Aroma: Since I suggested people look into Albert's writings here to learn about his progress of the Dali vs. his long time Soundlabs, I feel obligated to respond to many of your points:
1) The issue of why Albert changed from the Soundlabs: Rather than throw a lot of speculation as to the details of price of the competition, reliability of what he owned, or the deals he may have gotten on his latest components, why not let him speak this for himself? You do a big disservice by saying all this and then you close with the comment that if your speculations and comments are incorrect, you would like him to answer why he has changed to the Dalis. With your "delivery", who would be motivated to share in return?
And you've got to be kidding that such an audiophile would not buy the Magnepans because he did not get a discount. Please review his system, add up the cost of the products, and then see if you feel the same way. Is someone who has invested in a highly resolving $100k+ system for years and years going to push aside a product that might be THE perfect match because they did not get a few thousand dollars discount? Just one of his interconnects costs more than your speculative discount "that he did not get". Come on, be serious. Common sense went out the window on this one!
2) The issue of fairness and how "unknown" audiophiles are not treated fairly: Hello! What about magazine reviewers? IMO, they do not provide remotely the value of experience and willingness to share as Albert and others have done here. So please take a closer look at who has special treatment here. If it is to a business's advantage to give certain people a reduction in the cost of a product, then you can be certain they will do so. It's called advertising! And with all the exposure and respect that people like Albert get here, you can be be assured many people, including myself, take very seriously what he writes here. This would indicate that such an audiophile would be a prime candidate for which companies could expose their products. But again, why not let him address this rather than throw out your comments?
3) The issue of Magnepan 20.1s vs. Soundlabs: As I wrote before, I owned the series 3.x for 6 years and absolutely loved them. And when I heard the 20s, in the same system minutes later, they too were wonderful but just a marginal improvement over the 3.x. Yes, the difference was marginal.
In my view, the 3.x Maggies have no competition for the price point unless you need a more dynamic system. Where else can you pay less than $4k for such awesome sound? But once you hit the $10k+ range, such as the series 20, it's a different story. The Soundlabs are in a very different class altogether. The Maggies sound compressed, muffled, minimal bottom octave extension, lacking inner detail in the trebles, etc., etc., compared to the Soundlabs. This is NOT subtle at all. And again, this is coming from a long time Maggie diehard. So why on earth would someone who tweaks his sources, electronics, cables, speakers, etc., to significant levels beyond the off-the-shelf variation, move from the SL's to the Maggies? IMO, Maggies would be a huge step in the wrong direction in virtually every sonic attribute for such a system.
4) Comparing Maggies to other speakers like Avalon, B&W, etc.: Unless you heard these speakers back to back in the same exact system, such comparative comments have little merit. I heard B&W 802's at my home against my Maggie 3.3s and the B&Ws were VERY musical and natural but I prefered the Maggies for their midrange presence. The Thiel 3.6 and 2.3 that I used in my HT system were way too analytical compared to the Maggfie musicality. But I would be very careful to make comments on any Avalon models as my gut feeling tells me they would destroy the Maggies in many of the same sonic attributes as the Soundlabs over the Maggies.
5) The issue of Magnepan not having "home" dealers: I respect this but time and time again, the most impressive systems I have heard have been either at dealers who work from their home or at homes of other audiophiles. The home environment is far more stable from day to day vs. a shop with many rooms with ever-changing gear. And the home environment much more closely resembles what we will experience in our own system. Soundlabs does this and clearly with great success.
John
