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Repair Magnepan MG IIa vs new 1.7 or 0.7, etc

I purchased these a few months ago.  Tweeters need to be replaced.  I can get the repair kit & do it myself (I heard it's a mess to do) for $50.00 or I can send them to Magnepan to have all the drivers, magnets, Mylar replaced with new for $600-800 plus shipping (approx $170-200).  Or I could buy new.   They are set up in a living room dining room combo (L shaped approx 25x35 feet).  Maybe the 1.7 or 0.7? Or possibly the MMGPlus.  I have an Odyssey Khartago Amp.

Anyone have any advice on this?
jeffoms
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,412 posts
 
Repairing the old is money well spent, but before you go buying a pair of new (or even used) 1.7's, do yourself a favor and try to hear the Eminent Technology LFT-8b first.
kalali's avatar
kalali
1,977 posts
 
bdp24, they look like great speakers and potentially a good value but also appear to require high powered amplifier to handle the 83dB rating. A 75wpc minimum requirement by the manufacturer is even higher than why Magnepan states in their literature. Do you agree?
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,412 posts
 

You would think so kalali, but for some reason they need less power than Maggies. They are a nominal 8 ohm load (the m-p panels themselves 11-12 ohms), which would also lead one to think they would need a higher-current solid state amp, which put out more at the Maggies 4 ohms. But the LFT-8b actually likes tubes, especially if you bi-amp them---tubes on top, solid state on the 8" dynamic woofer. A hundred watter of each is enough for an average room.

Maggies can use as much power as you throw at them; I know a guy (Satie) over at the Planar Speaker Asylum who has a 2500w/ch Crown amp on the bass panels of his Magneplanar Tympani T-IV’s! Magnepan’s 75w figure is absurdly low---ask any Maggie owner. Sure, they’ll make sound, but they don’t really "come to life" until you pump considerable juice into them, and get the volume up enough to break through the "Maggie haze"---the somewhat opaque, veiled sound they have at low levels. The ET LFT-8’s play quiet better than Maggies, remaining transparent at even low volume, more like an electrostatic than a magnetic-planar.

The 1.7, though cheap to buy, is not as good a deal as they seem to be after you count in the cost of the amp necessary to maximize their potential. An owner of the over-twice-as-expensive MG3.7 can justify spending the money to get a Sanders Magtech amp, but can a 1.7 owner?

schubert
7,386 posts
 
I lived next door to a  EE Prof at Wisconsin who had Maggies.
He told me 600 watts @4ohms was about right ,I thought he was nuts .
He played a few symphonies for me on his modded Hafler 500 which he said did about that .
He was right .
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