My first experience with Magneplanar speakers (those Tympanis...ahhhhhh) was in 1979. A little brain food and 500 watts per channel was enough to convince methat SOMEBODY was doing SOMETHING right with speaker technology. Ok, the MMG's
aren't Tympanis, but 500 bucks gets you into that exclusive planar club (and yes
my friends, that IS cheap). The sound is big! Accoustic and vocal material excel
with these unique radiators although they do seem taxed with rock and other ultra-dynamic music. Any prospective buyers should be aware that the MMG's require power due to their low sensitivity. Also, careful consideration should
be given to the addition of a suitable subwoofer if one chooses to indulge in
rock, dance, etc. Let me give you an example of my set-up (which is NOT ideal
by any means).

My living room s_cks. The MMG's really should be at least 3 feet from the back
wall. Bass response will certainly suffer (greatly!) if that cannot be achieved
due to space limitations (God, am I payin'!) Anyway, I supplemented my MMG's with a Velodyne VA-1012 powered sub which integrates VERY nicely. From my experience so far, I would highly reccommend the VA-1012. Cut the Maggies off at 100Hz and let the sub do the rest. I currently am using a pair of Mcintosh MC-2100 amps bridged in mono (210 watts each...more than enough) controlled by a Mcintosh C-28 preamp. In this configuration (and in my crappy living room) the
MMG's do that voodoo that they do so well...vivid highs, smooth midrange and mid-bass with adequate punch.

These little gems are great entry-level audiophile speakers. Music coming from a box just doesn't sound natural. I am truly impressed. My friends are certainly
interested...

I have had the mmg's in my home for over 2 years and I must say for 500 bucks you can't go wrong with these speakers. Team them up with a good pre amp, tube amp and cd player with the music of your choice,then relax the mmg's will do the rest! For those of you who are on a budget, a Dynaco ST 70 is a wonderful match for the mmg's. Don't worry about not having enough power, in a reasonable size room, the 35 watt per ST 70 is more then enough for the mmg's. Sit back and enjoy the music.

I use the MMG's as center and rear channels in a Lexicon based system,7 channel, with Maggies all around. I use 3.5s lt,rt with 2.7s on the sides. All speakers are run full range, but they are augmented with 4 Genisis subs. The MMG's are great in their price range,$500 pr., but lack base below 50 hz. With a quick sub they are the best out there at that price, I would give thm a 3 on there own.

WOW,who would have thought 500 clams get's you a glimpse of the high end. After countless speaker changes(Paradigm,Pinnacle,Definitive,etc.) I have found a speaker that simply makes music (and an occasional movie too)! The sound's that come from these panels is nothing short of astonishing,the harmonics,the clarity,the overall coherence is simply unequalled at this price. There is an ease to the sound that is simply addicting,by comparison every other speaker within 3 times the price of these sounds like... mud? Well you decide, Magnepan gives you 60 days in your home to audition them(who else is that confident about their speakers)? Oh,I almost forgot,the bass,while not subsonic it is very tight and well defined and I'm driving these with an NAD711 receiver 40watts @ 8 ohms and 90 watts @ 4 ohms with no difficulty. In closing two things,first give them room to breath, a minimum of 3 feet from the back wall and second give them a couple of weeks to break in , they sound better with age. Enjoy!!!

I was recently in the speaker market looking to spend around $2,000 or so. I had narrowed it down to the maggie 1.6's and the Martin Logan Aerius i. The maggies were great, but they didn't sound very good with my Golden Tube SE-40 at 40 watts per channel. The Aerius did pretty good with them, but were a bit pricey. Well, someone advised me that the MMG's would do just what I wanted, would work find with my lower power amp, and would save me a bunch of cash. I was hesitant, because I was willing to spend more and wanted the best sound I could affort. But, I also wanted to get a home theater set up. I was very reluctant, but called magnepan and talked to them. I asked if I could use the 60 day in home trial as an audition, and they said that was fine. Well, they are sticking around. No, they do not sound as good as the Martin Logan's, but the Logan's do not sound $1900 better to me. The maggies have great imaging, a huge beutiful soundstage, and can handle anything you throw at them. I have played classial, jazz, rock, rap, and even a bass cd on them. The impressive thing is that even with huge amounts of bass, they still produce clean, detailed sound. I've seen many more expensive speakers lose it when I whip out the bass cd. The bass is great. By great, I do not mean loud, I mean defined and clean. It's enough bass for me, and you can alter the amount a lot by playing with positioning. In short, you're not going to find a speaker under $2,000 that can beat these for hi-fi sound.
5 stars if price is a factor, maybe 3 stars absolute because I've heard the Martin Logan Monoliths :)

Well, I am sitting here listening to my MMG's as I write and I must add my comments. I am only a week into my 60 day trial, but I can say that unless the sound drops off signifcantly, I am definetely keeping these wonderful speakers. Here is my setup:Alchemist Audio Forseti integrated amp, 100 wpc @8 ohms
Sony R500 DAT deck
Sony R300 DAT deck
Sony XA-20es cd player (soon to be upgraded to an hdcd unit)
MIT terminator 4 speaker cables
custom made belden/canare interconnects

I auditioned 4 different speakers and here is what I found. The speakers were all audtioned on classe equipment (amp and cd): martin logan sequel, martin logan aerius i, platinum audio solo, magneplanar 1.6.qr. Both sets of martin logan speakers were nice, but seemed to polish off the sound. They just did not accurately reproduce the sound. THe solos were just too boxy for me. As soon as I heard the electrostats, I knew I wanted the open sound, it just sounds far more natural to me. I was very impressed with the 1.6s and have read many favorable reviews of them, but these speakers were all too big and were out of my price range. I took a look on this website and figured I had nothing to lose with the MMGs. They arrived less than a week after I called magnepan. Small, and real wood sides (boy was I happy they weren't putty). I hooked them up in my small room and immeadietly gasped. Very accurate reproduction and not lacking in bass at all. Sure, if you are listening to rap, dance, house, etc. these may not be the speakers for you. Personally, I like accurate bass. I listen to a lot of funk, a lot of jazz, a lot of improvisational music. These speakers let me enjoy the interaction of the music. The treble/high end is just stunning. I think the bass is perfect. I am in a small room, and as I said, accurate bass is more important to me than heavy, loud bass. These speakers give you the magneplanar sound for almost nothing. I cannot believe that more people arent buying this product. Also for five hundred dollars, I cannot believe that anyone can say there is a better value in the audio world. These speakers simply cannot be beat at this price range. If I were to buy any other speaker, I'd be getting the 1.6s, but I'm not sure they're worth the extra grand. I think they're a great value too, but I'd rather upgrade my source equipment and buy some more cds. what other speakers can you say that with? I think of it this way, what other company is confident enough in their products to let you try them out? I think that says a lot about where these speakers are coming from. I'm in my slice of audio heaven right now. Yes, at some point I'll upgrade. But for the next 5 years or so, I can't see myself doing anything but smile, smile, smile. Thanks

I've had the MMGs for about a week now and am very pleased. I haven't auditioned competitive speakers but reading all the rave reviews I couldn't resist the low price and 60 day return deal. I have to admit I also wanted speakers whose appearance would amaze and confuse my friends and relatives.
I have them hooked up to an NAD C340 (50 W/channel) and an NAD CD player. I'm comparing them to my Klipsch Fortes hooked up to a Carver receiver (100W/channel) and Carver CD player. The Klipsch speakers have good reproduction across the whole frequency range and have a rich sound. Compared to them, the MMGs seem to have a background of utter silence against which clean, clear music appears. Loud notes from sopranos that cause an uncomfortable sensation on the Klipsch's are sweet and clear on the MMGs. Full orchestra crescendos don't have that strained sound characteristic of the other speakers I've listened to. Some passages that seemed to be background coloration on other speakers are in the foreground on the MMGs. The slight reverb that one might think is part of the signal listening to some other high end speakers is totally absent on the MMGs. The most striking thing, though, is the sound of the human voice: very vibrant and alive. This is especially impressive on tracks that emphasize good voices, obviously. Pop sopranos can sound a little harsh, while classically trained sopranos or pop/folk singers that just have amazing voices (the Silvertones, Mary Black) sound gorgeous.

The bass is quite adequate unless you have a bass fetish. I have them placed as kind of a partition between a dining area and the living room area, so they are far away from the back wall (but right next to the side walls to increase the spousal acceptance factor). The volume is way more than I need.

Magnepan must have read Erik's review because they came with real Oak trim (and black fabric). The 10.1's are narrower and would look classier in a living room but then you would need a high quality subwoofer.

I just got these Magnaplanar MMG and I love the sound. They work very wellwith my Yamaha 995 receiver. I haven't heard anything better under 2K.
The highs are crystal clear. There isn't as much bass, but it's plenty for me.

Good sounding with Velodyne 1012VX but the lacking of upper bass and low sens (about 82-83 dB in the real measurement) causes it to earn only 3 points from me.

I've had the MMGs for three weeks now, so I'm not quite half-way through the trial period Magneplaner allows. These baby Maggies are very impressive. With my mid-fi system, (Adcom GFP5300 amp with 125 w/ch into 4 ohm loads, Adcom GFP555II preamp, Denon DP 1250 turntable with a Grace tonearm and Ortofon cartridge, and an 11 year old, soon-to-be-replaced magnavox cd player), I'm hearing midrange and treble details in familiar recordings that I never heard with my 18 year old DCM Timewindows. But I found that in my listening room I had to insert the 1 ohm resistor into each speaker to tone down their overall brightness. I tried the 2 ohm resistor, but that dulled them too much, so I guess that there is no such thing as perfect, at least in this particular room. Bass, when present on the recording, is tight, clean and reasonably deep, but not gut-thumping. I have the MMGs positioned 6 feet apart, 3 feet out from the rear wall, pointed straight into the room, without any toe-in toward my listening position 11 feet away. That is the best placement I've found so far; toeing them in toward my listening chair made the the highs sound beamy. Both male and female voices are reproduced wonderfully; no coloration at all.
So what are the MMGs weaknesses? To my ears, there are several. 1) As noted above, they exhibit a slight bias toward the upper midrange/treble at the expense of the lower frequencies, at least in my listening room. 2) Complex music gets just a bit muddy, as if the speaker's ability to resolve difficult, information-laden waveforms was being overtaxed. 3) The soundstage lacks depth, which I found surprising given what is written in many of the reviews found below. 4) The lack of gut-thumping bass, as noted above. 5) They are very inefficient. I can drive the MMGs cleanly to fairly loud levels, but I wish I had another 100 w/ch or so to really let them open up and sing.

So...am I going to keep them? Well, yes. Unless, of course, I can persuade She Who Must Be Obeyed to allow me to spend almost twice as much on a pair of Magneplaner 12QRs.

If ratings were based on performance alone, I would give the MMGs only 4 stars. But in the real world, I rate on the basis of the tradeoff between price and performance. And on that basis, the MMGs truly rate 5 stars. To my ears, you would have to spend at least twice as much to get any meaningful overall improvement.

If you're in the speaker market, do yourself a favor: take Magneplaner up on its 60 day trial offer and audition the MMGs. I think you will find yourself very surprised.