Magnepan break-in?

I'd give them 400 hours to break in. After the first 100, the differences will be extremely subtle, but the aggregate improvement after 400 will be stunning...if you observe the earlier poster's advice to take extreme pains to focus them.

Coiling up a silver wire and sticking it in place of the tweeter fuse works great, also. I know the manual says not to, but it's worth the risk.

And I use ASC traps in the small room with the Maggies, and the bass pitch definition is better in some ways than my Sennheiser 600 headphones...that says a lot!! The main thing they need is the ASC Frescoes right behind them and just inside their spacing, against the wall. Turn the midrange diffusor side toward the wall, so the absorbative side faces the back of the speaker. Very awesome indeed...

When I got my MMG's four years ago, they took about 250 hours of loud playing to break in fully. My amp was 300 watts rms, then. Now, it's 500. I don't think you can burn these things out!!

Go to audio asylum.com under "speakers" you will find a new site for us Maggies owners called MUG. You cn get alot of info from people there about Maggies, I have 1.6s it takes about 100 hours to break them in, the bass will sound much better, it will go a little deeper than when you first hear it, also the top end will smooth out alot, some of what is about placement is right, but do check out the site I`ve told you about. Greg

I have had a pair of 3.5s for about seven years, so this deals with their break in which I would assume would be not all together different from your 1.6s. Yes, they do take a while to break in, the 100 hour estimate in the previous post sounds about right. I let mine run for four days straight at the recommendation of my dealer. As to the focusing issue, they are very easy to get nearly right. You get roughly 90% of your results with the first 10% of effort. However, to get that last 10% can be tedious, but very worth the effort as long as you remember to relax and enjoy the speakers. As far as harshness is concerned I have found over the years that the Maggies themselves are never harsh. They can however be too revealing at times. This is especially true with older recordings of classic rock and Jazz. However, given good modern recordings they will sounds amazingly smooth with addictive imaging and depth. It is unfortunate that they are so difficult to use with older CDs, but as with all speakers there is give and take, and once you get a taste of that sound stage all other speakers sound somehow smaller. Good luck and enjoy the 1.6s.

I used to own maggies, and I think that there is a couple of things to consider: 1) All speakers can take some time to "break in". Some as many as 500 hours. The Maggies I owned took at least 100hrs to sound the way that I heard them at the dealer. 2) I feel any system will take at least 2 weeks to become "normalized", after first being connected. 3) The maggies I owned took at least 1 hour to "warm up" after 1 & 2 were over. 4) Planar speakers are by far the most difficult to focus properly. They are also very particular about room size, what's between them, and how far they are from the walls. Remember, you are dealing with the alignment of two focal patterns rather than one, so it may take some time to get them right. 5) Mids and treble sometimes are presented differently as compared to a conventional tweeter. Good luck with getting them right -- they are amazing speakers when properly focused.