Can Magnepan survive Wendell Diller?

William53b - Thank you for this thread. I have enjoyed all of the comments - I have been a Maggie owner since 1982, and have gone thru  the MG11s, 1.6qrs, and now own a set of 1.7is with a DWM base panel. I got my 1.6qrs modded by Peter Gunn - he puts the panels into a custom wood frame for you (mine are ambrosia maple with zebra wood trim. I then added the Audiokenesis SWARM subwoofer system to my modded 1.6s. Peter Gunn puts in his own high quality crossover network. The midrange and high end on my modded 1.6a is much better than my 1.7is. Vocals are amazing. I use the modded system in my Mancave and also run movies Thur the system - the subs do a great job with most movies soundtracks and I do not overstress the 1.6 panels trying to fill the room with strong base.

The only way I got my DWM panel to really work well with my 1.7is was to biamp it. Running it as Maggie  suggests in parallel with the 1.7s overheated my Krell integrated amp( Krell K300i). Once I biamped my system I got more bass into the room to where I am happy with this system.

per Peter Gunn - the change in manufacturing of the 1.6 panel (using copper wire for the midrange and bass and foil for the quasi ribbon tweeter) and the 1.7is (using all foil for the bass, midrange and tweeter) is a major limiting factor on the 1.7 design. After living with my two systems now - I agree with him.

. So I agree the Magnepan design can be improved - people are doing it.

This is the beauty of our hobby - for my home - for my budget - my two systems ‘knock it out of the park’ - if you are ever near Greenville SC come by for a listen!

@jkf011

The reason passenger car engines are getting smaller is the use of advanced technology in their design, and that has historically come from race car technology trickling down to the consumer market.

Race car engines, of any kind, have almost always been blueprinted.  And only the finest custom made components are used in them, even the casting of the block and headers, something that is cost prohibitive in consumer cars. In fact, most consumer cars are de-tuned to increase mileage.

Better tolerances equal higher hp per displacement unit. Smaller, lighter engines increase speed and response, just like light strong diaphragms increase speed and reduce latency in speaker drivers. 

Wendell was old when he worked for Bill Johnson in the 1970's.  I can't imagine how old he is today as I am pretty far along myself!  He was always kind of a mid-western-type nerdy guy, but pretty decent most of the time.  He had his moments--don't we all?--but his experience and age level today, I would guess, give him some gravity in the industry.

In the end, he is just a sales guy who luckily got to work with the two best companies in the business and has seen pretty much all of it over the years, I imagine.  The lamp cord comment was tongue-in-cheek, I would guess.  Basically, like many of us, he knows electrons travel on the surface of a wire regardless of what it is made of or encased in.  Are there wires that are not as "good" as others?  Sure.  Are they worth thousands of dollars a foot?  I doubt it, and I would guess after so many years in the business, so does Wendell, thus the throw-away comment.  

As for Maggie components, if they want to upgrade them, they will.  The cost of those little items is minuscule when compared to the cost of running a manufacturing company that is making the best speaker on the planet. I would guess they tried everything on the market and if they heard a difference, they would make the change.

Don't let the personality (or lack of it) of a person decide what you buy.  Have your dealer correctly set up a pair of Maggies IN YOUR ROOM.

THEN, you too can enjoy the music, which is what it is all about, right?

Cheers!

Thanks for the info @tom8999. I agree. I love the presence of a dipole design, and I do like to tinker, so I bought the right speakers. 😉

Yes, I saw Peters web site, and I also agree with him on the foil wires in the bass part of the diaphragm, but that can be upgraded by adding another layer or two of foil tape over the existing ones on the surface of the diaphragm. Foil tape is the future of Maggie’s I think, because it transfers the electric signal so effectively, since the signal travels over the surface of the conductor, not through it, and industry has years of experience manufacturing thin film with a near perfect surface from the audio tape industry. 
I expect they will add multiple layers separated by thin film inside the diaphragm in the future. But this is something I don't expect them to do now as they are probably limited by a concern for deformation of the diaphragm material.

i have been experimenting with stronger magnets, neodymium, on the bass parts of the panel, especially near the center.

As for the De’WooferMagnepan panels, I have not tried them with serious speaker cables yet. But here is the thing about them. If I had bought decent cables when I bought the speakers I wouldn’t have thought I needed more bass from the main panel, in fact, this weekend, just for yucks I ran 8 gauge cable to one side, and this brought about better dynamics, just with solid copper 8-2wg, so who knows where this will go.

I have 2 KEF R400b subs that I bought with my R300's and they pair really well with the 1.7i's. But they are finicky so I have to move them out into the room and rotate them when I listen as I place them in unison with the panels phase corrected.

Thanks so much for the positive response, and if I am up that way I will contact you!

@richopp

No, the lamp wire comment was from and interview or their website. 
  In fact my dealer lamented that this comment was ever published, that he in fact knew this was a Wendell quote when I bought them, as it hurt his cable sales. 
  And if he would have been able to convince me I would have never bought the DWM panels. Why? Because of the old audio ax of speakers in the showroom not sounding the same in your home. I assumed the lack of bass was because of all of our overstuffed furniture and lined drapes. 

  Yes, there is in fact tons of science and published research on cable quality and orientation, twist rates and basket weaving. I was dismissive about this until I did my own research on the matter not in audio circles but through research web sites, NASA, and neurobiological science testing of neurons. 
  As an example I did not know that the reason a conductor is called that is because the signal travels over the surface, so if you have multi stranded cables they should have Litz wire or at the least individually coated strands to prevent the signal from jumping from strand to strand and degrading the signal. Oxygen free equals a smoother finish, and you would preferably have a mirror finish on every strand.

  Also, there is no correlation between AWG for a constant state signal like the current that comes into your home and signal carrying, Audioquest's woven speaker cables are derived from the military, and theirs from the Apollo project at NASA. You will always see twisted pairs on signal cable in planes and rockets, someplace that a confused by RF signal cannot happen. 
Best bang for the buck I have found is Benchmark's cables, but I can hear a difference between them an $800 dollar cables as well. The Benchmarks are designed with conveying the dynamic range in mind, they source their wire from Japan. But, say Cardas? They source some of theirs from New England Wire. https://www.newenglandwire.com