[SteveFord]

Some of the planars made good this year:

Wayne Garcia - Magnepan 1.7
Dick Olsher - Martin Logan Summis X
Alan Taffel - Magnepan 1.7
Jonathan Valin - Magnepan 3.7
Harry Pearson - Magnepan 3.7

Congratulations to both companies, hope 2012 brings more of the same for you.

[SteveFord]

Last night I did some more recreational magazine flipping and one thing that really jumped out at me is the costs of the planars as compared to the conventional box speakers on the list.
Here goes:

Magnepan 1.7 - $1995
Magnepan 3.7 - $5495
Martin Logan Summit X - $13,995

YG Acoustics Carmel - $18,000
Vandersteen 5A (Carbon) - $24,000
Coincident Pure Reference Extreme - $26,800
Vandersteen Model 7 - $45,000
Magico Q5 - $65,000
MBL 101 MKII - $70,500
Verity Audio Lohengrin - $89,999
Rockport Technologies Altair - $97,500

[rw@cn]

I was going for the Summit but got the 1.7 (I think the 3.7 will be ordered soon). The price of the Summit was too high and I didn't like the looks. Besides which the 1.7 sounded better to me (not as much low end dynamics but seamless)

[Rclark]

Wow. According to people who own modded maggies, they apparently stand up well against those super pricey box speakers.

[josh358]

Yep. That's a big part of the reason they've been so popular over the years. In large part I think because it's a lot less expensive to build an MDF frame than a non-resonant, sound proof cabinet, and I think also to make a planar driver than buy an esoteric dynamic one. But also because Magnepan considers high bang for the buck, affordable products central to their corporate identity. Other companies that make planars, e.g., Apogee, haven't always been as price conscious. It's a lot easier to make a good sounding product using an "everything but the kitchen sink" approach, since you can use engineering overkill to achieve your goals -- just look at Magico. But when I talk to Wendell at Magnepan the first word that comes out of his mouth is "that's too expensive." OK, almost the first word -- the first word is "Hello," and the second words are "You were wrong about that . . . " .