Magnepan 1.7 too bright, HELP

solution: sell me your speakers for a great price!
check the date of build on your speakers. i was told by a dealer that there were problems with his original 2011 1.7 demos, but no problems with subsequent sales w/newer panels. i imagine he sold the demos off slightly cheaper & replaced them with ones of 6/2011 vintage. he didn't know if others were lemons but he wasn't happy with his demo-obviously, his customers still ordered 1.7's. hmmm-maybe our ears aren't really that well trained as we think when hearing such well-reviewed/well thought of speakers??? most surprising to me was deciding not to return the demos to magnepan with his complaints?

by the way after hearing the 1.7's twice i longed for my just sold IIIa's. also, i too find the 1.7's bright. owners can cap the highs down w/provided resistors, tho it seems like you're defeating the exquisite highs maggies are known to reproduce. personally, i've decided i'm buying 3.7's.

I have Maggie 1.7 and Cary tube amp. Definitely sounds too bright. Cheapest solution is to buy Mills resistors at parts express. I bought 0.5,1,2 ohm values which gave me ability to fine tune from 0.5 to 3.5 in half ohm incremental steps. To my taste(and my system)2ohm worked the best. transparency and details retained while tweeter was tamed to perfection giving integral nice tubey sound. Cost 4$ per resistor saves thousands instead of changing DACS, preamps and tubes. Highly recommended! And yes Maggies need 4 tubes per channel to sound good.

I recently purchased a pair of 1.7s (new). I play them in a wood paneled room (my office) with oxygen free (non-audiophile $.50/ft) speaker wire. Power is provided by a piece of junk (Old Yamaha AVR rated by the manufacturer at 85/channel into 8 ohms probably about 100 into 4 ohms).  And I run them without resisters.  They do not sound bright. I do not play loud, though and am planning to upgrade the power source (possibly with tubes).

Here is my advice. Make sure the speakers are angled so that the woofer is a little closer to you than the tweeter. Magnepan recommends that the tweeter be on the inside (speaker with serial number ending in ’1’ is the right speaker). I find this is best if you are able listen from near the ’sweet spot’ If you listen at higher volumes, by all means make sure you have enough power, and consider tubes as they tend to be ’warmer’.