Followup-Magnepan 1.7s in a 10x13' dedicated room?

Brownsfan -

Thanks for your post; I found it very helpful.

I upgraded not long ago from old 3.3/Rs to Maggie 3.7. Along the way, I wound up replacing my entire system and treating the challenging room.

I'm still dealing with 'brightness' issues. In the past, I figured it was due to having a Class-D SS amp (Spectron Musician IIIse), no tubes, and the Maggies. But my latest purchase was a PS Audio DirectStream DAC, which is incredibly detailed. Sometimes it's *very* bright.

When I can solicit the help of She Who Must Be Obeyed, I'll move the tweeters inside to see how that works. In the past we've tried that, but it seemed to shrink both the soundstage and the sweetspot.

Linesource: I added two Vandersteen 2wq subs to the system... very tight, very fast. It really adds to the bottom end of the Maggies and with the crossovers relieves some of the burden on the amp. Recommended, but they might be a bit large for your room.

"Some recordings were a little bright, but I think I could remedy that with resistors applied to the tweeters. The dealer didn't supply with resistors to take with me."

If you ask Magnepan, they'll send them to you. They didn't ask me for any money, so they probably won't charge you either.

Rhanson, I can't emphasize enough that in my room, though it has very plush carpeting, Maggies were a no go without treating the back corners floor to ceiling with auralex panels. I glued them to blue board insulation, covered them with fabric, and wedged them into the corners at a 45 degree angle to each wall. Without them, there is a certain high frequency that was reinforced to ear bleed levels. The corner treatment substantially mitigated the problem with the 1.6s, and combined with tweeters inside arrangement, completely mitigated the problem on the 3.7s. The remaining walls were untreated.

I would much rather fix what is wrong with the room than attenuate those angelic maggie ribbons. No issues with those who use the resistors, its just my preference to fix what is really wrong.

I also think it is extremely important with Maggie based systems to address RFI/EMI issues in the entire system. It is my belief that Maggies somehow reveal the high frequency grunge caused by these issues to a greater extent than most other speakers, resulting in high frequency related listener fatigue. This can, I think, sometimes be interpreted by the listener as an overly aggressive top end--too bright. The ribbons, and even the quasi ribbons, are very revealing. If something is wrong in the high frequencies, you are going to hear it. Attention to power treatment is pretty important with Maggie based systems.

I also think it is extremely important with Maggie based systems to address RFI/EMI issues in the entire system. It is my belief that Maggies somehow reveal the high frequency grunge caused by these issues to a greater extent than most other speakers, resulting in high frequency related listener fatigue. This can, I think, sometimes be interpreted by the listener as an overly aggressive top end--too bright. The ribbons, and even the quasi ribbons, are very revealing. If something is wrong in the high frequencies, you are going to hear it.

One probably does need to treat the room for Magneplanar speakers but it's for the wrong reasons - the reason that these speakers appear to have an "overly aggressive top end--too bright" & "The ribbons, and even the quasi ribbons, are very revealing" is that, basically, Magneplanar speakers are not time-coherent speakers.
This is very clear from the measurements Stereophile has published for the MG3.6/R - see Fig 6: step response:
http://www.stereophile.com/content/magnepan-magneplanar-mg36r-loudspeaker-measurements-part-2
and for the MG1.6/QR - see Fig 5: step response. Here even the published text clearly states the speaker is not time-coherent:
http://integracoustics.com/MUG/MUG/reviews/stereophile_mg16qr.htm

Non time-coherent speakers have the (very) bad habit of letting the listener hear the high frequencies before the mids & the mids before the bass. As a result the sonics are tipped towards the high frequencies & you get these sort of comments: "sometimes be interpreted by the listener as an overly aggressive top end--too bright. The ribbons, and even the quasi ribbons, are very revealing".
Making Magneplanar speakers time-coherent would resolve the issue but this has to be done at the design/factory level & not in the listener's room after the fact they are purchased by the user.

I stated this in your other thread concerning the Magnepans. When I tried the MG12s, I could not tame the aggressive treble energy. Resistors helped but not enough.