Opinions on Magnepans sales/marketing approach to


Is anyone else somewhat frustrated at the inability to audition the 20.7s except at a very very few locations in the country? The fly to MN to hear does not really appeal to me either because let's be real, an hour listening to decide on 14K speakers in a strange system is simply not enough and in MN they do not do a side by side with the 3.7s to allow auditioning both through same electronics any way.

I recently purchased Maggie 3.7s with the option to upgrade to 20.7s within 6 months . The 3.7s to my ear are a cut above the 3.6s when it comes to sounding like a single cohesive speaker versus the ribbon tweeter always drawing some attention to itself.

Problem is how do you tell if upgrade from 3.7 to 20.7 is worth it if the dealers do not have them on floor? The best would be to audition in you home on your equipment but at least if the dealers had both you could audition where the only variable is the speaker.

I have spoken wo Wendell about it and there is 1 dealer who Boston who will let you try and return but that is virtually an isolated approach..one which I applaud. Of course they have to really qualify the buyer but again, if you have 3.7s and want to upgrade, Magnepan and most dealers expect you to "buy on faith or reviews" which in my mind, in today's economy, is simply ridiculous. While I am sure some have bought them "blind", the argument that the 20.1s were better than the 3.6s so imagine how much better the 20.7s are the the 3.7s will not make me pull the trigger.

Long winded way of asking about others experience and opinion of how Magnepan and dealers are handling the 20.7s

MikeH
mn2hifi
As much as I love Magnepan speakers, I do have to say that Magnepan as a Company is a bit different in thier thinking. To me, they are frugal to an extreme but this has enabled them to sell excellent products at unmatched value. In the 3.7 for example you get a world-class speaker that in my view outperforms many (actually most) speakers regardless of cost. I have compared the 3's to the Wilsons, Focals, Klipsch, Avalon, MBL's, etc...and many others and in my view they bested most of them and were embarrassed by none. Of course there is no such animal as the 'best' speaker; all speakers have pluses/minuses and to me the first rule is to properly match your speaker to your room; put the 'best' speaker in the a bad room and you still get poor results.

The speaker wire terminals on the Magnepans are an example of thier frugal thinking; they are terrible! Why not put a really nice, high quality 5-way binding post on all Maggies to facilitate easy connections? My guess is that they don't feel that this would improve the sound and would only add to the expense...

If you go to White Bear Lake make sure you look up Audio Perfection; it is an old style audio store with lots of interesting gear. They carry Magnepan, Wilson, Audio Research and many other top brands.
Thanks for the tip, Stickman. I promised the wife a stop at the Mall of America so will have to fit Audio Pefection in also.
If you stop at Audio Pefection you will see a lot of nice gear all setup in really jam packed crappy rooms