Old vs New Magnepan 1.7 vs Tympani IV

This may be redundant after all the other posts, but as an old 1-D owner who now has a pair of IVa's, I'll add my voice and say go for the Tympanis! It's a no brainer, if you have the space. I don't know of anything that will touch them for the price. Some of what they do no speaker does as well to this date, e.g., the amazing midbass. The rest of what they do is still pretty well up there. And as Schussor points out, if you get the urge, you can bring their performance to even higher levels for not that much money and work.

Cwlondon,

I don't think there's any one way to upgrade the crossovers. The best results, as with any speaker, will be with bi- or tri-amping. Many advantages -- you can use the best components, the amplifier is always connected directly to the load and seeing a beautifully non-reactive impedance, you can select amps that are best for each frequency range. Of course, it's also the most elaborate approach.

In an unmodified IVa, I believe it would probably mean an active crossover rather than a PLLXO, since we're talking high order crossover slopes. Another possibility would be to use a digital crossover. That's what I'll be doing with my own IVa's, but all my sources are digital -- I know that some people want to stay in the analog domain. The best and most practical way to go digital is probably DEQX, but the crossover can also be PC-based.

Of course, the simplest approach is to upgrade the quality of the high-level components. Upgrading the caps seems to have a bigger payoff than upgrading the chokes, that at least is what some people say.