Listen to Jordi, he's exactly right. Do it just like he says. I've upgraded the XO's in my MG12's and it TRANSFORMED THEM. They're much , much more of a serious sounding speaker and I mean in Hi-end aspects not Mid-fi ones. Songs that seemed like filler material now have meaning and purpose, The back and side walls sound like they have been relocated way farther back, it images better, just to mention a few ways it improves them. When I first read Jordi's blog elsewhere I thought he was exaggerating grossly when he said his upgraded 1.7 was better than his friends 3.7, but after I did my upgrade (OMG!) I now believe him completely and I just bought me a pair of 1.7's to do the same with. Do just like he says, leave the stock parts in the speaker and create an external box for the new XO. Also, I found that if you replace the 16 ga. iron core factory inductor with a 12 ga. air core, the resistive value will be very, very close to the factory one which is nice, AND the 12 ga, air core will give the mag's better bass authority than a 16 ga. will. My MG12's had 16 ga. and I think the 1.7 does too. I will verify that when I get mine. All I know is going from the iron cores that are stock you want to go with a larger gauge air core inductor to keep a similar ohm value and get more bass authority. I didn't do that with my MG12's and it didn't cause any noticeable problems (its been over a year of heavy usage) I just missed out more articulate bass. Go with what Jordi says on part brands, don't skimp there. I'm think I'm going to go even more exotic than what he did. I'm having fantastic results with Clarity Cap MR 400v caps in my MG12's. I might go all out and put a Mundorf S/G/O on the super tweeter, but at least a Clarity MR 630v. BTW, I kind of like the way Magnepan keeps the stock XO parts cheap. It gives us guys the chance to customize the way we want the level of sound from our panels. I want them putting the value into the panels and XO design, not the XO parts. I can replace a $10 cap with a $100 one easily, but trying to improve the panel drivers?, I have no idea how I would go about that. Upgrading your XO parts is the only way I know to hear what your Magnepans are actually capable of sounding like.
Magnepan 1.7 crossover capacitor improvement?
In my never ending quest to eliminate "glare" from all components I've recently realized that my MG 1.7's are a contributor. The crossover caps in them are nothing to write home about, a mixture of non descript caps including an Axon totaling 116.8uf in the mid range and an additional 10uf Axon for the tweeter. Since Axon is basically Solens which does have glare issues, I'm ready to move on. After snooping aroud it sounds like a mixture of Clarity ESA series/ 250V + Mundorf supreme replacements in the mid range and Mundorf Supreme for the tweeter would be a good choice. But i'm curious if someone here has already trod this path and found a different path thats reasonably affordable ( not Duelends and Vcaps...grin)
At this point I have glare about 95% tamed but there are still certain CD passages that cause that chalk board scraping sensation.
At this point I have glare about 95% tamed but there are still certain CD passages that cause that chalk board scraping sensation.