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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.
davide256

Showing 1 response by johnnyb53

johnnyb53
3,510 posts
 
12-23-13: Jordi
The upgrade requires 115.8mf not 116.8 as stated above and a 10mf and 1.4uf inductor. Best is to use alpha core inductor and 3 sonicap 33mf a 10mf and 6.8mf to create your 115.8. You will not fit this in the panel base and must do it external and this will cost about 5-600.00 and will make your 2k speakers soUnd like 20k speakers.

Jordi, you pique my interest in finding a way to do this Xover upgrade to my 1.7s. However, I don't think it's fair to take Magnepan to task for their business model. It may be a $500-600 improvement for a DIY-er, but the retail price of just about any manufactured product has to be 4 to 5 times the cost of manufacture to be able to turn a profit, once you account for labor, utilities, rent/mortgage, warehousing, utilities, shipping, and distribution, Therefore, an additional $600 in the crossover would bump the 1.7's price up to $4400. While at that price the 1.7 might be an unbelievable value, so is the stock 1.7 at $2K.

I concede, however, that it would be nice if Maggie had (or would officially outsource) a factory-warranted upgrade path that included such a crossover upgrade.
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