.7 for Condos" event at Audio Excellence in Toronto. Robert was there to report on the concept of a public focus group (not on the speaker we were showing). As Robert noted, there has been a lot of research on the value of focus groups. Is a public focus group more effective? (good question)

Toronto was only the second stop on this tour, but it already has the same shortcoming as the 30.7 tour in terms of reliable feedback for Magnepan--- low participation. Attendees on all the 30.7 tours were very vocal about their opinions of the 30.7, but when it came to making their opinion public, approximately 1 out of 20 attendees (or less) went online to give Magnepan feedback. This tour is much the same.

There is one obvious question on the minds of attendees--- "Has Magnepan 'sold out"? They were too polite to say it in such stark terms. Most attendees are familiar with Maggies and the problem of integrating a dynamic woofer with a panel speaker. This issue is the focal point of these tours and there was much discussion.

If you are able to attend one of the upcoming events, you can see the response of the group for yourself. But, in terms of an online consensus, the sampling rate will rate will probably be too small for a reliable indicator.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ-R8MERlHQ&feature=youtu.be

https://www.canuckaudiomart.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=55342

- Wendell Diller, Magnepan


josh358
Pmotz, they ran an ad in Stereophile and TAS. Not sure why they didn't say anything on their website! Bu there will be an event from 3-7PM on Wednesday at Audio Connection in Verona, New Jersey, that's the one I'll be at, and also one in upstate New York. After that, Wendell was talking about heading west, but as far as I know dates haven't been set. 
Pryso, yep, I remember your post. Actually, Wendell liked to say that they designed these speakers to fit in his living room. :-) One of the advantages of being Magnepan's marketing director, I guess.
rbsehno, bad acoustics were a problem for them throughout the 30.7 tour, when they hit a dealer with bad acoustics there wasn't much they could do, no practical way to treat the room when they had only a few hours to set up. Wendell told me some horror stories and said that he almost cancelled the tour once he discovered how bad some dealer's rooms were. I heard the 30.7's in a good room (New Haven), and they sounded amazing in line with what the magazine reviewers described.

So far on this new tour, the first room suffered from too much midbass -- they had to remove the bass traps to fit the crowd -- and Wendell didn't have time to correct it with DSP. The second room was good, though, and it got some great listener reviews online. He says he's going to make sure there's enough time to adjust the DSP at future shows, so hopefully the bass issues will be over.
Not all audiophiles are comfortable in online forums or on social media.

That's an interesting observation.  I would think by now every human would be comfortable with being "on-line".   Sure there might be exception but I expect it would be very few.  

@rbstehno, I understand why you have a negative impression of the 30.7, but that may be a result of the poor listening rooms in far too many dealer's showrooms, not the loudspeaker itself.

I attended the very first 30.7 demo, at Pearl Audio in Portland Oregon. As a longtime Magneplanar fan and owner (I bought Tympani T-I's in 1973, and currently own a pair of Tympani T-IVa's, which is what the 30.7 is a modern and improved reincarnation of), I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. I was rather disappointed, but not because of the 30.7 itself.

The demo room was perhaps the worst I've ever been in; a cement-walled bunker with absolutely no acoustical treatment save the carpeted floor. The mediocre source material was streamed from God-knows-what sources, all unfamiliar to me. The associated electronics were not up to the caliper of the speakers,, a fatal flaw.

Remember when dealers knew more about hi-fi than you did?