I heard the 1.6s at CES.....WOW! For the money...best speaker on the market. Bass shy...but bass costs bucks...face it...get a sub and try not to
to notice it.
John hendry^^

I have owned and installed almost every model of the magnapan loudspeaker since 1980. the evolution of the magnapan loudspeaker has been remarkable. jim winey is always in the forefront of design . one thing you will find about the loudspeaker is the better the source the better the speaker. some words of advice if you are close to the back wall use some absorbent material. biamp.brings out the best inthis loudspeaker. ahigh quality tube amp. downtoabout 50-80 cps.crossover. use solidstate amp below this freq. old dahlquist woofers wi inwoofer only box makes a good match coleration wise. this is part of the game. this is a wonderful speaker allmods, toobad it cant be driven with asingleended amp

I just bought a pair of 1.5,s the other day and I cannot express to you my new level of happiness due, in part, to these speakers. I previously owned a pair of B&W 603's, never again will I own a pair of box speakers. These speakers are AWESOME! Any person who does not love these speakers, or speakers in the Magnepan line should have their ears, or rather brains checked. I say brains because no person could not love the sound from these speakers without having some pre-concieved notion concerning them (i.e. no bass). I cannot wait until I can afford the 3.5's. Magnepan and their 1.5's recieve my highest rating, 5 ENTHUSIASTIC STARS!!!!!!!!! I am a ribbon convert forever!

I bought the Magnepan 2.7's after owning Spica TC-50's for about 5 years. I've had the Magnepans for 4 months now and I am so far pleased with my choice. I listened to a lot of speakers in $2000 price range. Som of the speakers I listened to and liked roughly in order of preference:
Thiel 1.5
Apogee Slant 6/Stage
Martin Logan SL3/Aerius
Emminent Technology VIII
Vandersteen 3A

There were many others that seemed okay, i.e. B&W, NHT. And some that have gotten good reviews but I have no idea why, Mirage, just put your speakers in a large bathroom.

The problem I had with the Thiels was the imaging height. The sound stage ended right at the height of the speakers, not just fade out gradually which would have been acceptable, but abruptly like a photograph with the top sliced off. Otherwise this is a great little speaker. I didn't hear the analytical sound with these that I hear with other Thiel speakers.

Apogees/Martin-Logans both have great qualities, great presence and natural detail on vocals and acoustic music, but after 30 to 45 minutes of listening an edgyness to the sound, a kind of metallic quality on the Apogees but harder to describe on Martin-Logins, made me long for Vandersteens.

Emminent Techgnology VIII's had a transparent midrange and nice dynamics, but the treble reminded me a little of my old Spica TC-50's. Too rolled off.

Vandersteen 3A's have a relaxed quality that makes long listening sessions pleasurable. Open and uncolored for a box speaker, they don't have a very detailed bass. Overall maybe not revealing enough?

The Magnepans don't have as much presence as the Apogees/Martin-Logans but they don't have the edgyness either. A little more relaxed presentation of detail like the Vandersteens but realistically detailed down into the bass. The perspective to me is like a large, open window into the performance rather than being right therew in the room that you get with the Apogees/Martin-Logans.
But the bass is more integrated than with the Martin-Logins, where the two types of drivers seem the least integraded to my hearing.

Three qualities I have come to appreciate are the natural sounding bass. No box is better than the best box when it comes to resonance. Acoustic bass just sounds real with no boominess, none, zero, nada, that comes with boxes. This is maybe why some have complained that they have no bass. Natural imaging. Some audiophile type speakers don't give a real sense of the instruments in space, they give artificially etched outline of the instrument in its acoustic space that I've never heard in live music. Transparency throughout the speakers range. Vocals sounds uncolored with both the male and female voice.

The negatives? The have to be out into the room 3 feet or more to sound their best. The overall sound is a little dark compared to the Thiels and Martin-Login. They are large, tend to dominate normal sized rooms visually.
I give them 41/2 stars.

Hope this is of use to the speaker shoppers out there.

Associated equipment:
Phillips CD player with Audio-Alcemy DDE 1.1
Yamaha MX630 Power Amp (Plan on upgrading.)
Home made line level preamp

I have the 1.5'sI am extremely happy with them, I will add that I wouldnt mind more bass depth but the realism and quality is superb. Possibly the 2.7s would improve the bass,

I concur completely with everything Timothy said. I have auditioned all of the speakers he mentioned, and I have EXACTLY the same impressions. I sure wish there was a way to get the Maggie sound in a speaker that could be placed one foot from the wall and was the size of the Thiel 1.5. (Those Thiels are great speakers but that image height thing is a slight drawback.) I can see why Jim used the midrange from the more expensive model as the woofer. The metal-cone driver used in the 1.5 is very special, indeed.
As far as the Maggies, all of their speakers are "best buys" in their price range IF you can place and feed them properly. But listen to a properly setup pair of Maggies with a large orchestral work using a top-grade frontend (vinyl, please) and electronics (powerful tubes, thank you) and your jaw will drop when you consider the Maggies' price tag.

I rate 5 stars for sound potential, but 4 stars for placement restrictions.

Nice unit. The sonic consistancy, clarity, & utter lack of physical standing waves was revealing. The sound was big w/o sounding unnaturally so. However, there is an infrequent reminder that the sound is made from mylar in a "quasi" ribbon construction. By this I mean that once or twice in an entire album you might hear the plastic getting taut thereby shattering its excellent balance of image & stage. I vote 4 stars, but haven't heard a 5.

Magneplanar 2.7 follow-up:
On May 25, 1997, I submitted a review of the Magneplanar 2.7 loudspeakers. In that review I commented at how their soundstage was abnormally proportioned and forward of the speaker plane. Also, I stated that I intended to step down to the smaller MG 1.5's and add a subwoofer. Suffice it to say, but I persevered and kept the 2.7's in spite of their preceived sound characteristics I mentioned. After all, what they did do, they did beautifully i.e. depth, space, tone, detail; I didn't want to part with that.

The reason I said preceived sound, is because the speakers no longer exhibit that characteristic. As it turns out, the speakers were not fully broken-in, resulting in the odd (but still pleasing) soundstage. Now, after 100 hours plus playing time, the speakers are performing flawlessly. I want to emphasize "performing," as these speakers absolutly melt and dissappear in the background, leaving nothing but the music and performers in front of you. This is a difficult task for a number of expensive mini-monitors, let alone a six foot tall, two foot wide by two inch thick panel.

Needless to say, I am over-the-moon with these speakers and thankful that I kept them. They truly are remarkable in every sense of the word. If you have ever experienced this kind of sound trait from a new pair of speakers, I cannot stress how important it is to refrain from any lasting comments until they are "fully" run-in. The difference can be startling.

If you are in the market for a five thousand dollar pair of speakers, buy the 2.7's and spend the remaining three thousand dollars on your music collection. Par excellence!

...Of the magnepan 2.7's sound:
As recent owner of the 2.7's, I have found the overall sound, while tonally pleasing, projects a soundfield with unusually large images. [readers of The Absolute Sound will recall in issue 107 where a similar anomaly was characterized by Paul Bolin during his review of the 2.7's and 1.5's] I hesitate to use the word "overblown" as this would mislead one in believing that the soundstage itself is excessive in size. It is not. Fundamentally, the soundstage is in proper perspective, with generous amounts of detail front to back and side to side. Localization of instruments within the soundstage is clearly defined and easy to follow, albeit a trace of upper midrange hardness. However, this may be as much a factor in my selection of ancillary components as anything else. It is this "size" of the image projections that I find disturbing. Solo brass instruments and vocals especially, project a huge sound unlike that of a properly proportioned soundstage. The term "larger-than-life" is applicable here. While I am not an engineer, I suspect that this characteristic is a result of the speakers crossover more than anything else. Some may find this characteristic appeling, I do not. It certainly adds to the sense of scale and drama of dance music in which it portrays with startling authority and weight. All other facets of this speakers sound are exceedingly good, and it doesn't seem to favor any one style of music over another, or one particular type of component to the next. Any reasonably priced, well designed component will do it justice. Of course, as with any increases in equipment quality, so to does the quality of sound increase. (read as sound quality, not sound quantity) The sound, however, does project forward of the speaker plane, whereas, some of the smaller Magneplanar models are more recessed. To summarize the overall sound of the 2.7's, would best be described in relationship to sitting in the audience during a live concert whereas you would be closer to the stage as more of a participant, as opposed to sitting further back and being a spectator. Although I thoroughly enjoy the 2.7's sound quality, I do intend to step down to the more scaled down 1.5's and add a subwoofer, but then that is yet another review. Take care when setting them up and enjoy the ride.

These are some great speakers. I own a pair of Magnepan .5 speakers and for a $995 I have not seen a pair of speakers that can touch them. I feel the same way about the 2.7s. The dipolar sound is excellent and the height of sound really makes for a wonderful speaker (as mentioned in the previous post). There are some minor problems I have with Magnepans that keep them out of the 5 star range. First, if Magnepan speakers are given an excessive amount of bass this can sometimes cause a "flapping" or "knocking" sound. I believe this is the ribbon hitting the mylar diaphragm. For home theater this can be a problem. However, if one adds a subwoofer and a high pass filter this problem can be eliminated. Finally, I wish Magnepan would start making some speakers with more useful speaker connectors. The ones they currently use are nice for someone who uses extremely thick speaker wire but for the rest of us it gets to be a real pain. Regular binding posts would be nice and most likely cheaper. However, they may have another reason for doing things this way that I am not aware of. Overall, I believe Magnepans to be the best speaker on the market. They really bring music to life.