agnepan’s Wendell Diller and his wife, Galina, passed through St. Louis, where I live, in late July, and they invited me and my wife to a small listening party to audition the new LRS+ speaker ($995 per pair). As an owner of the original LRS, I was excited to hear the newest version, and Wendell also promised "a surprise" during the party. There was more than one. The first was that our host was longtime Magnepan fan, Joe “Mama” Mason, who is rock-radio royalty, as a former DJ for KSHE in St. Louis. The second surprise was guest Lauren Elwell, who currently hosts the Afternoon Drive and Monday Night Metal shows on KSHE. Having hard-rock DJs and audiophiles at the same listening party made for a lively evening.
There are a few changes to the LRS+ to distinguish it from the original LRS, which stands for "little ribbon speaker." It is priced higher and Magnepan is offering a 60-day return option if the buyer isn’t satisfied. The grille sock will be offered in black or off white. Also, as you can see in the pictures, there are proper sturdy feet available for $289 per pair, and they raise the speaker about 4” off the floor. I’ve never liked the wobbly L-shaped legs that came standard with my LRSes, so Magnepan’s offering of an upgrade is appreciated. Sharp-eyed readers may notice that LRS+ looks a bit more svelte. The panel is actually 1” narrower than the previous model. Magnepan is famously tight-lipped about design details. When I asked what other changes had been made, Wendell would only say that the new model is capable of greater low-level resolution and that this difference is measurable. I couldn’t judge that during the listening party, with an unfamiliar system, but some aspects stood out. We listened to a wide variety of music over the night and, just as with the original LRS, orchestral winds, clarinets, oboe and flute were spot on in timbre and easy to follow inside large orchestral music swells. String sections had good layering and a touch of sweetness to their sound. Switching to an SACD of Cat Stevens’ Tea for the Tillerman [Analogue Productions CAPP 9135SA], Lauren Elwell was quick to note that Stevens’ voice was strongly centered between the speakers and the sound was filling up the living room nicely.
When Joe Mason was playing the CD of Traffic's The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys [Mobile Fidelity 609] at full volume, Wendell interrupted our session with the acknowledgement that bass slam with this type of music isn’t fully reproduced by the LRS+. To be fair, Mason’s living room is quite large and he typically uses a pair of Magnepan 3.7s to fill the space. Wendell invited us to refresh our drinks in the kitchen while he hooked up "the surprise." When we returned, we were treated to a set of Magnepan subwoofers. The waist-high, fabric-covered column pictured behind the LRS+ is actually a V-shaped, open-baffle, unpowered sub. Each face houses four 6 1/2" woofers, for a total of eight per enclosure, and Wendell had brought two for the demonstration, totaling sixteen woofers in the room. He indicated that these subs are a turning point for the company. Magnepan had not felt that traditional subwoofers were able to integrate well with their speakers. With the introduction of the LRS+, they had a subwoofer that could keep up with the speed of the panels as well as match the dipole radiation. I didn’t really expect much from sub's the modest enclosure. To add to the surprise, Wendell said he would demonstrate the subs full range, something he doubted any other subwoofer manufacturer would do. Apparently each woofer’s response extends to almost 10kHz, so we would hear nearly full-range sound. Even so, I was pretty skeptical that these little columns would do very much in such a large room. Powering the subs were two channels of an Adcom five-channel amplifier. As "Chonlima" from Kodo [Sheffield Lab CD-KODO] began, my eyes widened. Unbelievable power and slam assaulted my ears. No compression, no strain, just wooden mallets on skin-headed drums pounding in the room. The system was certainly playing at lease-breaking levels, so it was a good thing Joe had alerted his downstairs neighbors. My eyes were looking at these small towers that might be mistaken for some sort of acoustic treatment, yet my ears were hearing rock-concert-level drum whacks. What a surprise. Wendell says this is the final version of the subwoofer
was first introduced for the "30.7 for condos" road trips he undertook in 2019.
An amplifer that includes DSP to integrate the sub with Magnepan speakers wasn’t
available for the listening party. It would have been interesting to hear the LRS+
augmented by the Magnepan subwoofer and such an amp. Although a price has not been
determined at this point, Wendell did say the subwoofer would be available with finished
cosmetics by the end of the year. With the introduction of the new LRS+ and forthcoming
open-baffle subwoofer, it’s obvious that big things are happening at Magnepan. |
