Maggie 1.7i's lack detail. Ideas?
Hi,
In about 1979 I had a roommate who had a pair of Magnapan's, an amp, pre-amp (at least one of which was NAD, and a fairly high quality turntable. I was shocked and amazed about the feeling the singers were present in the room with me. The accuracy and detail of the sound.
Fast forward 40 years and I purchase a barely used 1.7is. I have a new Marantz NR1200. A 15 yo BK EX-440 Sonata (350WPC @ 4 ohms), and optical bit stream out Sony DVD player. I use optical cable between the DVD player and NR1200. I have fairly high quality cables between the pre-out of the NR1200 and the EX-440. I have somewhat high gauge copper stranded cable, about 6', between the EX-440 and the speakers.
The sound is not bad but very much lacking the detail and immediacy I remember in the highs and mid-range. A great disappointment. My question is what the most likely culprit?
Some possibilities:
1. My hearing has declined.
2. I've a romanticized memory of the sound quality.
3. What I was hearing was the mushrooms.
4. The speakers my roommate had were a bit wider. Maybe more like the 3.7s. Maybe 40 year old 3.7s are just that much better than current 1.7is.
5. Stranded wire cables.
6. Turntable that much better than CD.
7. ????
I suspect also that back in 1979, when the maggies were on of only a few panel speakers and sounded so much different than the sealed box speakers being sold that you did have a romantic memory of the sound. Unfortunately, they sound pretty mediocre when not driven by the best gear...so you might read through a number of the forums and see what people are using to drive their maggies and praising the sound....and then look for some preowned that might be in your budget |
Here is just an example to get your research started.... https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=179975.msg1900653;topicseen#new |
thanks snapsc, flatblackround |
@snapsc , that's some pretty good advice right there. Agree 100%
That should be enough juice to drive them, because that's the first thing I thought of that might be wrong. I had a pair of Maggies that I really wanted to like, and they just didn't work for me. It happens.
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