My New Magnepan 1.7i's sound dull and lifeless on the top end...why?

Seems to me, this type of speaker requires a  specific amplifier in order to achieve maximum performance..
Or a I wrong?

oldhvymec3,337 posts07-29-2021 4:27pmIf you pull the jumpers and just plug into the highs, what do you hear?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You are NOT offering anything substantive to help resolve his issues...


You should, we all should re-read exactly what the OP post is saying, He never siad *8I am not sure if I have them puled in correctly**
He states,, why is the highs sounding rather crappy?**

I think he deserves a solid truthful answer from The Magnepanian Club
as to why the magnepan’s are not performing up to the reputation.
Do we have a case here of hype and snakeoil..or what ..........
You tell me,,I was just days from orderinga pair....
My tech screamed at me

**NO*
Just in the nick of time....

If you pull the jumpers and just plug into the highs, what do you hear?

If they’re working they are working. Put the jumper bars back in and let them break in. It’s all placement and break in.

One speaker in the middle of the room. Easy test, to check for combing. Di poles on the same baffle plane SUCK.. They have a wonderful sound, but you cannot ever get the front and rear poles to be coherent.

That still has nothing to do with "is there a signal coming out of the speaker" vs There is a signal coming out but is being combed and canceled. That I could understand.

A pillow right behind the highs will show if that is the case. Cancel the rear pole.. The DB level should increase..

Regards

-PrimaLuna EVO 400 Monos


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WOW those monos are some power pack amplifiers, 
Built in same factor as Cayin, Spark Audio, High quality, 
Very surprised you are not getting higher fidelity in all ranges..
hummmm,. 
I was close to buying the LRS, until my tech geek stepped in to cancel the project, 
Said the LRS has 4 phms impedence, 86 db, not friendly to the Defy7,,**ok for string quartet**, well the purpose was for big full orchestra symphony,,
Tech: *Not going to happen,**.

Not sure if what he is hinting at has anything to do with your issues of faulty highs, no sparkle, shimmerings, dynamics in upper fq's..
Sorry to hear of  this venture into Magnepan. 

There  is a big faithful magnepan group here,,maybe one these Magnepan-ians
can *chime* in here and give us some  solutions to this roll off issues.
Good Luck

I just wanted to add, make sure your banana plugs are not inserted too far. They can sometimes foul some wiring or reach the panel. Also take a flashlight and look at the wiring near the crossover and see if you see something disconnected. I seriously doubt both panels would be a problem but it is possible that a new guy mis-wired them.  

Size of room? Heavily damped (rugs, curtains, etc.) or not?  Position of speakers relative to walls, listening position?

I should add when I first had 1.7 they came without the jumpers installed and had me worried as there were no highs like at the store so double check your jumper connections.

I'm running Maggie 3.7i with Pass gear and the sound is fabulous. You may need more break in time my 3.7 were well over 300 hrs before the magic appeared. Also play with the placement I always favored tweeter in speakers toed in and 18" from side wall with 36" from back wall on mid bass side and 30" on tweeter side. 
Good luck

This may seem like to much common audio sense but maybe the room &  your equipment are a bad match: If you have another room , you can try an experiment to see if another room yields the same results: If you bought them new, I am sure the authorised dealer would be happy to help. Lastly, there is Magnepan customer support: I am sure you are not the only 1 to have these issues and they would more than happy to  help you.

Those fuses you looked at.. Replace them.. I don't care what they look like.. -9db? That is a whole lot.. Any way to make sure the highs are actually getting an AC signal? or some serious comb filtering going on.. with that Di Pole

Is it down -9 with just one speaker playing? Turn off one speaker and run your test. Then move the speaker further into the room. One speaker.

The jumpers. Put the stockers back in and then replace the fuses.

Break in is not 5 or 6 days, it takes that long for cables to settle.
Get them off the floor too. If they are on the floor.. 3-4 inches is better. Just to make sure..

2-3 weeks and let the crossovers break in.

All I got for no money! :-)

It takes 4-6 months to break in a set of Teflon caps.. They sound terrible the whole time, too.

Patience and due diligence, make sure you're staying out of trouble instead of getting out of trouble.. You'll get it... I'm sure..

Regards

 Maggies aren't for precision at all and by all possible means useless for studios. Their design is reflection of engineering, science and experimenting, but not accuracy by very far.
--------------

Nonsense.

Maggies aren't for precision at all and by all possible means useless for studios. Their design is reflection of engineering, science and experimenting, but not accuracy by very far.

The question is did you listen to these before purchasing them, and, if you did, what kind of electronics were used.  Also, what kind of speakers did you have before?  My take is that the somewhat soft PrimaLuna, combined with the somewhat soft Maggies and a possibly unfriendly acoustic in your room is possibly the problem.

Agreed with a few others,try the stock jumper. 
I use stock Maggie 1.7i, PrimaLuna tube preamp, SS Bel Canto monoblocks, and highs sound great. (Have not, however, done a freq analysis) 

Have you checked the working of your spectrum analyser with different speakers?

Maggies are very sensitive to positioning.  You might try them with the tweeters on the inside and tilted towards you.  Just put CD cases behind the back legs.  Make sure they are several feet from the rear wall and try various angles.  But in general, you shouldn't be seeing that kind of rolloff on the top end so it is possible something is defective with the tweeters.

You’ve had these Magnepans for 5 days.  (I’ve been listening to Magnepans, almost exclusively for 40 years.). What speakers were you listening to before the Manepans?  Could it be that you (your ears/brain) had become used to unnaturally bright tweeters and the more natural tonal balance of the Maggie sounds dull?  ( Of course, this argument doesn’t account for your measurements. When it comes to  the pleasure of listening to recorded music, I place more importance on my own subjective aural experience than I do on measurements.)

kingbarbuda289 posts07-28-2021 8:45pmI have a pair of 1.7is. I recommend until you are very familiar with the Maggies and sort this issue out, that you run them only on solid state equipment. I have not looked up the specs on those Pass Labs monoblocks. But I would use those and the Pass Labs solid state preamp. I would put back in the stock steel plate jumper for now. Also check the fuses to make sure they aren’t blown. Make sure all your cable connections are good ones. Play music that is well recorded. Examples would be Steely Dan Aja and Goucho. If there still is a problem call Magnepan. Normally the highs aren’t as big an issue as the lack of bass impact. When yiu get this sorted there are other modifications that would make a difference.

Yes, the Pass gear sounds better than the PrimaLuna for sure. I'm not lacking any bass. In fact the base is what i'm most impressed with. I called Magnepan this morning. Still awaiting a response. Thx.

audiokinesis2,592 posts07-28-2021 8:27pmGetting good measurements of large dipole loudspeakers is not trivial.

My point being, it is extremely unlikely that casual non-gated in-room measurements made with a spectrum analyzer are "accurate" when there is major inconsistency between far more sophisticated, industry-standard measurement techniques. This is a situation where I would say, trust your ears far more than you trust your measurements.

Duke

The ears are telling me the highs are significantly truncated, and the analyzer confirms what I'm hearing.

ps576 posts
07-28-2021 6:40pmCheck the tweeter fuses?

Fuses look good.

kingdeezie46 posts07-28-2021 6:05pmI would think there is a problem with the speakers. 9 DB down in the highs? If the LRS sounds good on the same equipment in the same room, something wrong with the 1.7s.

Agreed

andrewmg7 posts07-28-2021 5:56pmHave you tried using the stock u-shaped jumper in place of your anticables attenuator? Seems a likely culprit....

I'll try that. thx

I have a pair of 1.7is. I recommend until you are very familiar with the Maggies and sort this issue out, that you run them only on solid state equipment. I have not looked up the specs on those Pass Labs monoblocks. But I would use those and the Pass Labs solid state preamp. I would put back in the stock steel plate jumper for now. Also check the fuses to make sure they aren’t blown. Make sure all your cable connections are good ones. Play music that is well recorded. Examples would be Steely Dan Aja and Goucho. If there still is a problem call Magnepan. Normally the highs aren’t as big an issue as the lack of bass impact. When yiu get this sorted there are other modifications that would make a difference. 

Getting good measurements of large dipole loudspeakers is not trivial.

By way of example, John Atkinson uses a fairly sophisticated quasi-anechoic measurement technique and you can see his frequency response measurement of the Magnepan LSR on this page, Figure 2:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/magnepan-lrs-loudspeaker-measurements

Compare that with the frequency response Amir Majidmehr of Audio Science Review recorded using a state-of-the-art, hundred-thousand dollar computer-controlled Klippel measurement system, second graph in the first post on this page:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/magnepan-lrs-speaker-review.16068/

There is so little resemblance between those two curves that you’d never suspect they were the same loudspeaker.

And imo conspicuous by its absence is the "in room" curve that John Atkinson normally runs, perhaps because he was unable to get good data using his normal in-room-curve measurement technique.

My point being, it is extremely unlikely that casual non-gated in-room measurements made with a spectrum analyzer are "accurate" when there is major inconsistency between far more sophisticated, industry-standard measurement techniques. This is a situation where I would say, trust your ears far more than you trust your measurements.

Duke

Check the tweeter fuses?

I would think there is a problem with the speakers. 9 DB down in the highs? If the LRS sounds good on the same equipment in the same room, something wrong with the 1.7s.

Have you tried using the stock u-shaped jumper in place of your anticables attenuator? Seems a likely culprit....

Thank you for the responses. 
- Using an EQ does help, but introduces it's own set of undesirealbe sonic characteristics.
- I would hope my Pass Labs gear would be considered good SS...yet still unacceptable in the high frequencies, and only marginally better than the Prima Luna gear on the 1.7i's.
- I have a pair of LRS's who's high frequencies are vastly superior to the 1.7i's??
- Swapped out the AntiCables with some Canare interconnects and Mogami speaker cables...sounded worse.
- I've tried all the settings variations on the PrimaLuna's 8, 4, and 2 ohm, and high & low bias.

The funny/bonus thing is the harsh poorly recorded music sounds better than any of my reference audiophile recordings on the 1.7i's. I may keep them just for that gem of an attribute.

A cursory glance shows the amp has what - 8, 4, 2 Ohm outputs. If you're on 8 Ohm, try the others. 

@nayles02

Strip out the Anti Cables speaker cables and try running just the panels alone with any decent speaker wire that you have to hand...
If that improves matters try replacing the IC’s as well...

I hate to say it because I'm a Prima Luna fan (have an EL34/KT88 integrated). But they don't extend as well as a good SS amp. Gold Lyon KT88s helped but switching to SS works better. 
Make your room more lively, put KT88s in you amp and that is the best you can do. To tell you the truth Maggie 1.7s don't have the best tweeter, you'll need 3.7s for that but you can get them to work reasonably well.  

That sounds like unusual behavior for pair of speakers - especially for those.

Try to use an equalizer (component) sound field processor, or the equalizer app on a smartphone/laptop. If you are able to correct the anomalies, then your speakers have issues.

I would recommend this test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKdEoiNyyZc

also check for the burn in test (for headphones) also works for speakers.