HP reached the same conclusion and came up with a truly creative idea. Why not use the Magneplanar panels for bass reproduction, and replace the earth-shaking Infinity woofer with the Tympani 1D? We both had the impressive Carl Marchisotto-designed Dahlquist DQ-LP1 electronic crossover, which made the merger of dissimilar speakers work very well. This change single-handedly removed our significant reservations about the rough sutures between the big bad woofer and the nimble upper ranges of the speaker. I remember tying a long piece of twine to the Magneplanars and living in fear that the whole contraption would come crashing down on the floor. Luckily it did not.

Perhaps even more stunning than the greatly improved sense of coherence and continuity was the incredibly lifelike soundstage the system produced (uncannily like real music being played in real space). The unerring placement and spacing of performers in the venue were truly remarkable.

HP ได้ข้อสรุปเดียวกันและได้ไอเดียสร้างสรรค์อย่างแท้จริง ทำไมไม่ใช้แผง Magneplanar สำหรับการสร้างเสียงเบส และเปลี่ยนวูฟเฟอร์ Infinity ที่น่าตื่นตะลึงด้วย Tympani 1D เราทั้งคู่มีครอสโอเวอร์อิเล็กทรอนิกส์ Dahlquist DQ-LP1 ที่ออกแบบโดย Carl Marchisotto ซึ่งทำให้การรวมลำโพงต่างรุ่นเข้าด้วยกันนั้นได้ผลดีมาก การเปลี่ยนแปลงนี้เพียงอย่างเดียวทำให้ข้อสงสัยที่สำคัญของเราเกี่ยวกับรอยต่อที่หยาบระหว่างวูฟเฟอร์ขนาดใหญ่ที่แย่มากกับช่วงเสียงบนที่คล่องแคล่วของลำโพงหายไป ฉันจำได้ว่าฉันมัดเชือกยาวๆ ไว้กับ Magneplanar และกลัวว่าอุปกรณ์ทั้งหมดจะหล่นลงมาที่พื้น โชคดีที่มันไม่เป็นเช่นนั้น

บางทีสิ่งที่น่าตื่นตาตื่นใจยิ่งกว่าความรู้สึกสอดคล้องและต่อเนื่องที่ได้รับการปรับปรุงให้ดีขึ้นอย่างมากก็คือเวทีเสียงที่เหมือนจริงอย่างเหลือเชื่อที่ระบบสร้างขึ้น (เหมือนดนตรีจริงที่เล่นในพื้นที่จริงอย่างน่าประหลาดใจ) การจัดวางและระยะห่างของนักแสดงในสถานที่นั้นน่าทึ่งอย่างแท้จริง

The Present 

The balance of this review will now focus on the Magnepan MG1.7i speaker. However, a number of the themes outlined previously are very applicable to the 1.7i and touch directly on the speaker’s remarkably lifelike sound (and “lifelike” is perhaps the most noteworthy attribute that can be bestowed on an audio component).

The 1.7i sounded “good” when first unpacked and connected to my audio system. However, as I came to realize, it is far better than “good.” Attaining the qualities that make it exceptional requires some work and effort. To wit:

The speaker requires significant break-in time before certain sonic constraints gradually melt away, leaving a far better transducer. Prior to break-in, the 1.7i displays limited dynamic range, detail, and bass impact. Initially it can sound overly polite and a bit lifeless.

Finding proper positioning and placement for the 1.7i is also somewhat of a challenge. Again, it can sound good without tedious placement experimentation, but some of the speaker’s magic will not be evident. The instructions in Magnepan’s owner’s manual are very helpful and down-to-earth (similar to the company itself, in my experience). First, obtain an instructive recording of quality bass material of varying frequencies. Play it, while slightly moving the speakers on the long axis of your room. Ideally, the varying bass frequencies should be uniform in amplitude (e.g., minimum room resonances, peaks, and valleys). Although these speakers will not generate shuddering subsonic notes (such as a pipe organ can deliver), they are capable of quick, clean bottom-end reproduction with excellent pitch definition.

Magnepan’s manual indicates that the tweeters can be placed on the inside or outside of the speaker panels. The speakers are mirror-imaged pairs. My conclusion was to use the inside edge for the tweeters, if you want the absolute best imaging and spatial presentation they are capable of. Placing the tweeters on the outside edge of the speakers does offer a larger listening position (sweet spot). However, you lose some imaging specificity, lifelike (there’s that word again) dimensionality, and verisimilitude of image space. Also, the speakers must be slightly canted to allow the lower-mass tweeter to be slightly farther away from the listener than the bass/midrange elements for proper coherence.

Unless your room is very large (i.e., the speakers are far away from the rear wall), you will need some kind of sonic damping material on the walls behind the speakers to reduce the ratio of reflected-to-direct sound. This is one of the unavoidable drawbacks of dipole speakers. Placing these speakers too close to the back wall mars the lateral imaging precision. The same thing holds true for undamped, reflective rear walls. Worst case, this overly reflective combination renders the sound somewhat splattered and diffuse in terms of the placement specificity the speakers are capable of.

To make things more challenging, like most stellar speakers, the Magnepans are very revealing of the flaws in associated equipment and source material. I made several changes during my testing sessions, and easily detected the “personality” of the upstream gear and source. When properly set up, the Magnepan 1.7i can sound very good with a wide range of components and recorded music. Until you have tried them with truly commensurate components and music, though, you won’t fully experience what the speaker is capable of.

Last but not least, these speakers present a challenge for amplifiers to drive (4 ohms impedance at best). Although I was able to get enough volume out of various amplifiers, even ordinarily unstressed amplifiers got much warmer than normal after a lengthy listening session with the 1.7i. These are not the speakers for puny (if sonically glorious) single-ended triode (SET) amplifiers. Like all Magnepan/Magneplanar designs I have worked with over the years, a high-current amplifier (with impeccable sound, of course) is best.

The Magnepan 1.7i is a full-range three-way system (bass/midrange, tweeter, super-tweeter) employing quasi-ribbon technology throughout. As is easily visible when examining the speaker panels, the bulk of the driver area is for the lower midrange/bass frequencies (especially the bass). The larger Magnepans do have better low-end extension (as witnessed on the large Tympani series speakers, as well as the larger current Magnepan 3.7i, 20.7, and 30.7 models). 

I have had extensive experience with the predecessors of the 1.7i (the 1.6 and 1.7). Here is a relevant quote about the older models from Magnepan’s website: “The 1.7 is a departure from Magnepan’s 41-year history of using planar-magnetic drivers for the bass or lower midrange. The use of quasi-ribbon technology down into the lower midrange and bass will provide a new level of coherence.”

This is absolutely true and, I suspect, the absence of quasi-ribbon drivers (which simply didn’t exist back then) was the cause of some of the sonic anomalies in the lower midrange of the Tympani models noted above. Once broken in and placed properly, the 1.7i is noticeably purer, less colored, and more continuous/coherent than any other moderate-size Magnepan model I have heard (including its immediate predecessors, the 1.6 and 1.7). The relatively small size of the 1.7i (for a Magnepan design) helps it to excel in a wider range of room sizes than its larger brethren.

Especially for a speaker of modest cost, the 1.7i does remarkably well in accurately reproducing a wide range of musical instruments and human voices. To a large degree, related instruments (e.g., reeds, woodwinds, brass) not only sound like their larger instrument group, but uncannily like the specific instruments they are, even in musical passages featuring multiple instruments playing at the same time. The 1.7i puts most speakers to shame in this regard.