[SteveFord]

New TAS is here with a bunch of planar write ups - new Super Duper MMGs, Martin Logans, who knows what else is in there.
Time to take a break from beating on motorcycles with the magic hammer and catch up on my reading. 

[jimdgoulding]

One thing that is in there is an article about Joe Harriot.  He was to the other side of the pond as Ornette Coleman was to this side in the same period.  I have his Free Form CD.  Had a couple of his records way back.  I think it is a class act that he is written about.  And, of course, there is plenty to drool over in this issue of Golden Ear Award components.  I could be happy with that Parasound phono pre, I'm pretty sure. 

Amended to say "Form" instead of From, duh.

[SteveFord]

A very positive review with precious little technical information - not surprising on both counts.
I wish he would have had a set of normal MMGs on hand along with some 1.7s in order to offer a side by side comparison.
Just how much of a step up does the extra dough buy you?

I thought of a few people here with the mention of the Tympanis 1-Ds...

On the other end of the price spectrum is the Martin Logan Summit X at 15 grand.
I can picture owning the Super Dupers, the Summit X, not so much.

[rbbert]

Really?  At $15k the Summit X's seem competitive...

[SteveFord]

You mean to tell me that if I just add another zero to this check I can get the Summit Xs? 
Well, uh, okay...

I have to laugh, my semi-annual raise was (no kidding) seven cents per hour.
In January we're up for the big double digit payday (thirty cents an hour) so I'll be livin' large, oh yeah.
Just think, that will help to offset a small portion of my weekly Union dues!
Unless they go up, of course, which is a distinct possibility.

We now return to our regularly scheduled program, the Super MMG System.
Has anyone here ordered one?

[dpump]

I think it is a fairly poorly written review. As was said above, few technical details and had to be very confusing for those with little or no knowledge of Magnepans. He talks about it being a planar magnetic with quasi-ribbon tweeter. Then it has a series of evenly spaced wires glued to a low-mass Mylar diaphragm. Then he says the diaphragm is suspended between magnets and the quasi-ribbon is also Mylar film? Makes it sound like there are 2 different diaphragms-one for the planar-magnetic and one for the quasi ribbon.

First of all, the diaphagm is not suspended between magnets-the magnets are on the back of the panel. There are no magnets in the front of the speaker. The Mylar diaphragm is one piece and the bass planar-magnetic wires and the tweeter aluminum foil wires are both glued to the same diaphragm. He doesn't even clearly say that the planar-magnetic wires are for the bass and the quasi-ribbon foil is for tweeter. A picture or the panel without the cover would have been worth a lot here.

He then precedes to listen to the Super MMG without the DWM? Why would you do this when it is sold as a system? You're listening to the Super MMG-with a somewhat rolled off bass so it will work with the DWM-as a stand alone speaker. Don't know what this proves.

And it's very simple to connect a single or double DWM. Just run speaker wires from your amp to the DWM or DWMs and then from there to the Super MMGs. Now if you're using speaker wire from a roll of wire this might be doable. But how many people have another set of speaker wires like our main speaker wires we are using now to accomodate this? That should have been discussed as an added expense with this system.

Now, I really am glad the absolute sound continues to review and praise Magnepans. That's the reason I have 1.6QR and older MMGs. Stereophile barely acknowledges Magnepans exist, much less recommends them. It just seems the review standards are not quite as rigorous as they used to be. Most of these reviewers are writing for multiple publications now and I think they may be trying to do too much. I appreciate the review, I just think it could have been better.