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RE: That 1.7 review is nonsense

Posted by RGA (R) on March 20, 2012 at 01:24:03

In Reply to: That 1.7 review is nonsense posted by josh358 on March 18, 2012 at 23:41:10:

No I have higher standards than they do that's why.

I am not exactly sure how any of those so called reviewers could possibly rave about them at CES when 1) they had 10 minute demos and 2) they controlled the music and the volume level - which incidentally were wimpy ass easy to reproduce recordings at LOW volume.

PG may be wrong on the technology but what is your reply to his HEARING of them

"Stock I find the 1.6 very bright and fatiguing after 15-20 minutes. I did not find the 1.7 bright in this regard and in fact I thought it had an "exciting" quality at first and that it was rather dynamic. That lasted for 15 minutes until my brain caught up to the trick. This intrusion of highs into the lower bands is what gives the speaker its' sense of dynamics and the "exciting" quality, however if you have a discerning ear you'll not only grow tired of it, you may begin to resent it as I did. It makes music simply sound wrong. Not fatiguing, but my desire to listen to it is just as absent. IMHO it is a wiring trick designed to remove the 1.6's overt brightness on top but to keep the speaker artificially bright anyway by smearing that brightness all the way down to the upper bass regions. Spread like that it is not in your face and it gives the speaker a false sense of dynamics." http://www.indiespinzone.com/mag/mag1.7.html

Yes he notes
"If you have a discerning ear" (check)
"makes music sound "wrong" (check)
"desire to listen to it absent (check)
"false sense of dynamics" (check)

Seems to support exactly to a tee what I have said about them (especially his bright comments on the 1.6). Funny no one ever reads that stuff when the 1.6 was the current model - but now that they're replaced you will see and read the "the 1.7 improves on the previous 1.6 which was bright"

And that is in fact ALSO what I heard. The 1.7 didn't sound bright. He said he enjoyed the 1.7 until 15-20 minutes in. Then it all fell apart for him. Well at the show you got 10 minutes and only 2 tracks - maybe those other reviewers would have caught on as well over more time with their recordings at their normal pr preferred listening levels. Maybe they are also fans of the prior model so they were more easily impressed or ready to be impressed.

My Magnepan dealer (maybe the biggest in Canada) gave up and run Audio Note on them despite being single ended tube amps of under 20 watts. (the also carry Bryston). What a VAST improvement to the Brystons and for a fraction of the money despite being in a much worse room than CES to boot. This is also when I became quite favorable to the 1.7 because with this front end they do sound very nice indeed and why I have the 1.7 in my top 5 under $2k. Incidentally, I like them more than than the dealer.

But I sure as hell didn't hear that at CES - I heard the non brightness which to me is a major improvement over the 1.6.

By the by - there are a LOT of reviewers who dislike the sound of many of these speakers - we tend not to review them or buy them. Very few reviewers actually tell you what they don't like. They may worry over their image or whatever other reasons they may have or perhaps the magazine they write for has certain rules.

I actually like these speakers more than you think (because this post here is more of an absolutist post about speakers not really taking into account their price - which as I said is a top 5 speaker for me under $2k with the front end gear I liked them on)

I also like polarizing speakers even if I am not a die hard fan of them and I like them for that very fact they get people into spiral debates and get people so defensive on them and who will go to the mat defending them. Why? Because they offer something "completely different" (Python). And that makes them worth listening to. The supporters are passionate about it and they think they're the best. Gee reminds me of someone just can't place that handsome devil.

Granted the Magnestand guy is also making a living so perhaps using a dose of hyperbole to get his sales pitch across but there is a grain of truth in it and I think he hears the stock models the way I hear them.

Lastly: The audio business doesn't care what Magnepan is doing - The vast majority of the audio business is dynamic loudspeaker makers and if they liked panels would have been making them instead - they don't. According to the Maggie dealer here - it sure as hell isn't due to the cost of parts. So basically Magnepan would have to worry about what? A dynamic speaker maker like Dynaudio copying them? No!

Other panel makers? No. The best ones are electrostats (even the panel heads say that or will bring up a bunch of defunct ribbon makers like Apogee as being much better). So exactly WHO are they afraid will copy them?

Other ribbon planar makers - umm like who?

And the half dozen if that in the ribbon planar world actually selling anything surely could afford $1700 and buy a set to take apart.

If Peter Qvortrup of Audio Note a tiny tiny company compared to some of these is out buying AvanteGarde acoustic duos and dozens of other top flight competitors of wildly different designs in the $30K+ range then surely a guy trying to sell ribbon panels can afford $1750 to reverse engineer a ribbon panel. I mean it's not like it's a wide field.

You want to make a ribbon planar the name that comes to mind is Magnepan. Indeed, it's the only name that comes to most people's minds(of the one's still in business) unless they're die-hard panel fans.

In fact they could reverse engineer them - put them back together and probably sell them for a grand. R&D for $750 - bingo bango.

Edits: 03/20/12

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