How do the Magnepan 1.7's sound

Seems a little odd to me that it wouldn't sound "more different" from the 1.6 than some seem to be saying. I know it was a "show" room with all the attendant problems and all, and the center channel sure wouldn't help in simply evaluating the 1.7s on their own merit. But seriously...from a 2-way to a 3-way, planar to all quasi-ribbon, and supposedly significantly improved caps and other x-over parts would seem to indicate a more noticeably different sound compared to the 1.6 SHOULD be expected. I'm not necessarily saying better (although that should definitely be expected as well based on Magnepan's history), but certainly at least different.

I agree, they would have to sound different with the 3 way quasi setup.

A musical instrument like the 1.7's need to be evaluated in an appropriate environment and with commensurate electronics. In addition, playing crap through them at a show in a surround setup does little to convey their potential. They are QR's, 3 way with imrproved XO's and a more stable frame....Duh, of course they will sound better! Remember, a Maggie needs significant breakin time as well and should be noted when evaluating them.

I realize speaker sound is subjective, but I found with a nice sub, and a mills resistor, the 1.6's were about as good as any of the 4k-7k speakers Ive owned. Better in some areas, worse in others. Setup isnt hard once you get the right formula, but is insanely important to get these near there best. The supplied resistors stink. Im not one to buy into costly tweaks, but the mills are in another world then the.39 cent supplied resistors.

My ONLY GRIPES on the 1.6 stock sound is that they could use a little more low end(sub) and run pretty hot in the quasi's (resistors). Otherwise incredible. If only we could get a new 2.7 version of a larger bass panel 1.7 :)

Laterglas, I would agree with you. Just using logical thinking, the possibility of Manepan putting out a speaker that marginally surpasses a 10-year old model is highly unlikely.
What is more likely is that the speaker had good days and bad days, as is common at shows.
I worked with Jonathan Valin at Fi and know how his mind works. If he says the bass choirs remind him of the Magnepan 1-U in clarity and that was his benchmark of bass realism, to this day, then he was either high or correct. I vote for the latter. Manepan has never been the kind of company to put out incremental improvements: the adjustments are usually extremely significant. However, the electricity of any room at CES is suspect, depending on the time of day.
I trust Jonathan's assessment. The only caveat is that he likes smaller scale music and vocals, not symphonies (it would be nice if TAS used musical examples, complete with the version, as they once did) so that one could hear what they heard (system variances withstanding).
I find it exciting that a speaker can be good from 35 to around 300hz, where so much power lies. If the upper midrange is equally open, this should be a killer speaker!