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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
al_hiet
6 posts
 
Has anyone tried using the Walker hi definition links
with the 1.7? I am planning on getting the new maggies
soon and have a set of links to use. other than the
difficulties with using spade to banana adapters, what
else could present a problem?
davide256's avatar
davide256
399 posts
 
I have had my pair of 1.7's since about April. Owned MG1B's and MGIIIA's for a long time before, listened and liked the MG1.6's but not enough to pull out my wallet for the difference.
The 1.7's have that critical quality for bass realism, weight that is satisfying to a tuba player and low mid range tonal accuracy. The 1.7's on initial listen caused me the same reaction as the IIIA ribbon tweeter, a little bright so used the 1ohm resistor. Over a few months I realized the brightness was a source issue, that my Linn Genki and Oppo 971HD weren't handling the highs musically, into my DAC creating listening fatigue. I now use my PC with an HRT Music Streamer II USB DAC and Foobar2000 as a music player to feed a CJ PV10A and Musical Concepts modded Hafler. The 1 ohm resistor is out, just the stock jumper, sounds gorgeous with 24/96 tracks and the 20 bit HDCD RR recordings that DBPoweramp allows me to decode and rip.

As to tweaks to make your sound better
1) get idle cone speakers out of the room unless they are small. Idle cone speakers resonate and collapse sound stage... good Linn dealers can demonstrate.
2) consider the mye stands or any other like alternative the will brace top and bottom of the panel and tie solidly into the floor. A tall panel speaker like the MG 1.7 with foot stands producing music is like a car engine flopping around on broken motor mounts. It will damp/blur your transient peaks if you leave the panel free to move.

I don't recommend leaving out the fuses... it only takes 1 power hit to make your tweeters toast... been there. Fuses and jumper substitution doesn't have a science to it but won't break the piggy bank either.

Enjoy, if yours sound bright/fatiguing as mine did at first look very hard look at your source equipment
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
Davide256... Magnepan agrees with you that the brightness is a source issue. They say that because many popular speakers roll off highs recordings are mastered with boosted highs. They claim that the Maggie is flat without the resistor, but that the resistor makes them more compatable with the typical recording.
wslam
90 posts
 
Has anyone experimented with resistors of a smaller value than the one that came with the 1.7? I find the stock resistors cutting just a tad too much...
magfan
1,583 posts
 
Sure? Why not a pair of 1 1/2 ohm in parallel....or a pair of 1 ohm? Many practical combinations exist to put less than 1ohm in series w/the tweeter.

Just think about the resistor in this fashion:
If the driver is 4 ohms, and you put 1 ohm in series with it, roughly 20% of the power will go away...as heat, while the driver gets less power and doesn't play as loud.
You could put 0.1ohm in series and still get an effect, though the 2%+ of power now being dissipated by the resistor may not make an audible difference.
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