Magnepan 1.7 too bright, HELP

I suppose if you find it acceptable to compromise you can use the resistor.. i did that initially but basically that was akin to using an equalizer... the treble was lower, out of balance with the midrange. Have patience with figuring out what's wrong in your system outside the Maggies... the solutions will bring you closer to a "you are there" level of playback.

I have Maggie 1.7's initially throught they were too bright, then as I experimented I realized they were accurately passing what they were fed.

1) invest in good quality interconnects and power cables, cheapest place to start. I went through about 5 vendors on interconnects but the PS Audio Jewel power cables were an immediate help
2)if your CD player has digital out, consider a separate DAC as the DAC section of integrated CD players is usually power supply compromised
3) amp is important, try a different amp comparison to see if that edge goes away. I just did this and it saved me from spending money on a newer DAC when the remaining brightness was my amp.

sorry, audioconnection, thats not science. A resistor in series will cause a dB drop thats fairly flat between the crossover point and natural frequency roll off of the tweeter. That means you are using a resistor as an equalizer. If a room is reflective, you kill the reflection with wall hangings, not damage the tonal balance of your speaker.
Calling it bright is a misnomer... its a new level of detail and unfortunately exposed in that detail is distortion thats irritating and which can distract your attention from the additional good you hear until you clean the cause out of your system.

for what its worth, I auditioned the 1.7's with the Rogue Chronus last month. Blissful musical, no listening fatigue factor with musical detail popping out all over. Could be that's all the cure you need

you actually don't need to buy anything to bypass the magnepan 1.7 tweeter jumper. Just remove the 4 screws holding the plate onto the speaker, take a wrench and remove the nut and wire on the back of the jumper on 1 side, put the nut back on. Then remove the nut on the other side, slip the wire over and put the nut back on. At that point the jumper is out of the circuit. Be sure that you are doing this on the jumper and not the speaker wire inputs.

jazzdrummer I haven't really detected any difference but on general principle think the jumpers were a bad idea, only put there for systems that were too bright, needing the resistor.

as of this time I am diagnosing the caps in the MG 1.7 crossover as cheap and causing glare on certain CD's (groups like the Cranberrys and Sheryl Crowe's Globe sessions CD come to mind). So musing on how to replace what looks like Axons and some caps pulled out of a refrigerator with a better alternative. Not sure what others definition of glare is, but mine is that certain upper register harmonics seem to create an exagerated irritating resonance(perhaps akin to why a soprano can shatter wine glasses...). Now considering the Gold Obbligatos, Clarity Cap ESA, but the trick is fitting 116.8uf of capacitance into a 60x100mm space thats only 35mm deep... i suspect a bulge in the back of the speaker cloth is unavoidable.