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Old 09-10-2018, 06:53 PM
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ylee ylee is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2016
Location: Haymarket, VA
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So I had the thrill of hearing these personally at Gifted Listener Audio in Centreville, VA a week and a half ago. Source was the top notch Linn Klimax DAC, directly feeding somewhat of a lower tier but still excellent Ayre VX-5 Twenty stereo amp.

To my ears, these speakers sounded exceptionally musical. Big Maggies have always made me feel like I'm somewhere in the orchestra/band/ensemble, and this sensation is especially true with the 30.7. The sense of immersion with Magnepan's top of the line speaker is unparalleled in my experience. The tonal transparency is first rate and competes with any speaker I've heard. I will grant that I haven't heard multi-hundreds of thousands of dollar speakers with multi-driver arrays like the Wilson Chronosonic. But anything I've heard from $85k and below do not exceed the 30.7's tonal transparency and harmonic beauty. The overall balance of the frequency spectrum sounded very even to me.

Wendell Diller - Magnepan's traveling magneplanar evangelist, had the music cranked to pretty high volume. The speakers were very dynamic and did not exhibit any sense of compression. From jazz to folk to rock to classical, these speakers served all genres of music well or extraordinarily well.

Did I hear any shortcomings? Mainly just a couple:

1) Lacking dynamic cone drivers, the speakers lacked the ultimate in dynamic slam. Bass was clear, delineated, and present in abundance. But not of the kick-in-the-chest variety.

2) Also not as great compared to my Vandersteens (Vandys are known for image specificity) was the imaging/soundstage. Again, the 30.7s put you somewhere in the middle of the musicians whereas my Vandersteen Quatro Wood CTs put me in row 8 where I can point out where the different performers are left to right, and front to back.

But given the sheer musical excellence and dynamic nature of the 30.7s, I can easily overlook these two areas. They were an absolute joy to hear. So much so that I'm thinking about buying a pair in a few years. I imagine with a more refined amp such as a higher model from Ayre, the 30.7 will sound even more thrilling and beautiful. With the right associated components and acoustics, these speakers could be all some people need.

This brings me to an interesting thought. All audio equipment - especially speakers, have a unique sound that represent their creators' values and philosophy. It's akin to we humans having more than one model to represent nature depending on what aspect of it we wish to describe. In the audiophile sense, dipole planar speakers like Maggies represent one method/model of the "absolute sound," while other designs such as ones possessing dynamic cone drivers represent another. Theoretically, various designers attempting to reach an ever truer representation of the recorded event should converge. Yet some may find this unfavorable as we each hold differing values as listeners of recorded music. And thus, the variety we get from various designers/manufacturers is what makes this hobby interesting for me.
__________________
Primary System (Always in flux):
Analog Source: Rega RP10
Phono Preamp: Bryston BP2/PS3
Digital Software: Roon, Tidal Streaming
Digital Music Server: Melco N1A/2
Digital Sources: Totaldac d1-twelve SE MkII (factory upgraded from MKI) with "live power" 4 output power supply, Oppo UDP-205
Preamplifier: Rogue Audio RP-9 (factory upgraded from RP-7)
Amplifier: Vandersteen M5-HPA
Speakers: Vandersteen Quatro Wood CT w/IsoAcoustics Gaia 1 feet
Cabling: WW Platinum Starlight 7 digital wires, Totaldac Gigafilter USB filter, AQ Sky XLR, AQ Fire RCA
Speaker Cables: AudioQuest Oak spades ---> bi-wire spades
Power Cables: Esprit PC (for DAC), 2 WW Platinum Electra PC (Preamp/Phono Preamp), AQ NRG10 (Melco N1A/2), AQ Blizzard (Quatro Wood CT built-in subs)
Power Conditioning: 2 AQ Niagara 1000, 3 Oyaide R1 outlets
Sound Treatments: 23 ASC Tube Traps and 10 Panels

Last edited by ylee; 09-10-2018 at 11:47 PM.
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