Anyone hear the 30.7? Impressions? Make sense to spend THAT Money on a Magnepan?

Anyone actually hear this speaker?

 

I’m late to this thread but wondering what the consensus is from those that have actually heard the 30’s and their thoughts on minimum room size; my room is fairly large at 28’-10” L x 20’-7” W x 11’-1” H and it is a dedicated listening space so I am free to arrange equipment and room treatments as needed. Can I get top performance from the 30’s in a room of this size?

I have listened to the 6 Foot Magnepans (IIa, IIIa, 3.6) speakers since 1978 in a dozen different rooms.
Most say you need a big room. Not in my opinion. I get the best presentation, and lowest bass in a smaller room. I like to sit no more than 8 feet from the speaker with the front wall 5 feet behind the speaker.

HP had big speakers in small rooms with great results.

I feel the 30.7 needs no more room than the old Tympani did.

 

Sorry in advance for the choppy writing- I don't have the time to refine right now, but wanted to share...

I recently heard this speaker in a system with Boulder electronics, in a medium sized room. In short, the experience was a SPECTACULAR! After all the years of listening to hyped up drek, and having heard a lot of stuff over the years, very few things get me excited, and I was truly impressed.

Generally speaking, here are some of my biases: I am not a fan of box speakers, with exceptions of Vivid Giya driven by POWERFUL tube amps (probably due to its odd shape). I have also heard Wilson Alexandria sound great, and a few others, but I can probably say I would never own a reference-level, hard to drive, well-marketed box speaker (like Wilson, magico, focal, B&W, sonus faber, etc.) as long as I live.

The reason I believe an open design speaker like the Maggie 30.7 is better than a box speaker is that you can simply walk into the orchestra as it is playing!!!!

And box speakers don’t make economic sense either. People are paying gobs of money for the engineers to make the box disappear, and still, the effort is unsuccessful and hurts realism. So why bother with the box in the first place?

I have to respectfully disagree with some of the folks in this thread who believe one needs an extremely large room for this speaker. I didn’t have a tape measure with me, but I would have to say the room was about 14/ 15 feet wide and 22-25 feet long. The room had some absorption in the corners, but a lot of diffusion. (My personal bias is also for diffusion over absorption – not to deaden the sound.)

According the Maggie marketeer, who sounded much more genuine and confident (because he didn’t need to oversell) than the audio magazine marketers posing as "audio journalists", the speaker emulates a tall line source that projects a figure 8 pattern of sound, and thus can work in smaller rooms. According to him, a tall skinny pole is ideal design, and this Maggie is close.

So in addition to a very open sound, the speaker recreates a compelling sound stage with “realistic” images. The images remained stable as one moved about the room. An accomplished classical musician, who had played a sting instrument for a major symphony orchestra, had his jaw dropped and was shaking his head in disbelief. I am not a slimy, despicable, lying reviewer, just a passionate amateur. I am not exaggerating like the audio reviewers do; just reporting what I saw heard.

Comparisons: The 30.7 has much better resolution, dynamic range, and jump factor compared to other smaller Maggie models I have heard.

It didn’t have the magical midrange of a soundlab or resolution of an electrostat, but was much more dynamic, with a lot more bass oomph and beitzim than any electrostat I have heard. And although it didn’t measure up to a stat when it comes to resolution, the Maggie 30 resolution was outstanding, yet it was non-analytical compared to magico/ most SS amps or Wilson with most ss amps, which have too much resolution for most people that turns the listening experiences into an exercise of clinical analysis or recordings. (The Maggie design is trying to emulate electrostats in terms of low mass.)

It rocked great. But it can’t rock as well as $999 Zu Omen dirty Weekend, with a flea-powered SET amp. It is not as open or dynamic, and lacks the 3D effects , texture, and smoothness of an MBL 101. (But MBL won’t image as well, in fairness). And I wasn’t emotionally pulled into the music as immediately or as deeply with high-efficiency speakers that just channel emotion above the audiophile vocabulary.

Yet a great Speaker! Even if you can’t afford it or don’t have the place for it, still hear it! If you own an expensive Magico, Wilson, Focal, etc., trade down!!!

 

Has it got shot of the plasticy Maggie tone?

 

No, it is a world class speaker and doesn't have any glaring flaws like that. Trade offs, yes, as I describe. And there are tradeoffs with everything. But no major flaws.

 

Has it got shot of the plasticy Maggie tone?

Excellent question...and as Caesar stated, these colorations are now a thing of the past.
I recently heard the 30.7 at a local demo. It is indeed a superb speaker that can easily compete with most other speakers up to the $100k level. Assuming a couple of things, one..the room does need to be able to support the size of the four panels...and according to Wendell Diller ( who I had an interesting and lengthy conversation with) a minimum of 15’ wide and about 25’ long. So no wimpy sized rooms like I currently use need apply.
Also, a very beefy amp upstream is a requirement, something with some good current capability. In the demo, the large Macintosh amps were being utilized ( not my favorite), but even with these, the speakers sounded very much like Caesar reports.
Lastly, they do benefit from room acoustic treatments to dampen the rear wave and several of our group felt that bi-amping or even quad amping would be ideal.
With those provisos, I believed that the new 30.7 is a real winner and certainly the best Maggie that I have ever heard...and a Major contender in the 30k arena!
If Wendell brings his flying circus to a demo near you, I highly recommend a listen.

 

Excellent question...and as Caesar stated, these colorations are now a thing of the past.
I recently heard the 30.7 at a local demo. It is indeed a superb speaker that can easily compete with most other speakers up to the $100k level. Assuming a couple of things, one..the room does need to be able to support the size of the four panels...and according to Wendell Diller ( who I had an interesting and lengthy conversation with) a minimum of 15’ wide and about 25’ long. So no wimpy sized rooms like I currently use need apply.
Also, a very beefy amp upstream is a requirement, something with some good current capability. In the demo, the large Macintosh amps were being utilized ( not my favorite), but even with these, the speakers sounded very much like Caesar reports.
Lastly, they do benefit from room acoustic treatments to dampen the rear wave and several of our group felt that bi-amping or even quad amping would be ideal.
With those provisos, I believed that the new 30.7 is a real winner and certainly the best Maggie that I have ever heard...and a Major contender in the 30k arena!
If Wendell brings his flying circus to a demo near you, I highly recommend a listen.

Thanks Davey! I liked everything that the Maggies I have heard did other than for tone so this might be a winner.

 

Excellent question...and as Caesar stated, these colorations are now a thing of the past.
I recently heard the 30.7 at a local demo. It is indeed a superb speaker that can easily compete with most other speakers up to the $100k level. Assuming a couple of things, one..the room does need to be able to support the size of the four panels...and according to Wendell Diller ( who I had an interesting and lengthy conversation with) a minimum of 15’ wide and about 25’ long. So no wimpy sized rooms like I currently use need apply.
Also, a very beefy amp upstream is a requirement, something with some good current capability. In the demo, the large Macintosh amps were being utilized ( not my favorite), but even with these, the speakers sounded very much like Caesar reports.
Lastly, they do benefit from room acoustic treatments to dampen the rear wave and several of our group felt that bi-amping or even quad amping would be ideal.
With those provisos, I believed that the new 30.7 is a real winner and certainly the best Maggie that I have ever heard...and a Major contender in the 30k arena!
If Wendell brings his flying circus to a demo near you, I highly recommend a listen.

Hi Davey,

Thanks for chiming in. I agree that one must have some major juice to make these come alive and sing. Pussy-powered solid state amps will distort and make things sound awful, and pussy-powered tubes will sound syrupy and atrocious.

A couple of points of where we might differ:

1. The elderly salesman/ marketeer from Magnepan I spoke to suggested that this demo was one of two outstanding ones he had. (The others were just ok according to him.) He mentioned Canada as another sublime one. So unless that is the one you attended, the speaker sounded much more than a contender $30K arena. In fact, it sounded like a challenger to pretty much anything out there dollar-wise, of one's tastes align with what the speaker does... In fact, as I mentioned, for those who like the open, box-less sound, it may be better than anything out there today.

2. I am not a big fan of absorbing the back wave, if that is what you mean by "dampening" it. I like diffusion a lot (with just the requisite absorption in the corners) and I think one of the reasons why the listening session I attended was so good is that there was much more diffusion than absorption in the room.

Cheers

 

Can 30.7 play very loud like close to 100db?

 

Can 30.7 play very loud like close to 100db?

NO problem, assuming you have enough juice up front. Not sure why you would need to play at 100db...or more, but the speakers can accommodate this. ( Your ears may not like it though, lol).

 

Magnepan salesman looking like a proud papa. Laughing at the guys who bought into the marketing hype and paid who paid more than $30K for their wilson, magico, focal, etc. The latest wilson sasha watt puppy is more than $30K these days, and the tiny wilson yvette (or is it sabrina?) is nearly $30K, and latest magico s3 is around $30k also... Obviously many will prefer the sound of the box of the speakers, but many won't - if they actually experience these magnepans

 

Apparently the 30.7's come in a choice of other colors. I would certainly look at those and see if any of them were more to my taste, if I were considering this speaker. One thing for sure, i suspect that the WAF factor will certainly be an issue unless she/he has some say in that color choice...and placement, LOL. These guys really dominate a room, as can be seen by the photo above. Wendell actually was telling me that this is the biggest problem that he sees with these speakers...and one that the engineers would like to be able to minimize, but apparently cannot...so far. The size requirement drives the ability of the speaker. Try and get this kind of SQ from a much smaller panel or design...that's what Wendell would like; and so would so many others. Probably wishful thinking.

 

Apparently the 30.7's come in a choice of other colors. I would certainly look at those and see if any of them were more to my taste, if I were considering this speaker. One thing for sure, i suspect that the WAF factor will certainly be an issue unless she/he has some say in that color choice...and placement, LOL. These guys really dominate a room, as can be seen by the photo above. Wendell actually was telling me that this is the biggest problem that he sees with these speakers...and one that the engineers would like to be able to minimize, but apparently cannot...so far. The size requirement drives the ability of the speaker. Try and get this kind of SQ from a much smaller panel or design...that's what Wendell would like; and so would so many others. Probably wishful thinking.

Davey,

Great points. That's why so many guys go with box speakers, and inherit all of those compromises/ tradeoffs. Yet box speakers still dominate a room.

 

Davey,

Great points. That's why so many guys go with box speakers, and inherit all of those compromises/ tradeoffs. Yet box speakers still dominate a room.

Which compromises/tradeoffs? Speaker coloration? Not mine. My monitors also don't dominate the room, and neither do smaller floor standers like the Magico Q3.

 

And they're off!

 

Apparently the 30.7's come in a choice of other colors. I would certainly look at those and see if any of them were more to my taste, if I were considering this speaker. One thing for sure, i suspect that the WAF factor will certainly be an issue unless she/he has some say in that color choice...and placement, LOL.

My wife would love these if we had a bigger room. She loves her RED Maggies!

 

My wife would love these if we had a bigger room. She loves her RED Maggies!

Not only your wife, but I’m pretty sure you would love these speakers as well. The bigger room is going to be what stops folks from opening up their wallet and going for them...because once you have heard them they are pretty hard to forget.

 

Which compromises/tradeoffs? Speaker coloration? Not mine. My monitors also don't dominate the room, and neither do smaller floor standers like the Magico Q3.

Hi Al,
WAF factors aside, I always hear the box sound no matter how much money manufacturers invest in taming it, as I mentioned above. Wish it weren't so, but it is. But I always enjoyed open sound of Magnepan, Soundlab, and MBL, and have had non-box speakers for many, many years.

 

Hi Al,
WAF factors aside, I always hear the box sound no matter how much money manufacturers invest in taming it, as I mentioned above. Wish it weren't so, but it is. But I always enjoyed open sound of Magnepan, Soundlab, and MBL, and have had non-box speakers for many, many years.

To each their own opinion, Caesar.

 

To each their own opinion, Caesar.

Absolutely, that's one of the reasons the discussion-board side of this hobby is so interesting

 

See it can be done!