Not every speaker we sell is easy to sell. The Magnepan LRS+ are one of those cases. That is exactly why I like them.
When a customer walks in looking for "good speakers", the image in their head is almost always the same: a box, two or three round drivers, the bigger the better. The Magnepan LRS+ dismantle that image in seconds. They are magnetic planar panels, thin as a door, tall as a person, with no cabinet at all: just an ultralight diaphragm held in a frame, vibrating directly with the signal from the amplifier. The first reaction of almost every customer is the same: "is this really a speaker?"
It is. And it is one of the most honest ones that come through the shop.
What changes when there is no box
A traditional speaker produces sound from a cone pushing air inside a sealed or ported cabinet. That cabinet, however well it is built, always leaves its signature on the sound: resonances, coloration, a certain "boxiness" you hear even when you do not notice it. A planar panel like the one in the LRS+ has no such box. The diaphragm is so light that it reacts to the signal with almost no inertia, and the result is a cleanliness in the midrange and upper midrange that conventional speakers, even far more expensive ones, struggle to match. Voices sound less "reproduced" and more present; string and wind instruments gain a texture usually associated only with equipment that has another zero on the price tag.
There is also the disappearing act. And that is not a figure of speech. Properly positioned, away from the rear wall as these panels demand, the LRS+ stop sounding like two speakers placed in the room and start sounding like a single continuous soundstage between them. I closed my eyes several times during testing just to confirm that the voice I was hearing was not coming from anywhere in particular: it simply came from the middle, from the air.
Who they are for, and who they are definitely not for
Here is the part I prefer to say before any customer asks, because I think that is what impartial advice requires: the LRS+ are not for everyone. And we do not pretend they are.
They will not hit you in the chest with bass. Their dipole nature, radiating sound forward and backward in opposite phase, means the deepest bass simply does not behave as it does in a sealed-box speaker. Anyone coming from a system oriented toward action movies or heavily electronic music will feel the difference on the very first track. They need space around them, ideally half a meter or more from the rear wall, which not every room in Portugal can offer. And, because they are a less conventional electrical load, they do not get along with just any amplifier: they clearly benefit from electronics with good current delivery, not necessarily many watts on paper, but the ability to control the load without strain.
That said: for anyone who listens mostly to acoustic music, jazz, voice, classical, or who simply values transparency and naturalness more than the physical impact of bass (and has the room and the patience to position them well), the LRS+ offer something very few speakers in this price range (€1,690) can: the feeling that the loudspeaker has ceased to exist and only the recording remains.
They are not my recommendation for every customer who walks into the shop. They are, without a doubt, the right recommendation for the right customer. And those customers, once they hear them, usually already know they want them before I say the price.