Magnepan LRS
A visitor to stereophile.com named billmilosz commented: “Compared to these, everything else sounded like it was coming out of a cereal box.”1 When I read that, I laughed out loud. That reader was responding to my AXPONA report about Magnepan’s new $650/pair Little Ribbon Speaker (LRS)—which I presume he also heard at the show.
Naturally, as a prattler who has long served at the altar of hyperbole, I was jealous of billmilosz’s simile. So I’ll try now to verify his observation—while fashioning a more thorough and maybe even philosophical description of Magnepan’s newest entry-level speaker.
Description
Magnepan’s more expensive speakers are available at 70 brick-and-mortar stores, but like the similarly sized MMGi that proceeded it, the LRS is sold factory-direct and through dealers, with a 60-day satisfaction guarantee. If you want to move up to one of the larger Magnepan speakers within a year of purchase, you’ll receive credit from Magnepan for your traded-in speakers, depending on the model you’re trading up to. Sounds like they’re cutting some new bait in White Bear Lake, Minnesota!
As Magnepan’s head bait-cutter, Wendell Diller, writes on their website, “The LRS is a full-range quasi-ribbon speaker that was designed from the ground up to give you a pretty good idea what to expect from the 20.7 or 30.7. The LRS was designed using high-end electronics and monoblocks. The LRS will perform nicely with a receiver, but it was intentionally designed to extract the most from high-end amplifiers and electronics. The LRS expects more from a properly designed high-current amplifier.
