Maggies or Martin Logans?


I think it is time to upgrade again and I am thinking about going with electrostatics. I don't know much about them other than I fell in love with a pair of Martin Logans at a local shop. My room is somewhat small (16' x 18') and I have 2 NHT 1259 home built subs so I am not concerned with low end. I would like to stay under $1200. Does anyone have a suggestion on what speakers would fit in my room and sound good? Is placement as critical as I have heard from others (more critical than regular tower speakers)? They will be used as mains in both two channel and HT. Thanks for the suggestions.
kemp
I really like both of these. I prefer the Martin Logans sans cone, but then they can be hard to drive become a bit bright and glassy and of course leave some thing to be desired in the bass region. But my oh my can they sound transparent and coherent. I strongly prefer the 3 series Maggies over the smaller ones. They are easier (not by a huge margin) to driive than the ML's. They don't have the coherence of the ML's (or other speakers for that matter) but their not too shabby either. I think the ML's are more startling but long term the Maggies might be easier to live with. I haven't heard them but the Eminent Tech's and the new Quads look promising.
I consistently over the years have preferred Maggies but I think this is almost totally a matter of individual taste. You can't really go wrong with either one.

Let us know what you decide.

will
I just went through this process myself. I think the Magnepan 3.6s are probalby more truthful, but they are also brutual on poorly-recorded material. I compared with the Ascent and Odyssey, and if I were *only* doing 2-channel, I think I might have ended up with the Maggies. But I can only get the stuff by the rest of the family if it works in the theatre, so we had to compare the surrounds too. And in this, both of the M-L centers just crushed the Magnepan equivalents. We ended up with Odysseys and a Cinema, due to the center channel situation, the fact that all of the M-L models are kinder to poor recordings (of which I have plenty), and because part of the family (me and the teenagers) likes more bass than the 3.6's present.