New Magnepan 3.7 i ?

As for the sound of the speakers, I heard them this past week in New Jersey at Audio Connection, courtesy of John Rutan. If you like Maggie's, you're going to love these speakers. They have all of the Maggie qualities that set them apart from other speakers and then some. There is an ease to them that makes the sound so relaxed and natural. This kind of sound is very, very seductive and everything sounds really wonderful on them. They were being powered by a Cary SS 200WPC stereo amp, AI Modulus 3B Preamp and a Linn CDP. Very nice electronics but not to fancy or expensive. I can only imagine what they would sound like with a more expensive, powerful and refined front end. Good thing is that they sounded fantastic with this combo.The wholeness of the speaker is quite remarkable and the cohesiveness of the bass,midrange and treble is even more seamless than the always excellent Magnepan presentation. I own 1.6's and have always loved what the Maggies do and these take those traits to another level of refinement to my ears. I hope some of you can get to Audio Connection or somewhere that's got a pair for demo and give them a listen, as I'd be curious to hear what others think.

Big news from my dealer. He said that if your Magnepans are fairly new you probably already have the i in place. He said basically they were tensioning the mylar tighter initially and about 6 months or so ago they started producing them a little looser so that they sounded a little more natural with a little more umph in the bass. They decided to mark them as i to differentiate them. So he said the upgrade is that they loosen the mylar slightly. That's why they are not making a big deal out of it and why they haven't said much. That's what the dealer said anyways. He also said that he isn't planning to send any of his older ones in because they are played enough that the Mylar has loosened a little anyways with break-in. Bottom line, enjoy your speakers.

If the 3.7i change is diaphragm tension, I would say Magnepan screwed up all the 3.7's!

After 40 years they should know how to set the proper tension.

This change to the 3.7i sounds fishy to me!

It is my understanding that part of the change from the .6 to .7 series was increasing the tension. Now they have decided to decrease the tension? If this is true, it makes you wonder what is going on up there.

I'd probably go for a cross over upgrade, but I won't be sending them back for this for another year or two until I see how this change is received by others.

Brownsfan, your worries are over....
I auditioned the 1.7s and 3.7s at the time of their release. The 3.7 was particularly of interest. I took my wife along to the dealership for a second opinion. Using my own Curved Air CD I felt Sonya's voice was made to sound quite ordinary to the point where it was severely lacking in content(!) Much of the seductiveness of her voice is embedded in the lower octaves and it was posted missing here. My words to the OH at the time were "it made Sonya sound like a bad singer that you wouldn't give a second listen to" - which she obviously isn't.
Back home I rechecked against my Martin Logan Vantages and the difference was night & day. The sense of relief was palpable. On the basis of that comparison I wouldn't touch the 3.7s with a barge pole.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago and an audition of the 3.7i.
I didn't have the Curved Air test pieces but the dealer provided some Joni Mitchell instead. Having been privy to all the recent discussion about secret crossover changes I wasn't expecting a massive improvement but was shocked to find that they'd managed to significantly address the bass problem. ("How'd they manage to do that with a crossover update?", was my first thought). Joni's voice sounded perfect. She was fully corporealised standing 6ft tall in front of me with all registers of her voice perfectly rendered and convincingly better than my recollections of the "old" 3.7.
I double checked with some ELP to see how it handled the heavier stuff and while they would never convince the "bass-heads" among us I was stunned by the sheer coherence of the musical presentation and the level of detail. Little things popped out of the mix that you'd never noticed before.
The bottom line is that although I wouldn't have touched the old 3.7 with a barge pole I WOULD buy the 3.7i in a heartbeat. That's the important difference and it bypasses any hifi technobabble that I or anyone else might offer.

Since then I've become aware of the ribbon tensioning updates and it all becomes clear.
The question is, was the 3.7 a mistake that needed to be rectified?? (..and more importantly, should the punters be paying for it?)
Furthermore does the difference in the manufacturing justify an extra $500 when they'd already, apparently, adapted their manufacturing process to release some of them as 3.7i under the guise of 3.7s? (and did those people pay $5500 for them?)

Alternatively, how loose can the 3.7 panels get by mere playing? Will they ever match the 3.7i when fully run in?
Not that I would ever accuse Magnepan of being underhand because they've always been fair with their customers but I think the veil of secrecy needs to be lifted a little to reassure the customer of the necessity to shell out the extra $500 at the very least?

Meanwhile I'm still drooling over them.... :)