Quote Originally Posted by Feanor
At US$550 they are huge bargain, though their value is diluted by the near necessity of using a subwoofer. The sub is virtually necessary, not only for rock, but also for classical orchestral cresendos.

The MG 12s are significantly better and the Magneplanar MG 1.6QRs are much better still, though they're still not rockers. Of course the 12s are twice as much and the 1.6's are almost 4 times the price.
I would have considered the 12's but the trade in plan didn't allow that option.

The 1.6's do go considerably louder cleanly but do require mucho power as opposed to the MMG's. They sucked the poor old 214 dry and it was easily audible on peaks. ...a loud KA-RAK when the rail voltage was exceeded. My heart stopped each time I heard it A Rotel RB-991 solved that problem but, with 300 watts at four ohms, it damn well better. It was a heckuva lot cheaper than a defibrillator.

One other benefit with the 1.6's... I run them full range and have the sub n parallel with the preamp outs to the power amp and use only it's low pass feature, I have it set at 45 - 50 hz so it only fills in the very bottom end. The 1.6's are polite enough to simply not even try to reproduce what they aren't comfortable with.

Asa system, it provides a clean, loud (as I would ever want), dynamic, wide range listening experience. On the right music it's almost spooky how well it emulates reality.