Thinking of Magnepan ... finally!

Bass (or the lack thereof) -- I've had 1.7's and now have 3.7's and they are OK in the Bass but adding a pair of subs is worth it and the effect is not just bass, somehow it smooths out the highs.  I have REL S510's on the longbow wireless system and upgraded XLR cables, it makes placement much easier without wires.  Per REL it is best to run them directly off the amp (s).  As the Maggies are a very fast speaker the subs need to be fast to keep up and sound proper.

The one weakness is lack of slam but that is a strength when reproducing acoustic's and vocals, lots of layering and texture revealed.  Blues guitars are amazing;  Allman brothers, Stevie Ray Vaughn etc.

Breathing Room -- If you want imaging and air get them away from the rear walls.  I have mine about 5 feet.

Mods --I haven't done much except MYE stands, Jumpers and Fuses, and yes it is worth it.  I lack the courage and dedication to mess with the crossover but hear it really helps.  https://gr-research.com/product/magnepan-3-7i-upgrade-kit-pair/

Value -- If you can swing it, nothing less than 3.7's for silky highs and sighs.  The true Ribbon panel is in another world compared to the 1.7 and below.

Imaging I don't have much to compare to but I am getting a very Holographic 3D sound stage with precise instrument location.  

Bottom line they are unforgivingly revealing of your gear, if your preamp does not image well or if your amps or DAC doesn't have clear concise bass you will hear that.  If your system has digital noise or electrical noise you will hear that also and I think that is why many feel Maggies can be biting in the upper registers.  But if you give them a great signal they should sound silky.   

I recently got a deal on 3.7 with Mye Stands. They are magnificent. So I guess the 1.6 will be sold and the Goldenears are back to tv duty.

@yyzsantabarbara Looks like you can't stay away from Maggies for too long :)

On the topic of cables, I have talked to several people and the consensus is that Maggies are sensitive to cable changes. Not surprising given that they are extremely transparent and somewhat unforgiving to mediocre recordings. I am currently using SwissCables Reference speaker cables which work quite well. However, I'm gradually upgrading all my cables to Audioquest Mythical Creatures line of cables (Firebird or Dragon). I've already replaced my RCA and XLR cables with AQ Firebird. The plan is to get Dragon power cords and eventually speaker cables to go full loom.

Before finalizing Magnepan 3.7i, I had a chance to listen to Diptyque 115 at a dealer near Austin. They are quite good but not as great a value as Magnepan. For example, to get the same level of performance as 3.7i, you have to move up to Diptyque DP140 which retails for close to $17K. I don't think their 115 model. which is priced higher than 3.7i, comes close to the 3.7i performance. Secondly, yes they have 'more' bass but I felt something was missing. Most likely the bass doesn't integrate with the rest of the drivers as well. I felt it was a bit disjointed. I also found them to be a little on the bright side. Maybe that's a French thing (Focal?), or perhaps it was the dealer's room acoustics. On the positive side, Diptyque looks slightly better and refined, especially in black.

@mclinnguy I love the way you have treated the front wall (i.e., behind the speakers) in your listening room. I'm also thinking about getting some quadratic diffusers from GIK later this year. According to one Maggie owner, the front wall area directly behind the speakers is the most important.

I have yet to update my virtual system page (hopefully will do it this weekend), but do you mind taking a look at my system and tell me what type of diffusion (front wall) I should go with? You can see there's a painting in the center of the wall which I quite like. I was thinking of putting some foam behind the painting instead of replacing it with quadratic diffusers. Alternatively, I can get some 2-3 inch absorbers and put them behind the painting. Let me know what you think. Thanks.

@arafiq I know GIK wanted to sell me the polyfusor’s behind them, but that was before they came out with the slatfusor’s or their own Q7 diffusor . I am curious to know what they would recommend now, but me being in Canada the cost of shipping was the same amount as the cost of the products, so I decided to make my own. I found some excellent acoustics resources I could share with you if you are interested, based on those I decided to go with a quadratic residue style. I wish I could give you the listening impressions of my N11 diffuser compared to an N13 or other, but that is the only one I have heard. So no idea if diffusion from 500 hz to 4200 hz is better than 680 hz to 5300 hz (going off the top of my head :) I chose the N11 because of the size. It was a fun project and yes, it does work, very well. I just have been thinking of adding more above them to the ceiling- because the speaker exceeds them in height they should diffuse in that area as well. (in theory)

If you have the budget for Dragon cables, If it were me, I would definitely get this diffusor: RD Acoustic I think it looks awesome, I may have one in the future. Does it sound better or worse then mine? No idea :)

My philosophy is diffusion on the front wall, absorption on the back wall. I do have some extras on the side walls, but I don't think they do much- maybe reduce a bit of slap echo. I don’t think a wee bit of foam on the front wall (behind the paining) will do anything to improve soundstage, but it may tame a little of the high frequencies if one feels that is necessary. 

The common approach suggested in the planar forum was a few fig trees, I did that years ago also, and they did work for the highest frequencies to improve imaging, and the price was right, but these N11 quadratic diffusors work better.