Old vs New Magnepan 1.7 vs Tympani IV

If you have the space go for the T IV

With a little work the T IV can fit into a 13X15 room. But easily go into my 17 X 19/20 room.

They are great speakers. Nothing much lost vs. MG 20.

Then there is the upgrade potential. The fact that the bass panels are separate helps substantially with the midrange and trebble.

If you are more adventurous, the modification to bi/triamping and taking out the passive crossover components to put in high grade parts or active crossover can bring these to world class at a modest investment.

I've never heard the Tympani so can't give you an opinion there but I would endorse Jayfox's sentiment & suggest you check out one of the older III series. IMHO they are the current sweetspot in the $'s versus SQ tradeoff.

GO FOR THE TYMPANI'S !!!

I`ve owned the Tympani 1D`s and have listen to the 1.7`s. The sevens don`t come close.

I have owend the Tympani 1 D's mg 1 A , 1c, and now have the smg,s with the magnestand Mod . I also and have a buddy that has the new 3.7's that I hear about every two weeks, the 3.7's sound much much better that the 1.7's, but the
Tympani 1 d's are much better than the 3.7s .

I dont have the Tympani's any more I sold them to my brother who WON'T sell them back to me, I only sold them because I was making a H.T. room with a 120" screen I have a big room "40 + 30' but with 8' of speaker and 10' of screen my setup was about 20' wide speaker tip to speaker tip and they would no longer image with the big space between them.

I know this is about the Tympani 1V's but I am asuming the 1v's would sound a little better than the 1 D's. imop I think the 1D's are one of the top 5 speakers in the word for a combo of Large LARGE sound stage ,detail , and real not fake bass Impact. with two bass panels that are not 1/4" away from the high end driver. The wide panel's help to block out the rear signal of the bass speaker so it does not come around to the front of the speaker as much as a narow panel would preventing the bass from going out of phase as much, making much tighter bass. e.g. Wide panel open driver speakers shuch as PHY speaker's would use as compaired to narrow panle open driver.

Yes Tympani only went down to 38 hz but I STILL think even the 20's can not realy come close too them. so it would go without saying the 1.7's is just kids stuff even though it's a fine speaker." please no hate mail from you 1.7 fans. yes the 1.7s are a fine speaker I like them too.

So you may ask if the Tympani sounded So good why did Magnepan stop making them?
Well I asked the same thing when I went to "T.H.E. Show" in Newport Beach in So. Ca.
When I went to the Magnepan room and talked the the Magnepan rep. I asked
" Why don't you make a large three panel speaker like the Tympani I think it sounded better than even the 20's" and he bowed his head in acceptance of that statement and then said "yes but who would buy a speaker that big now" and then went on to tell me how everyone wants small speakers now, hence the motorized wall hanging Magnepans. And I wanted to say I want Big speakers, big sound stage that is, yes it's big on the 20's and big on the $25.000 M.L. or even any of the $230.000 box speakers From wilson but no were near what the Tympani,s would do.

Yes today almost all the speaker co's are making smaller speakers, Magnepan ,M.L. and even MBL makes a speaker that fits on a stand. Even the M.L. rep told me at Sunnys audio in So. Ca. before they made there larger CLX Art speaker that most of there customers were in europe and they wanted smaller speakers over there because of the smaller homes and apartments, not ones with a big foot print and a very real and very large sound stage. No they are happy with the 3 foot tall box speaker that images at your kee caps not above your head like it does at times when you are front and center at the Hollywood bowl.

In other words, Yes Tympani's over 1.7's or almost any other speaker bar none.