Tweaking the Magnepan 1.7s


Looking to tap the Audiogon crowd to come up with inexpensive tweaks for my new Magnepan 1.7s. Here is what is planned so far:

Have room treatments. I am a bigger fan of sound absorption than sound dispursement. I have four 2' x 4' x 2" sound absorption panels that sit on each side of my stereo shelving unit between my speakers. Does a great job of removing the reflections off of my electronics.

Having Magnepans for 30+ years, I do like to deaden the front wall behind the speakers a little bit. From hanging an oriental rug to curtains or whatever. Will be trying out some of these ideas with my new location.

Mye stands. I am waiting for my bank account to grow a bit before I go for these. I believe Mye has the new updates for the 1.7s (although, I can't see any difference between the 1.7s and my old 1.6s).

I want to bypass the fuse and that stupid metal jumper with the least disruption of the speaker itself. Anyone remove the back panel and replace with better speaker connects? If so, what do you recommend? How about wiring tips - anything I should be know before I start the project?

Debating on using a 1 ohm resistor to tame the high end. Any suggestions for high quality 1 ohm resistors?

Anything I am missing?

Sound notes: full description of my experience with Magnepan 1.7s and the electronics I am using in other Audiogon threads, just search for ronwills.
ronwills

I have 1.6's.

My minor tweaks:

*) 1.5 ohm resistor in series with an inductor (choke tweak).

*) Maggie Rear Wave Attenuators (google/ebay search). Not too well known. Should be.
My 1.6 'tweak' has be limited to rotating the panels in place. I now have the mylar facing away from me and the pole piece is facing me. I feel this has evened out any hi-end stridency, so I don't even think about the resistor in the tweeter and the sweet spot is much larger. I don't know when....or WHY, but Magnepans once were this way, but probably about the time of the QR tweeter, they rotated them to 'mylar front'....
Tweeters on the 'inside' didn't hurt, either, though one day I'll swap 'em side to side and see how tweeter OUT works with the panels rotated......
I heard the 1.6's side by side with the 1.7's through Ayre equipment.

1.7 beat it in regards to air and clarity. Even to the untrained ear their is a big difference there.
Hello,

I know of no known tweaks yet for the 1.7, i'm sure they will require something and while i have not done a/b testing , i have heard the 1.7's and can only say i do not believe it to be better than a modded 1.6 ..

You have to mod the 1.6 to make them work, especially the x-over, a resistor upgrade at least is needed without such they are 2 bright and unlistenable....

regards
I have mitigated the 'brightness' by flipping the panel so I am listening to the pole piece side, NOT the mylar side.

Magnepan made the swap some years ago and I have yet to hear a plausible reason. Maggies USED to be pole piece to the listener but they changed. My original MG-1s were this way and sounded fine.

After the 'swap' my panels are now better balanced, bigger sweet spot and tremendous center image stability.

I believe part of the change is due to the fact that the bass part of the driver and the tweeter are wired electrically out of phase. The low pass is first order and the hi pass is 2nd order crossover, which is 90 degrees apart. So, when I put the tweeter IN, I changed something.
I could check this by swapping the panels left / right while leaving the mylar facing away from me. That's next!