Magnepan 1.7 w/ Tubes & lots of Class D Power


Recently I stepped down from Martin Logan Summit Xs to Magnepan 1.7s. Was it a step down? Yes. Less of everything from the Xs (except warmth), but not bad and actually pretty good.

I am running the 1.7s with a Rogue Audio Athena (tube) preamp with upgraded Mundorf Silver Oil Capacitors and Wyred 4 Sound SX-1000 (class d) monoblocks. A Lexicon RT-20 Universal Disk player is my primary source. I also use a Velodyne SPL-1200 sub.

I do not see a lot of these types of set ups. Actually, most "audiophiles" that I encounter frown on the entire system. To each their own. I love it. Open and clean with lots of seperation and detail. And incredibly smooth and warm. Anyone else out there with a similar set up?

Any tweeks for the 1.7s? I am thinking of changing the fuses and jumpers.
128x128tabascocat1994
Don't waste your money on jumpers for the 1.7... when you remove the speaker jack panel you can easily direct connect the wires together on the back of the panel eliminating a useless jumper that adds coloration when used. Do replace the capacitors in the crossover with better ones, they come with a 10uf Axon for the "super" tweeter, and a combination of 4 for the mid range (6.8 ERSE, 10 R.T.I, 25 Axon, 75 no-name in uf values). I've replaced the 6.8 with a Mundorf Supreme, and the 75 with an Axon resulting in better percussion sounds, and greater depth in tone color details. I have clarity caps on order for the super tweeter 10uf to try to get more resolution /sweetness in the extreme treble. Haven't figured out yet where to get a quality 1.4mh copper foil inductor for the bass as thats an uncommon value. Dueland makes them but $360 a side is pretty steep.
I can relate to your system.

I recently acquired new MG 1.7s and driving them with W4S ST-500 for the moment (and W4S DAC-2 with no preamp in between)
I went to the Magnepans after 3 yrs with the ML Source (everything else same).

In my other place i still have ML SL3's driven by a Bryston and Theta gear, so generally i have an affinity to planar speakers.

Also the first thing i got was jumpers. I am using DH-Labs Q10 in all my systems (Logan and Magnepan) and had jumpers made from the same material for the 1.7. At first the provided U-jumpers do seem to have a bit tizzy sound to them. Depending on the break-in time you give to the Magnepans you may feel occasionally some instruments rich in HF (say strings) being positioned much closer to the listener, than the rest of the instruments. This was remedied with the custom jumpers.
Actually in my case, one of the twitter jumpers was missing its allen screws from the factory (but the jumper was there) and i didn't notice it before 2 weeks had passed (LOL!!). I had always felt the image off-center for some reason and then when i finally noticed that the U-jumper was not securely fixed. By that time i received the custom jumpers so that took care of imaging, balance and tizziness but without losing resolution at the HF. I also have Synergistic fuses in order for the 1.7s.

In any case, i've been able to get a very good center image on the 1.7's driven by the W4S. Great soundstage and dead quiet background. In some ways it is very very close to the ML sound but with very different dispersion pattern which you can tell when moving off-center. Sometime in the future i will probably go for a Bryston as well for the 1.7s but so far no major shortcomings at my listening levels (reasonably high volume but not deafening..) Sometimes with the MG 1.7 you almost feel that the time slows down and you are able to delve into the music and pick up individual cues, reverberations etc. This is similar to my SL3 system perhaps due to comparable panel size.

Best,
I've always thought the best tweaks for Maggies was placement adjustments, and a bigger amplifier...