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Magnepan 1.7 speakers (asking for a friend)

Hello, this question is for a friend who's considering Magnepan 1.7 speakers. I've not tried Maggies in 20+ years, and not as familiar with the new generations Magnepan like the 1.7 model, can imagine they may have improved some...  

>>Hoping others with 1st hand experience with these recent generations speakers from Magnepan might reply<<. 

New Magnepan 1.7
Room: 14'x19'
Amps: Tube, Mono, Ultralinear, custom 60-80wpc
Positioning: various ways

Questions:
How far apart in a 14' room works for you, with open sides/pockets?
How far from the front wall?
Low capacitance speaker wire matter?
Other thoughts?

No need reply about tube vs solid state amplification, have plenty to test but this will be for tube amps primarily. Thanks in advance, will be happy to pass along your comments. 

decooney
corelli
1,016 posts
 
I had the 1.7's in two different rooms, one larger and one smaller than yours.  In the smaller 13x15' room, they were nearly half way out into the room and I sat right against the rear wall.  Great imaging with bass reinforcement.  In the larger room room they were roughly 1/3 out from the front wall, I sat 2/3 from the front wall.  Equilateral triangle arrangement.  Worked very well also.  The critical thing is getting them off of the front wall (the front wall is the wall you look at)  
I doubt you will be lacking for power nor do I think you need esoteric cable to get fine results--I used Supra Rondo 4x4.0.
decooney OP
2,181 posts
 
Hello All, the experience and added use-case scenarios will be passed along. Interesting placement variation so far with the different room sizes. Thanks.  
mvrooman1526
43 posts
 
Have 1.7’s in a room slightly larger than your friends with a vaulted ceiling. I played around with positioning for about a month and landed on 32" from the front wall (measured from the tip of the foot closest to the wall). Any further and the bass dropped way off. Place tweeters to the outside. I would start by spacing the speakers 60% of the distance your friend is sitting away from them. This is stated in the Magnepan manual and I ended up pretty close to that after the month of playing around.
russ69's avatar
russ69
3,529 posts
 
Depending on the amps and volume expectations, maybe. I run the MMGs with a Prima Luna integrated at 42 watts and it works well but the 1.7s like more power than that. May I recommend the Martin-Logan ESL? Easy to locate, can be closer to the front wall, easy to drive and much more efficient. 
decooney OP
2,181 posts
 
THANKS to all for the feedback. Very helpful and saved valuable time.

Appears the 4ohm 86db 1.7s might be a bit much to handle for my buddy’s smaller EL34 tube amp, in a tad larger open room setting. While he does not crank it up much, he and his wife also do a lot of "walk around" listening adjacent in the kitchen just behind the great room area, not always seated directly in front of the speakers. He tried some lower cost horn speakers for 30 days and was not thrilled having to consider upgrading brand new speakers, so he sent them back.

To get by for a few months while looking, he’s now experimenting with updating and modding some older Vienna Acoustics Mozart 2.5 speakers he received from a family member for free, for now. Will keep looking. Thanks!


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