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

Anyone actually hear this speaker?

 

I actually think that if one is determined to use subwoofers with a big Magnepan panel, then it probably is easier to integrate subwoofers with the 20.7s than it is to integrate subwoofers with the 30.7s. This view is based on my friend who has owned 20.7s with subwoofers for a long time and who also went to the Magnepan factory to hear the 30.7s.

If you are not familiar with this review read Don Saltzman's review of the 20.7 (The Absolute Sound, February 3, 2015).

That makes complete sense to me Ron... and I don’t doubt Davey is right either, I am expecting to be very amazed by the 30.7s but am also hoping the lure of the big sirens doesn’t crash me onto the rocks of insolvency.

Thankfully the local importer lives just on the beach down the coast 45 minutes away and will have the first set of 30.7s here. My only job is likely to be to bring a good bottle of wine with me.

 

That makes complete sense to me Ron... and I don’t doubt Davey is right either, I am expecting to be very amazed by the 30.7s but am also hoping the lure of the big sirens doesn’t crash me onto the rocks of insolvency.

Thankfully the local importer lives just on the beach down the coast 45 minutes away and will have the first set of 30.7s here. My only job is likely to be to bring a good bottle of wine with me.

Going to hear the 30.7’s and having the room to accommodate them...almost certainly means that the wallet will be under attack. If I had the room, they would certainly be on my very short list....plus, at the asking price, there really is no competition IMO. This from a fan of dynamic box speakers....does that tell you something

 

That I’m in trouble probably

 

I have never been fond of adding subs to the larger (6ft and up) Magnepans. There has always been a soundstaging disconnect, transitioning from a tall bass image, to a short box bass image.
Perhaps those that use subs and a Magnepans, are not after lower bass, but more “slam”, and just do not care for planar bass.
Can you have both “slam”, and realistic large acoustic bass instrument playback?
“Slam” mostly comes into play, with rock music only IMO.
“Slam” is very loud and dry, tight, bass, lacking tunefullness.

 

My subs were always crossed fairly low, where both subs and panels are more like point sources due to the long wavelengths, and carefully integrated. Maggies tend to be a little more finicky about sub integration due to their low-order crossovers and dipole pattern. I have used a variety of crossover over the years and prefer high-order active designs. Some use dipole subs to good effect though I have not found that terribly helpful (and makes the sub much harder to keep low in distortion and with good time-domain response to keep up with the panels).

IME/IMO "slam" is above the deep subwoofer range, more like the 50-100 Hz octave. My current subs were crossed around 60-80 Hz to my Maggies when I had them and provided in-room response that was -3 dB at 7 Hz (small'ish room makes for amazingingly deep bass). I measured distortion in the tens of percent for moderately loud (100 dB) signals around 50 Hz from my MG-IIIa's.

That said, I have only rarely been asked to integrate a sub with MG-20's (actually more requests with the Tympani models). Most owners I knew way back when just didn't feel the added bass was worth it and/or were worried it would muck up the sound even after showing them distortion plots.

I have no experience with the 30's.

 

My subs were always crossed fairly low, where both subs and panels are more like point sources due to the long wavelengths, and carefully integrated. Maggies tend to be a little more finicky about sub integration due to their low-order crossovers and dipole pattern. I have used a variety of crossover over the years and prefer high-order active designs. Some use dipole subs to good effect though I have not found that terribly helpful (and makes the sub much harder to keep low in distortion and with good time-domain response to keep up with the panels).

IME/IMO "slam" is above the deep subwoofer range, more like the 50-100 Hz octave. My current subs were crossed around 60-80 Hz to my Maggies when I had them and provided in-room response that was -3 dB at 7 Hz (small'ish room makes for amazingingly deep bass). I measured distortion in the tens of percent for moderately loud (100 dB) signals around 50 Hz from my MG-IIIa's.

That said, I have only rarely been asked to integrate a sub with MG-20's (actually more requests with the Tympani models). Most owners I knew way back when just didn't feel the added bass was worth it and/or were worried it would muck up the sound even after showing them distortion plots.

I have no experience with the 30's.

 

Fellow members please try to audition The GT Audio Works planars with outboard open baffle servo subs- I have owned the 20.7’s,Genesis 200’s
and have heard all other Planar and electrostatic speakers. The speakers are very unique in that they do not possess a crossover on the main 6 foot planar magnetic panel - they do not use aluminum traces but utilize a much more expensive pure copper trace on the diaphragm -The actual membrane does not have a plasticky sound in that it is a proprietary do membrane that completely eliminate any resonance. Depending on your room size you can use the planars by themselves or seamlessly match them to either 2,34 or six servo subs per side with included amplification crossover control and room settings.

 

In design it seems like a fantastic system!

 

In design it seems like a fantastic system!

Thanks Ron - just wanted to attach some reviews from Kemper Holt and Peter Brueninger from AVshowrooms. They were blown away by the system at Capital Audiofest 2018.
If you go onto their website AVshowrooms.com
There is a video of the review of this Speaker under reviewers view for Capital audio fest 2018. There review begins at the 7 minute 20 second portion of the video.

 

Anyone actually hear this speaker?

I heard these at 1 of their tour stops. Terrible! I know people that have heard these at multiple tour sites and he said they were terrible their too. Bass was more than in their 20.7’s but it was so loose, no definition. The 20.7’s didn’t have any bottom end and you see people use large subs with them. But they went overboard trying to add bass to the 30.7’s. I asked my friends at the event and they didn’t like them either and they are current magnepan owners.

 

The review from AVshowrooms us now out with regard to the best rooms at capital Audiofest 2018. Please click on the link below and try to use headphones to trying to get a sense of the speed transparency and dynamics of these incredible speakers. Try to listen to the end of the video after the music is playing to get the reactions of the reviewer‘s

 

I heard these at 1 of their tour stops. Terrible! I know people that have heard these at multiple tour sites and he said they were terrible their too. Bass was more than in their 20.7’s but it was so loose, no definition. The 20.7’s didn’t have any bottom end and you see people use large subs with them. But they went overboard trying to add bass to the 30.7’s. I asked my friends at the event and they didn’t like them either and they are current magnepan owners.

Interesting. I think this shows just precisely why a large panel can be a little hit or miss. One of the reasons that i have ruled out Maggie's in the past was because they require the room to be treated and large...and they are in no way tolerant of any room anomalies. If there is something amiss upstream ( this can be fixed) or in the room, they will always sound as you describe, IME. With the 30.7's, while I know they can sound amazing---as they did when I heard them, I suspected that IF you get it slightly wrong, watch out!

 

I know there were comments elsewhere from dealers and Magnepan about the variability in setups (including rooms and electronics) and sound on the tour. I have heard similar comments about some spots great, some, ah, less so... I really wanted to attend the one up in Denver but it was a weeknight and didn't work well with my typically long workday, plus it was either just before or after a trip out of state.

Dialing in placement of any large dipole (ESL, ribbon, or planar-dynamic) is a PITA. Magical when you finally get it right, but be prepared to spend some time up-front. And that may include an investment in room treatments.

I would have said room "treated and/or large" -- I have lots of treatment in a small'ish room and it solved the image and bass issues (the latter mostly because I have good subs and don't let the panels play too low). The caveat is the room is pretty dead; OK by me, but you lose the reflections that help make some of the Maggie Magic. Since they do not radiate much to the sides or top/bottom the backwave is a big player in the sound. Without it, the image is much more precise, comb filtering problems go away, but the sound is less "spacious". The best sound I had was in a large room with minimal treatment.

IME/IMO - Don

 

The price of the MG30.7's in the US of A is just under 30 grand... 29 plus a bit more with type of custom finish the owner wants.
Guess what these Maggie's cost down unda? 53 grand! And hell no! I'm not spending that kind of money. My CLX's are more than adequate!

By selling a pair of Maggie's at over 50 grand a pair, they're entering into top end territory, and I'm affraid with the use of those L shaped feet and basically same sort of frame plus glues... Magnepan has to consider redesigning its basic structure, surely at 50 grand one would hope to see far better materials used...
Oh well, I guess then the price would go up further.
RJ

 

RJ, I see you ran into the 'importer' needs to make more profit syndrome, LOL. Even if we consider the price of shipping to down under, I cannot see how that would bring one up to over $50K a pair! Unless, your aussie middleman needs to make a big mortgage payment asap. Pity that Maggie don't get a little more proactive in this regard with the pricing structure down there. OTOH, we see exactly the same thing with imported cartridges coming into the US from Japan. I totally understand the price difference there, as it costs a huge amount of $$ to ship such a large and heavy item to the states ( cartridges). OTOH, while the maggie's aren't that heavy, they are in some fairly decent size boxes. Probably cost at least another $1000- to ship including customs....oh, wait a minute that would put them at $31K---and you said they are over $50K, LOL.

 

Hi RJ
Do you mean $50k AUD?

US price converts to a bit over $40k AUD plus Australian goods and services tax is another $4k plus import duties and transport costs probably about same again... ie somewhere just over $50k with dealers margin.

Just 20.7s in the boxes are frickin heavy, you’d be looking at twice as many boxes of similar size and weight.

Plus this is a seriously premium speaker that plays in the big boy league of speakers at multiples of it’s cost.

On the stands... just put some sound anchors on them, not expensive at all... voila problem solvvvvd.

 

Davey,
I think the reeeaaaal gouging might be happening over at Alsyvox

 

Davey,
I think the reeeaaaal gouging might be happening over at Alsyvox

Could be, LOL.

 

Davey,
I think the reeeaaaal gouging might be happening over at Alsyvox

Maybe so. But we will never know until we compare...

 

Yes, that's affirmative. It's over 50 grand in Aus$$$
Currency exchange rate, equates the 30.7's in standard oak finish at 45 grand. Then add 4 grand for shipping = 49, + a couple grand for import dutie / customs etc, = 50-51, plus very small dealer margin, all up 52,500. For 53 grand, McLean's is offering the cherry finish.

Low and behold there is already one chap who has placed an order for these and I happen to know him very well. I wish him well but I would never pay 50 grand for Maggie's. The law of diminishing returns comes in to play when you're going over 30-40 grand in speakers in my experience. Once again, something else by another panel / stat designer will out-perform it, and the vicious cycle begins...

In Spore these are much more affordable, less than 30 grand, since they don't pay duties. I can order a pair from my trusted mate in Spore but that is only and ONLY if these 30.7's can surpass the CLX's in every area, which I doubt, especially in speed, transparency and naturalness. Forget low bass, who cares! The CLX's bass is more than marvelous for me!

I'm traveling to Spore in Feb, and I'll give these a listen. If I'm correct, my good mate runs his CLX's with Dan D'Agostino monoblocks and matching preamp. The pre-power combination alone is over 100 grand! He's currently driving the 30.7's with the same combination, absolutely loves it! But he'll never compare them to the CLX's, claims that they operate on entirely two different levels. Obviously one being a full ribbon design and the other a full range stat. Worlds apart, but he's certainly enjoying both!

I'll report back when I get back late Feb.
Cheers and keep those panels running!
RJ