Magnepan 1.7 too bright, HELP


I just bought a used 6 month old Magnepan 1.7 and hooked them to my old system, which consists on a Deonon 2900 Universal player, Emotiva USP Preamp and Rotel 1080 power amp and use anticables for speaker connections, and monster cables for interconnects.

The sound is too bright for me, I used the provide 1 ohm resisters, still too bright, any recommendations.
bnrimal

Showing 7 responses by magfan

NOBODY has suggested the cure which worked for me.

My 1.6s were bright, too. And very beamy. Too much toe and the highs were nearly unbearable, while the center image was razor sharp and little sound extended beyond the outside edges of the speakers.
Tweeters in/out didn't make much difference.
Toe OUT until the balance was right and you could get a hole in the middle effect.

The cure? 15 or so years ago, Magnepan started shipping with the Mylar forward, to the listener. I kid you not, when I suggest FLIPPING THE PANELS around to listen to the pole piece side. This will improve dispersion to the point that a wider toe angle will be fine.....I am at about 10 or 11 degrees which is about 3 1/2 inches difference between measures of inside and outside of the speaker to the 'front' wall. Widening the toe will take you out of the tweeter 'hot spot' on axis and improve image while providing fine center fill and a near wrap-around sound field.

Save all that expense of cable / amp / dac / seance stuff until you finish experimenting with speaker orientation and placement.
At that point, some diffusion BEHIND and BETWEEN the speakers works wonders. At least you aren't running your Ferrari on Firestones.
The 'not enough power' carp is, IMO, a red herring.
That is, unless you crank it up....lots. EVERYONE without exception that buys panels and has lesser amps still likes them. The also all, without exception report better results with more power.
Even my RB1070 of 130x2 at 8 and NO 4ohm rating...unless you count the bridged 8 ohm rating as 1/2 of that per channel into 4ohms, did OK until pushed. It was replaced with a 'd' amp of 500x2 which for sure gets the job done. However, I've never measured more than maybe 12vac to the speaker terminals. Even allowing for the fact that it is a 'slow' meter, I'm sure I've not exceeded say.....24vac which is nowhere near 'redline'......
Personally, I'm not into the Rotel house sound so I'm not the best judge.

Work on the 'cheap' stuff before starting down the 'swapping stuff until you go broke' path.
I'm not a big fan of the tilt back, either. Image is impacted in a bad way. The panels when vertical just sound right, to me. Especially when I listen to the pole piece side. Tilt back brings more ceiling/floor bounce into the picture. don't forget that the way low sensitivity of the panels is mitigated by the line source / dipole behavior.

Don't forget there are 4 ways to place your panels. Tweeter in/out and pole piece front/rear.
For the record I too own a 'd' ICE amp....

Be careful with 'd' amps. The Krell sure cooks, doesn't it? Maybe better ventilation? I tested 3.6s with the xi400 integrated and it sure got warm, and I didn't even try to abuse it. In my less than perfect space for amp, I'd kill it in a week.

Anyway, back to 'd' amps. The ICE modules are NOT whatever power FTC rating. No 1 hour at 1/3 power preconditioning and STRICT time limits at full power. The ASP module used in the kilowatt amps is ONLY 30 seconds at full power. My 500 watter is 60 seconds. Figure the efficiency at 100% power is about 83%, plug to speaker. That is a lot of power ALL going to heat. Go to the B&O website and look at some photos. Not much heatsink in any of those modules.
That doesn't mean they don't work in to REAL loads with MUSIC. Especially since music will only consume a fraction of an amps power with the rest being dynamics...at which the 'd' amps excel.
The take away here is to take the power ratings with a grain of salt.

You may like the panels flipped around. I spend a lot of time.....maybe 15 or 20 minutes per session tuning my speakers. When I got 'em where I wanted, I carefully documented and MEASURED the location. I used the wooded side stiles as marks and carefully drew my room in Google Sketchup and place the speakers.....A little trig and I know where the speakers 'cross' and the angle at which they are toed in.

You have a nice space. The ONLY red flag is the length being about 4x the height, but this is made better by the characteristics of panel/dipoles.

If I had really.....reallly deep pockets, I check out a Pass INT-150 and make whatever accomodations necessary if it sounded right. Maybe end up sleeping in the garage.....and eating rice and beans for a couple years.
GREAT question! What WERE the last set of speakers!? I Hadn't thought of that!

Have you flipped 'em around yet? That tamed mine. And Yes, I'm a magnepan veteran. Close to 30 years now, but only a few amps. I've never been an equipment swapper and simply don't have the deep pockets it would take to do extensive experiments.

I'd like to hear what Frogman thinks 'modded to limits' means.

If you've been around panels a long time, you know they swapped sides sometime in the '90s....this to me, made 'em brighter sounding.
Good mods. I'd do it a little different...not necessarily better, but different.

Just 2 examples::
I won't use a rigid, mechanical, bridgework style stand for my panels. Living, breating wood is where I'll head, and as light and rigid as I can design. Minimum metal. I'm designing them in Google Sketchup for construction in a wood working class.

Inductors? Since my 1.6s have only ONE, I'll wind it myself using simple 14ga wire and a form made from standard PVC sizes. My design has the same number of layers as turns per layer, so the coil itself is square in cross section and the entire coil is just over 4" in diameter.

Capacitors? The worlds SECOND largest can of worms! Followed, perhaps, only by the 'bypass or NOT' discussion. I don't have deep pockets and may have to compromise with a cap from the Clarity line....SA, maybe. The stock Solen caps are good value, but easily bested.

#1 priority? Enjoy.
Have you tried flipp'in them around and listening to the pole piece side?

Take you 5 minutes and you'll be surprised. in a good way, I hope.

The panels are NOT the same front and rear. The pole piece to the listener is the way they were shipped until sometime in the '90s.
I prefer the old way, like my original MG-1s

Don't screw with anything until you try the flip.
Yes....and no.
Magnepans are 'voiced' under certain listening conditions with certain upstream equipment.
You CAN use the resistor to attenuate HF output. The DIY crowd is also, for some reason, a big fan of Low DCR inductors in the bass, which raises bass output in relation to HF output, and therefore has the same effect.

I hate to bring up ohms law, but simply put, a resistor in series with another, in this case say....1 ohm in series with 4 ohms, will take away about 20% of the power which formerly went to the 4ohm load only.

Just my opin, but have you exhausted setup potential yet? A couple 'fake ficus' behind the panels or perhaps a staggered bookshelf or even a small tapestry or maybe flipping them around would take off the HF edge.
The flipping worked wonders in my room and I'm now about to spend some money on some home built/designed sound panels. I may post a photo or design.
If anyone has Google Sketchup, I'll send a simple drawing of the panel and how to join the wood.....