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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
audiocr381ve
6 posts
 
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.
weseixas
519 posts
 
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
magfan
1,583 posts
 
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!
ronwills OP
52 posts
 
I will definately try reversing the speakers to hear what it sounds like. I never heard about this for the 1.6 or 1.7s. I imagine I will get a few stares when people come over and ask me why I have my speakers facing the wall!

About the few comments on various sites about the 1.6s sounding better than the 1.7s. Some of the comments come from people listing for a few minutes to about an hour at an audio dealer. All I can say is that I had the 1.6s for 5 years and now have had the 1.7s for several months. I would never go back. From top to bottom the 1.7s are clearly superior. Add that to much more detail than I have ever heard before. By the way, I have over 400 hours on the 1.7s and they keep sounding better. The most recent change is much better low volume detail.

I want to thank all those who, so far, have come up with tweaks that I never heard before from flipping the speakers front to back to the razor treatment. Great stuff.

I am looking for some decent speaker connectors to replace what comes on the speaker and will bypass the fuse as my next step.

Working on my "man cave" new listening area which will take a little time. Will be using some sound treatment in the room, moving out a lot of crap to make room for the speakers and dedicated seating area and upgrading power backup and electric filtering.
crom
19 posts
 
Ron, I have had 1.7's for 4 months and had 1.6's previously. The 1.7's are definitely a better speaker all the way around. Since you are over 400 hours you definitely know that the bass improves dramatically. I use to run my 1.6's with tweeter out and listened to my 1.7's that way up to the 200 hr mark. I then swapped positions of the left and right speakers putting the tweeters in. Everything seemed to gel with the tweeters in. All the tweaks I have done on 1.7 are reversible atleast until the warranty period is up. So far, I have Mye Stands, replaced metal jumper bar (tweeter atten) with 3" wire jumper w/bananas and replaced stock fuses with the HiFi Tuning fuses. You can take backplate off and easily bypass fuse and tweeter attenuator too without any expense.
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