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Maggie 1.7i's lack detail. Ideas?

Hi,
In about 1979 I had a roommate who had a pair of Magnapan's, an amp, pre-amp (at least one of which was NAD, and a fairly high quality turntable.  I was shocked and amazed about the feeling the singers were present in the room with me.   The accuracy and detail of the sound.

Fast forward 40 years and I purchase a barely used 1.7is.   I have a new Marantz NR1200.  A 15 yo BK EX-440 Sonata (350WPC @ 4 ohms), and optical bit stream out Sony DVD player.  I use optical cable between the DVD player and NR1200.   I have fairly high quality cables between the pre-out of the NR1200 and the EX-440.  I have somewhat high gauge copper stranded cable, about 6', between the EX-440 and the speakers.

The sound is not bad but very much lacking the detail and immediacy I remember in the highs and mid-range.  A great disappointment. My question is what the most likely culprit?

Some possibilities:
1. My hearing has declined.
2. I've a romanticized memory of the sound quality.
3. What I was hearing was the mushrooms.
4. The speakers my roommate had were a bit wider.  Maybe more like the 3.7s.  Maybe 40 year old 3.7s are just that much better than current 1.7is.
5. Stranded wire cables.
6. Turntable that much better than CD.
7. ????
 

jros

Showing 1 response by mijostyn

mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,227 posts
 

@jros , probably a combination of all those factors especially the mushrooms.

The speakers should be three feet off the wall and the wall behind them needs to be completely deadened. I would use acoustic tile. 

Maggies do best with powerful class A amps. 200 watts/ channel RMS into 4 ohms is the real minimum. The 3.7i's are a much better speaker and one of the best values in a high performance speaker out there. For the best bass below 100 Hz you still need a subwoofer but otherwise they are brilliant. It is the real ribbon tweeter that makes the difference. It is arguably the best tweeter made.  It you want detail almost at the level of and ESL the 3.7i is the way to go.

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