Magnepan..the sun rises and sets on..or does it??

I have a pair of 2.7QR's that are powered by Ayre. This is not bad at all. It just depends on your budget and listening taste. I am beginning to look at a much better system to replace my current system. Where are you located at?

I think they live up to the hype but, you need to place them well out in the room and you need a lot of power, 100 watts is the starting point and 300 to 500 watts with lots of current is what they really need to come alive.

It gets expensive to run them, money that could be spent on better speakers if you do not miss the planer sound. I think this is the most important thing to consider.

Bottom line is that I feel my system (with 1.6's) sounds as good as my friends system that has $5000 B&W 803 speakers, so yes I think they live up to the hype.

So much depends on your musical interests and what you do to support the Maggies in terms of filling the obvious void in the low bass region and, of course, providing proper amplification which they love. Bryston 4B-ST's do the trick for the 1.6's (for some people) but 7B-ST's would be much prefereable. For that matter, the Maggie 3.6's are probably worth the extra dough if you can swing it. The only Maggies I currently use are an old pair of MG-1C's that I picked up used for $200 and even those guys are power hungry!

Positioning is also critical with all Maggies, as they need to be several feet away from the rear walls, and a lot of experimentation is needed with the toe-in to find the sweet spot that hits you just right. It seems to differ for everyone and is also very room dependent. Don't even think about trying the 1.6's in an 8' x 10' dorm room!

For what it's worth (not too much, I suspect), in the planer/electrostat/ribbon world, I've used Maggies, Martin Logan Aerius, Bohleder Graebener X1 and X3's, and Newform Research R645's. Although I've not owned a pair of 1.6's, I've heard them in a well set-up system and agree they are amazingly detailed in the upper mids, which is where my listening ear turns to first. This is an enormous strength of the 1.6's. Yet, my money would be with the Newforms in terms of overall bang for the buck and, in my opinion, naturalness of sound quality (quite amazing integration for a hybrid design). The R645's go for $2,265 new or about $1,500 used if you're lucky enough to find a pair. As with many speakers, the Newforms are most at home when bi-wired. Another advantage of the Newforms is that they are one of the more tweekable speakers you'll ever run across. No disrespect for the 1.6's, just another point of view.

Search the archives here for "Magnepan" or "Maggies" and you'll find a lot of dialogue. Many members of A'gon have more experience with Maggies that I do. Tireguy for one is a big fan of the 3.6's and he's posted his entire system fairly recently.