Wendell listens to planar speakers that are bassier than Magnepans 

Magnepans are fantastic speakers. Especially for the price

Honestly a pointless attack on an old man that has honestly made some great sounding speakers at ridiculously affordable prices...truly weird. I just got myself some LRS+ and they're everything I expected them to be and more. And I added a small REL to round out the bass, no big deal. They beat any box speaker anytime, and cost almost nothing compared to these that cost 50 times more. Again, a truly unnecessary dressing down of a gentleman that has done wonders in the industry.

Dissenting view here. I heard Wendell defending real music based on the sound of the concert hall. These guys only seemed interested in displaying a planar speaker to make people say, "Maggies can't do that!" So . . .?

Nice but way too expensive! Majority of music lovers can't afford it! Thank goodness for Magnepan!

What few seam to see are the friendships and social nature of these shows among reviewers and the industry. We don’t go to see new stuff; we go to see old friends. Wendell is a legend in the audio industry. This was clearly not done to disrespect him. Consider this an opportunity to see what happens after the show doors close and those of us fortunate to be in or connected with this industry do after hours. We drink, laugh, listen and enjoy each others company around the gear, not because of the gear.

Thank you! I really enjoy your channel. It would be great if you could do a review of the Eminent Technology LFT-8b or LFT-8c and compare to Magnepan.

I love this video. I live 30 minutes away from Magnepan and am wondering why I’ve never owned a pair despite the fact that I love them every time I listen to them. Found your channel because of Steve Guttenberg. It’s now my new favorite channel. Keep doing what your doing.

I have the Maggie 1.7i’s and I am very happy with them incorporated with my McIntosh ma12000. The equalizer on the McIntosh helps with getting a better low end. I never heard the Diptyque speakers but was captured by there design. I am on the east coast…Pennsylvania..is there any audio dealer reasonably near me that markets these speakers? I would love to listen to a demonstration. The speakers demoed are out of my price league but I know there is more than one model. Thanks

Nice you are back. Cool.

This man knows his acoustics and music.

Wendell is right on so many levels. I have some top audiophile and military DSP systems, and I would rather only process the bass if possible, rather than the entire spectrum, since the DSP affects more than just frequency response. To me, it makes a lot more sense to dial in bass for a given speaker and room via subwoofers than having to put the entire spectrum through DSP to just fix the bass. Also, the more low frequency extension you have in a given monitor, the more you are constantly translating, vibrating and otherwise affecting the rest of the audible range.

This video is unprofessional on so many levels.

I agree with the wall comment. Kind of. I would love to see a planar speaker that sounds good in a recess on the wall. Media room with a large recess to the right and left so that the speakers disappear into the room and fill it with great sound.

If one wanted that Magnepan sound on the cheap, LRS Plus, add on the stands, and then Danny from GR Research LRS+ mod, two REL Tx5 subs, you are looking at $3,200.00. One heck of a speaker.

Here's some knowledge from an engineer who has no skin in this game. For me it's just a hobby. Like all vibrating things they are described by Newton's second law of motion, in this case as applied to forced oscillation. This is first year college physics. This equation is used for many things such as the way your car's suspension works when you hit a bump. There are three components that can be tuned, the moving mass, the damping factor, and the spring constant. In a woofer, air pressure plays a role so the ideal gas laws also come into play. That's first year college chemistry. By adjusting the three parameters you can tune a speaker to have any frequency response. Among the worst design is the ported design. at some frequencies the air moves easily through the port. At others half an octave away it will hardly move at all. This creates a big bump in the frequency response. It's like a pipe that's been tuned in an organ or a wind instrument. It wants to vibrate at its resonant frequency and keep vibrating at that frequency even when the amplifiers says stop. We call this a high Q which stands for resonance magnification factor and poor damping. The spring constant parameter also changes with frequency due to its mechanical design. Air turbulence at the entry an exit of the port also change the damping factor and spring constant. So the frequency response is a function of how loud it is played and what frequency it is tuned to. In the 1960s they were called one note Johneys. A great deal of work was done by Roy Allison at Acoustic Research in the 1960s and later by Floyd Toole about how bass frequencies couple to a room. Here is a curve you may never have seen. A lot can be learned from it. It's called the Fletcher Munson curves. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour On the left vertical axis is actual loudness. On the bottom axis is frequency. Each curve represents equal perceived loudness. For example it is clear that the human ear is very sensitive to sound at around 4 to 5 khz but not so sensitive at bass frequencies. On the right side you can see that at 20 khz all of the curves rise vertically. The bottom curve is the threshold of hearing, the softest sounds you can hear. The next curve above the top curve not shown in this example is the threshold of pain where sound at that level and louder is perceived as pain. At 20 khz you see that they cross each other so that for sound to be experienced at and above that frequency it must be so loud that it is perceived as pain, not sound. So when someone tells you that you need FR above 20 khz you can tell them that they don't know what they are talking about. Notice that at low frequencies the curves are squashed together. It has to get fairly loud before you hear any low bass at all. Then above this bottom curve each incremental change is real loudness has a disproportionately larger change in perceived loudness. The idea that one size fits all doesn't work. To keep bass in proper tonal balance with the rest of the music it has to be adjusted for each room and each recording as well as at how loud you are listening to it. It's one of many mistakes audiophiles make, one size fits all. In the demo it was clear none of the so called "experts" understood that. All means to make adjustments have been removed on the incorrect theory that the fewer elements in the signal path the better. This is also false.

So the largest Maggie dealer in the country claimed some other brand could do better at the low end than Maggies that he's never heard? How is that convincing? And can a speaker reproduce what a mic can capture of the output of a sub? I don't find that a true test of does anything sound like a sub other than a sub. It would have to be played back through a sub and hear if it is "more accurate" to what a sub sound like. Wendell was trying to explain that the laws of physics do not allow true low end, bass in that size room. The length needed for the wavelengths and the volume needed is not there for the energy to develop. He was hearing what he expected to hear in a room of that size. Being physically impossible for actual 40hz much less 20hz to develop, people think that mid bass bump/ timing reinforcement (hang) of low frequency energy,... is actually low frequencies. It's not. Then ... DSP...? Ya I'm still that guy. And have fun here in the midwest!

hmm he also listened to the Altyvox :) i mean its a complete different price point.. even the diptique are

Magapan needs to push the envelope a bit. Apply some new ticks and add more bass

Whenever Magnepan decides to use stronger magnetic fields and larger excursions then maggies will too do dynamics and base better. But Magnepan has refused to do that for years now and I don't know what it will take for them to change their minds. Also, the Magnepan manufacturing process is very labor intensive (the material costs are mostly quite low) and that is something which controls what they can do as far as changes and costs.

What’s the bass track in the demo

Why is the turntable spinning backwards? Timetravel❓

VERY funny. Well done. 😂

First of all: I don't like how Mr.Wendell was "stripped" in front of the camera, by using a comparative product that is nearly 10 time more expensive than an 3.7i. This is bad ass behavior. Second point is: The "lack" of bass at Magnepan speakers is foundet at the used magnets, their placement (distance) to the "coil" - and last but not least by the "plugs" at the membrane. Due to the very low magnetism of the used magnets, they have to choose a relatively low distance between the magnets and the membrane to get an usable efficincy. But this would cause collision between them. Therefore Magnepan is placing "plugs" at the membran to fix them in order to avoid big membrane-movements. And as we know: To create bass (low bass), one neeed "big" movement - or very large membranes. And this is the reason, why Magnepans can produce "bass" only with their very large models as the MG20's. Sometimes it's so easy...

Magnepan has not made any radical technological advances for decades. It is what it is, and they have a "take it or leave it" approach to their potential customers. It could be out there pushing the envelope of speaker technology but instead decides to play it safe. Hell, most of the photos on their website are older than any potential Gen-Z customers! 😂

I'd rather have the 2.7x with an excellent pair of subs. Less than half the price.

Well the diptyque is way more expencive. Magnepan could just make a model with neodymium magnets, then it would be fair.

painfull, i mean a recording is not a replica of the real deal. so yeah it might be in the recording. or the speaker who knows. the diptique do not go to 22hz flat.. its impossible for the size. what is the excursion ???/ few mm ? maybe 4 or 5 ? so if a maggie with 1.2mm can go down to 44 flat... you need 4 times as much to go to 22hz.. but the maggies are much bigger. in the end its all about Xmax and size. a maggie can do the same if you take into account the air moved. in case of the maggies because the magnets used that means BIGGER. this does come with a benefit. less movement over a larger area has normally lower distortion. downside... they are big :) besides that most maggies are single ended.

Your diptyque link goes to a candle store.

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Magnepan should make headphones too not just speakers.

I love how you go and shake Wendell's foundation a little with this prank. He seems a bit stock in his own way of doing things. I bet the two younger guys are more open to suggestions on how to improve Magnepan in the future

What is the point? Is it to show another manufactures product can do, what yours can't. I know that wasn't the main point, but I didn't like this prank. However, you must know what competitors are doing. How do you do for less is the question?

It's a lot of money to spend just to make more bass in my opinion

50.000 $ ???

I'm missing something. How is this a prank? By showing that someone made a better product than he did? That doesn't seem like a prank. That seems cruel and untasteful, even if it's true. When you make someone feel small, and they go home feeling less than, that's not a prank. That's fucked up. Unless I'm totally missing the joke here. Curious to know what I missed.

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ALL planar speakers will sound alike to a limited degree. Wendell is absolutely correct about listening material. The complex and nuanced sound of an orchestra, solo string instruments, and harmonic-rich human voices are excellent for meaningful evaluations. The loud, artificial, gimmicky techno music is useless noise... and always will be.

Why would he know better? He just makes speakers for the last 50 years...

Actually, as a military DoD/DoE and now private sector AI developer and media engineer for decades who has created and processed petabytes of AI audio training and eval data I can tell you unequiviquolly that it is completely inaccurate to assert that orchestral sound is the most complex thing for a speaker to be able to reproduce. That is a completely fabricated statement created by a marketing team decades ago, and I so wish people would stop asserting that. First you have to establish your metrics for input and measurement. Then you have to define your data features for testing and evaluation. Then you need to define, engineer and bound your measurement criteria and chain(s). Next, you need to acquire and/or create your data source domain for the testing. Finally, you need to setup and run your test across the various speakers/monitors, environments or whatever other domain variables you may have and evaluate your results. With something that has real world considerations like music reproduction has, you should often include human subject evaluations for tracking and comparison with the empirical data and determine the correlations that may exist for practical and other purposes. (ideally double blind, etc; but regardless). Once you have done those things then you can begin to compare and contrast the resulting quantitative and qualitative information. With most speakers/monitors you will find that what matters much more includes other factors than music type, such as how the music is recorded (e.g. microphone types, placement/range, etc), the recording chain and the associated performance metrics (dynamic range, slew rate, etc), and the format recorded to, such as DSD 256+ vs 44.1kHz 16 bit PCM. For example Genesis’ Squonk at 96kHz 24 bits is actually much harder for most properly match-amplified speakers to track than virtually all symphonic. In fact, various prog rock and even close mic’d high grade singer songwriter done on well chosen and configured mic’s to DSD is often more difficult for many (especially monopole or cardioid pattern “box” speakers) than most orchestral. However, these are just some of many such examples, which you should test or read research papers on before you keep spreading this information. Generally, the type of speaker and its components substantially defines what is hardest for it to reproduce, assuming capable sound reproduction chain. Finally, if you are only able to do subjective human testing, then the most important thing to consider testing on are the musical pieces, passages and styles that you and your brain are most familiar with, since that will determine the factors and extents for your evaluation and related testing. If you listen to a lot of,symphonic and know certain pieces very well, then go for that. If it’s jazz then go for those pieces. Finally, never forget that the room is the second most critical factor of dozens, since as Wendell said, the speakers have to work with the room.

At 50 grand they better sound better. I am sure these greedy buggers could sell for 20 grand and still make a good profit so more people could buy them. I would be impressed if they were 10 grand but 50 grand does not impress me. You really were unprofessional and he is older and wiser than you. Your smugness' did not impress me. I did not find it funny I found it childish. Wendell speakers are less than half the price some of them are 1 /10th the price so a very unfair comparison.

“I didn’t need to hear them to know what they sound like”. I think that’s arrogance, and ignorance

Wendall got owned and hes running fast and going nowhere

Childish.