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Magura pads rubbing is mostly a symptom of their MT7 caliper seal design. If you look closely they don't retract the pistons as far as most other brakes on the market which makes caliper alignment and having a straight rotor incredibly important. Even their own MT5 is more forgiving in this regard. But I've heard that it's a deliberate choice by Magura to tune the feel of the brake. When you combine it with MDR-P rotors and the rivets wear out it sounds like a washing machine with a brick inside.

Yeah fair point. If you like the Magura feel then it's an asset for you. I also never liked Sram brakes but the Mavens are different enough that I kind of like - although not love - them. They feel pretty good once you get a good bleed and reduce the bite point wandering. But this is exactly the kind of weakness I'm used to after owning many Shimano sets.

I have the RT66's you paired with the MT420 set on my commuter and I run organic pads on the bike. They're pretty noisy but at least I can't overheat them riding flat terrain. Haven't had any noise like that with the XTR rotors and sintered pads on the DH bike which is opposite of what I'd expect. On the other hand they did warp so much doing park laps that I had to throw them away because truing them so many times made me uncomfortable.

They offer the same modulation, you just have to be more precise because they are very direct and ramp up fast. Maguras feel like I'm pulling on a heavy duty rubber band. Even though they stop the bike just fine, I don't like that feel because I'm not used to it. To me it feels similar to Shimano with some air in the system. If you have built the muscle memory for such a brake it's no surprise you can struggle with Shimano because it needs completely different inputs to achieve the same thing. I actually went to Mavens from...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG4H1Ajcqao I tried every method I found and this worked best so far. The bite point still moves a bit for the first two lever pulls after the bike sits for a longer period of time. But it stays consistent while riding. I obviously used the correct fluid and only replicated the process.