All user reviews for the Magnepan magneplanar SMG

(Originally written by Bernard Ancèze/translated from Audiofanzine FR)

Electrostatic loudspeaker. The speaker is mounted on a wooden frame. The voice coil is not a coil but a streamer placed behind the speaker. This streamer, which is thin for the highs and thick for the lows, is protected by a fuse. It's a magnetic loudspeaker so it doesn't need a power supply. These SMG have 4 ohms of impedance like all Magnepan models. The amp must support a 4-ohm load and deliver 2 x 100 watts at 4 ohms. The low-frequency quality doesn't depend on the amp's power but on its ability to shape square waves (in the low frequency range). And this depends on the quality of the components and the amp's design. So it's better to use a well-designed 2 x 50-watt / 8-ohm amp than a big but inefficient amp that delivers 2 x 200 watts at 4 ohms. The cable quality also influences the sound, so use a good 4mm2 (AWG12) copper cable. When you listen to these speakers, you actually think the sound comes from the room where they are placed not from the speakers themselves. The sound isn't muffled and you don't have the sensation of being punched in the belly with kick drums or funky bass guitars. The sound is soft, wide, precise and free of any coloration, transients are accurate. Some people say they don't have enough low-end. But that depends on the amp and the quality of the speaker cables. I've moved 3 times with these speakers. I always use the following rules to place them: about 3 ft. away from the back wall (depending on the absorption grade of the wall) with 5 to 8 ft. between the speakers and far away from room corners. Floor resonance or absorption rate also influence the sound. I didn't even sell these speakers when I moved into a small apartment where I couldn't place them like I wanted, They sound great with acoustic music, chamber music, small jazz bands and vocals in general. They are very pleasant because they let you feel the space and they reproduce sound colors faithfully. I've been using them for 10 years and I previously had an Jean-Marie Reynaud OPUS pair. They sounded completely different but were also good. The SMGs have a narrower stereo field and less punch but they sound more faithful and pleasant and they are also less fatiguing than the Reynaud. The sweet spot is wide but the stereo imaging is narrow. If you move away from the sweet spot you'll lose the stereo effect but a sort of phantom image remains somewhere between and around the SMGs. I keep them in my music room which I use as listening place and a home studio so they are also my reference monitors.