On March 8 I attended Definitive Audio's 13th annual Music Matters Open House. I've been going to it ever since their first one in 2006, though I've missed a 3 or 4 along the way.
This year, even though time was tight and my energy was low, I had to get to this one, because Magnepan, maker of panel speakers (and my speaker of choice) was going to demo their new balls-to-the-wall flagship speaker for the first time, the 30.7. It's a four-piece system, with two panels per side. The bass panels are 29.5 inches wide, the midrange/tweeter panel is 16 inches wide, and each panel is 6.5 feet tall. However, overall weight and mass are relatively modest as the panels are only 2 inches thick!
It also weighs 125 lbs. and costs $22,000. It's rated at 300 wpc into 8 ohms and 600 wpc into 4 ohms. The Magnepans are 4-ohm speakers so we were listening to 600 watts on tap for the entire presentation.
We listened to some excellent first-gen high-res digital files, but the real treat was the analog front end, an $11K Clearaudio Innovation Wood turntable fitted with the DS1 Master1 optical cartridge. No, it doesn't read the record with a laser; it has a fairly conventional cantilever and stylus which traces the groove. The optical part is that inside there are no magnets or coils, but rather an internal photo sensor that tracks the movements of the cartridge cantilever. Because of the tricky electronics, it works only with DS Audio's purpose-built phono preamp that can amplify the signal generated by the photo sensor.
I mention all the upstream minutia because feeding such a low-noise, dynamic, and pure signal to the Magnepans dramatically showed off what they can do. That optical cartridge quickly shows how much electronic noise is in magnets 'n' coil cartridges, because the DS1's noise floor must be somewhere near zero.
The vendors played a high res mastering and pressing of a Count Basie big band LP that started with the piano/bass/guitar/drums rhythm section laying out a groove, and then exploding with the entire brass section. The room-filling dynamics were stunning, but then, so was the realistic sound--no boomy boxes, no nasal-sounding suckouts at crossover frequencies, no tizzy tweeters with irritating ringing or overshoot. It's an entirely different experience when the vibrating diaphragms occupy so much area, make microscopic excursions, and are so light they weigh less than the air they displace, and all with no boxy resonances or colorations. Plus Magnepan's radiating pattern mimics real voices and instruments and energizes the room like live music.
Out of the 10 or so open houses I've gone to at Definitive, this was one of the most realistic reproductions of live music I've ever heard, and at $29,000/pair, the 30.7s are 1/6 the price of the other speakers that also achieved that sensation.
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JohnnyB
On March 8 I attended Definitive Audio's 13th annual Music Matters Open House. I've been going to it ever since their first one in 2006, though I've missed a 3 or 4 along the way.
This year, even though time was tight and my energy was low, I had to get to this one, because Magnepan, maker of panel speakers (and my speaker of choice) was going to demo their new balls-to-the-wall flagship speaker for the first time, the 30.7. It's a four-piece system, with two panels per side. The bass panels are 29.5 inches wide, the midrange/tweeter panel is 16 inches wide, and each panel is 6.5 feet tall. However, overall weight and mass are relatively modest as the panels are only 2 inches thick!
For scale, that "little" silver box on the floor is the amplifier used to power the speakers for the demo. It's the D'Agostino Progression stereo amplifier, 18"wx20"dx7.5"h.
It also weighs 125 lbs. and costs $22,000. It's rated at 300 wpc into 8 ohms and 600 wpc into 4 ohms. The Magnepans are 4-ohm speakers so we were listening to 600 watts on tap for the entire presentation.
We listened to some excellent first-gen high-res digital files, but the real treat was the analog front end, an $11K Clearaudio Innovation Wood turntable fitted with the DS1 Master1 optical cartridge. No, it doesn't read the record with a laser; it has a fairly conventional cantilever and stylus which traces the groove. The optical part is that inside there are no magnets or coils, but rather an internal photo sensor that tracks the movements of the cartridge cantilever. Because of the tricky electronics, it works only with DS Audio's purpose-built phono preamp that can amplify the signal generated by the photo sensor.
I mention all the upstream minutia because feeding such a low-noise, dynamic, and pure signal to the Magnepans dramatically showed off what they can do. That optical cartridge quickly shows how much electronic noise is in magnets 'n' coil cartridges, because the DS1's noise floor must be somewhere near zero.
The vendors played a high res mastering and pressing of a Count Basie big band LP that started with the piano/bass/guitar/drums rhythm section laying out a groove, and then exploding with the entire brass section. The room-filling dynamics were stunning, but then, so was the realistic sound--no boomy boxes, no nasal-sounding suckouts at crossover frequencies, no tizzy tweeters with irritating ringing or overshoot. It's an entirely different experience when the vibrating diaphragms occupy so much area, make microscopic excursions, and are so light they weigh less than the air they displace, and all with no boxy resonances or colorations. Plus Magnepan's radiating pattern mimics real voices and instruments and energizes the room like live music.
Out of the 10 or so open houses I've gone to at Definitive, this was one of the most realistic reproductions of live music I've ever heard, and at $29,000/pair, the 30.7s are 1/6 the price of the other speakers that also achieved that sensation.
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