Magnepan announces the 20.7


Jacob Heilbrunn has a first look on The Absolute Sound's site.

"But here’s the skinny: no other speaker at this price will offer even remotely similar lifelike performance, and it should—no, will—scare the bejeezus out of most of its competitors. It’s no accident that Audio Research, which I also got to visit, has 3.7 loudspeakers as part of its reference system. So go ahead. Search for another loudspeaker. But I can only wish you good luck. I defy you to find one at up to five times the cost with the scale and realism of the 20.7."

http://www.avguide.com/blog/first-listen-magnepan-s-new-flagship-207-loudspeaker
josh358
I am already trying to save up for them....
I think a pair of 20.7s would be just right for my apt.
LOL.. really...
thanks for the heads up!

interesting read

I think it is impressive that Magnepan has kept the pace like it has for over thirty years.
Well, this is just great. I just took delivery of my new 3.7's 2 weeks ago, now I have the upgrade bug before my 3.7's are even close to being broken in. My only piece of mind is knowing if I went with the new 20.7, I'd have to upgrade my house. The 20.7's aren't going to fit in any room I have. It is really nice seeing some American companies excelling in value.
I have nothing but respect for Magnepan who makes great speakers for very fair prices. I have been a MG-20 owner for close to 20 years and still find my bi-amped and Myestand pair to compete with virtually any speaker on the market.

However the hype about the new .7 series speakers, not by Magnepan, but by the high end reviewers is starting to get a little absurd. The 1.7's and the 3.7's are not transformational steps above the 1.6's or 3.6's but evolutions on this generation of speakers.

I have heard both generations of speakers and the new .7 series does not "kill" the .6 speakers, they are different, but not necessarly significantly better. For a matter of fact the 1.6's and 3.6's allowed the user the option to bi-amp either speaker. The new 1.7 and 3.7 does not allow this option anymore, it is not clear if the new 20.7 will or will not have this option. I have never heard either 1.6's, 3.6's, 20's, or 20.1's ever sound their best when they were not bi-amped and had to use the rather poor passive X-over that comes with the speaker.

At least three individuals that I know wanted to upgrade from their bi-amped 3.6's to 3.7's and found the performance of the 3.6's bi-amped compared to the 3.7's with their passive x-overs, chose not to make the move because they thought the performance of the 3.6's bi-amped was still better then the 3.7's.

They are all great speakers and bargains for what they cost, however if I was in the market right now and could get either a pair of 3.6's or 20.1's for what they are being sold for and then Myestand and bi-amp them I would have one of the best performing speakers for a very reasonable price.

So I want to be clear the 1.7's, 3.7's, and new 20.7's are terrific speakers and well worth the money, but not "heads and shoulders" over the last generation of Magnepans as the always looking to create a buzz highend reviewers would have you think.