Magnepan, Best midrange?

Uh, I don’t know how many posts I have, but I believe I explain that Magnepan is the holy grail of speakers in pretty much every one of them.

I figured this out in the early 1970’s in my shop, and while there certainly have been great improvements in other types of speakers over the years, only Magggies reproduce what you feed them.

That may be the downside for those with hardware that is not up-to-par, so to speak.

Anyway, they are certainly not for everyone or there would only be one speaker manufacturer rather than about 300 at any given time. I only suggest that you try them IN YOUR ROOM and make a decision based on what YOU LIKE IN YOUR ROOM.

We sold lots of them, but we also sold lots of other brands. Try them and make-up your own mind, please. For myself, and many others, we have stopped worrying about speakers and work to improve our other gear.

Cheers!

@twodolphins There are no perfect speakers, but Sound Lab speakers are 99,97 perfect... The best Magnepan will give you only 80% experience of properly set big stats. That's a personal opinion. If you have a room, go for Sound Lab. Then you should buy also a big tube amplifier to drive them and an air conditionning. There's only one amplifier that works in perfect synergy with big stats. You will find it by your own, I will not mention it here, otherwise people will accuse me to do a marketing job for that company.

Don't be shy. You raved about how much better Sound Lab speakers are compared to Magnepan but are more concerned people might think you're promoting an amplifier for them?  OTLs do sound great. I still own a Joule Electra VZN-80.

You'll love the Maggie; it also has no LF, just like your FR.  :(

You'll have severely compromised sound, which is what you are working for. You'll get it.  

Quasi-Ribbon Magnepans all have a very restricted MR/HF listening window approximating the middle 1/3 of the panel...higher or lower and you hear a drastic rolloff of detail.  You need to go to the 3.7i with its full length true ribbon to get the real Maggie magic.  And have a high current amp with whatever technology you like...as long as it is not harsh or edgy...the ribbons won't hide that!  That said, 1.7is are tall enough that most listeners can enjoy them seated and stay "in the window" comfortably...for 1/3 the cost.

dynamiclinearity, you are close but not quite. LINE sources fall off at 6 dB/oct vs 3 dB/oct. The 3.7i's switch to point source behavior from about 250 hz and under. So, from the lower midrange down they are point sources. This is why Maggies tend to get bright as you move away from them. In order to radiate as a line source a speaker has to taller than the longest wavelength it is to reproduce. 20 hz is 32 feet. Fortunately physics comes to the rescue. If both ends of the line source end at boundaries Like the floor and the ceiling the line source effectively goes on into infinity or performs as such down to zero Hz. This is the reason for 8 and 9 foot speakers, the most common ceiling heights. Magneplanar had discussed making 8 foot 20.7s but the marketing guys talked them out of it. They said it would never sell. The people who buy 20,7s are seriously interested in sound. Having superior bass performance would have been an EASY sell. It is the 7 footers that would have been languishing. Go figure. 

To mention Tektons and Magnepans in the same breath is a serious insult to the Magneplanar corporation.

twodoplphins, you are not the only person here with that opinion. As for 99.97% perfect? Maybe 99.95%. Really, it depends on how much you really cherish sub bass and how loud you want to go. If you want to crack the foundation with Nine Inch Nails then you will have to add subwoofers which IMHO should be added anyway to get the last word in perfection out of them. On their own I would say 90% perfect. With the right subwoofer system, 100% perfect. I have never heard another speaker perform at this level. Many would say, "Well of course! You own them." But, I would respond by saying that is why I bought them. 
As for Tube amplifiers, there are many who have said the ultimate amp for driving SLs is the Atma-Sphere MA2. I hope to hear that combo at some point. Other tube amps? I am not so sure. I do know that high powered SS amps can do an excellent job. The JC 1's are a very popular amp with the SLs which are what I am using currently. As Ralph has pointed out on numerous occasions Stats have a rising impedance in the bass and by 20 Hz can be up to 30 ohms which robs power from SS amps so you really need a big bruiser to start with. This is not a problem for the Atma- Sphere amps which put out the same power regardless of impedance. In relative terms the 220 watt MA2 is more equivalent to a 600 watt SS amp driving SLs.