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May 2011
Magnepan MG 1.7 Speaker
Its greatest strength is its lack of personality, excellent coherence and low coloration.
Review By Ron Nagle
So many companies traverse the audioscene like meteors; they blaze across the sky and rapidly fade from sight. Somefew manufacturers have endured to join this generation of high-end audio. TheMagnepan Company is certainly one of these. It began back in 1969 with a designconceived in the mind of engineer Jim Winey. Let me pause for a moment toclarify two words that could cause confusion. The speaker's functional designis called Magneplanar; the companythat makes the speakers is Magnepan.These two words are frequently used interchangeably. Magnepan's Magneplanar 1.7 speaker is an extensive redesign of a predecessor, the neariconic Magneplanar 1.6. Notably, the very popular, Magneplanar 1.6 had a 12 yearlong production run. The marking manager Wendell Diller informed me that the 1.6speaker series was essentially a two-way design that could be bi-wired andbi-amplified. To date designer Jim Winey and the Magnepan Company have taken abasic design concept and continued to advance and refine what is possible.
AndNow..
The Magneplanar 1.7 is now a three way fullrange Quasi-Ribbon design with a quasi-ribbon bass/midrange, tweeter and supertweeter. The term Quasi Ribbon refers to a fabrication technique that differsfrom a true ribbon in that the conductive metal is laminated to a thin sheet ofMylar film. The super tweeter in the 1.7 is improved by bonding the conductivealuminum foil to a much thinner Mylar backing. The Magneplanar concept issimilar to an electrostatic speaker in that both produce sound by moving amembrane of (Mylar) film to generate pressure waves. Both of these designs arereferred to as Dipole speakers. This is because the sound emanating from thespeaker radiates in equal amounts from both the front and the back of thepanels. The most important difference is that the Magneplanar design does notrequire a high-voltage electrostatic charge to move the Mylar film. My Quad ESL 63Electrostatic speakers had a separate high-voltage transformer power supply in thebase of each speaker. In the Magneplanar design, the magnetic field is generatedby an array of closely spaced permanent magnets. The Mylar film has thinconductive wires or metal foil ribbon attached directly to the Mylar surface.The audio signal that moves the Mylar membrane in all of the Jim WineyMagneplanar designs is applied directly to the now conductive metallized Mylarfilm. Thinking back to my history with the Quad ESL 63 speakers the Magnepandesign should be, and indeed has a reputation to be, very much more reliable.Evidence of this is a cult following by a long parade of entranced 'Maggie'owners.
PhysicallySpeak'ering
Aftermy significant other asks, what's in that huge box and what are you going todo with it? ' That must be the Maggies', my reply is also part question.Indeed inside the box are two Magnepan 1.7 speakers. The review samples arecovered with black grill cloth and have matte finished aluminum side frames.Setting up the 1.7 speakers can be a two-man trial; they are very much heavierthan I thought. Is this because of the combined weight of many, many permanentmagnets? After peeling off all the packing, the first thing you need to do isbolt the two 'T' shaped metal feet onto the base of each speaker. Providedfor this purpose are eight 1.75' long Phillips head screws and four smallplastic washers. The instructions tell you to place the plastic washer on thebottom bolt between the speaker panel and the metal stands. This arrangementwill tilt the speaker panel backward slightly. The panel's measure: 65'high by 19' wide by 2' thick and they weigh 42 pounds each with thestands attached. Since there are four terminals at the rear of the panels Iasked the Magnepan sales people if it was possible to bi-amp or bi-wire thespeakers like the 1.6, their answer was no. Also supplied with the speakers arespare 4 Ampere glass fuses for the tweeter panels and a pair of 1 Ohm ceramicresistors that can be used to reduce tweeter output by 2dB. (I did not usethem.)
Set Up
The owner's manual supplied with the speakershas step-by-step instructions on initial speaker placement. The two most notablestatements in the set up procedure are the necessity to place the panels wellaway from the back wall and to toe in the panels toward the listening position.This first statement seems logical because of the panels Di-Pole radiatingsurface. The second statement is a bit surprising to me because of those verysame large panels; I did not expect them to be quite as directional. Theinstructions recommend that you place the tweeter panels mirror imaged on theinside edge of each speaker. At the bottom rear side of the speakers, you willsee that both speakers have matching serial numbers. Spaced to the right of theserial numbers is a position number. The instructions tell you to place thespeaker with the number 1 on the right side. And the speaker with the number 2will serve as the left channel.
A friend of mine who owned Maggies told me that they could bequite difficult to set up. Let me personalize that statement. As it turned outit would not be easy for me to integrate these large panel speakers properly inmy 11' 8' wide by 20' long room. I began by placing the speakers were Inormally start. That is with the speakers forming a rough equilateral trianglefronting the room's 11' 8' wall. As it turns out the Maggie's are notoptimized in the same set up I use for dynamic/cone driven speakers. Certainlyin a much larger room the speaker positions could be very different. To make along story shorter after some experimentation I settled on a placement that hadto work in my room. Ultimately the Magneplanar panels were moved fartherforward, now six feet away from the back wall. The speakers are approximately8' in front of me and turned facing the sides of my chair. In this is set upthe speakers are less affected by the room boundaries and the objects in theroom. They are now toed inward about 10 degrees and still 8 feet in front of me.The imaging at the center stage is rock solid. Even standing directly in thecenter between the speakers, I could clearly hear the center portion of thestereo image. Most certainly, it takes a tall di-pole panel only two inchesthick to pull off this trick. Ultimately my goal was to arrange the large panelsto recreate a performance that defies the boundaries of my room; this is where Iwant to be.
Philosophy
In the following, the words and the terms I usedo not follow the same pseudo literati descriptive poetic phrasing you will readin the paper audio publications, phrases like, Palpable Presence or Vivid AuralBlackness. I believe it far better to refer/relate to the ability to channelemotions and meaning and not only to the sound, the equipment makes. It is allabout the music, the equipment is only a means to that end.
Listening
As set up, we have relatively large panels inmy room recreating a true Phil Spector style 'Wall of Sound'. So what couldbe more appropriate than a vast and spacious live recording like, PartyAt The Palace [Virgin records CD 7243 8 12833 2 5]. The year is 2002,the setting the great lawn in front of Buckingham Palace, the occasion is TheQueen of England's Golden Jubilee. Gathered for this concert is the besttalent in England. On stage are Queen, Phil Collins, Tom Jones, Bryan Adams,Annie Lennox, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Joe Cocker, Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney,Shirley Bassey, add Brian Wilson of the beach boys. All of them backed by, TheRoyal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra with Brian May. I do highly recommendthis recording. And did you ever hope to hear Brian Wilson performing Good Vibrations backed by The Royal Academy SymphonyOrchestra? The recording contains the massed responses of a cheering throng. Theeffect is that you are transported to a grassy field and made part of the vastaudience facing the stage. Every announced word and every musical passage echoesoutward into the air finding you in the crowd. The music begins and the confinesof my room recede. Like a time machine, I find myself so very alive, and in themoment.
The second track on Partyis Phil Collins and the song 'You Can'tHurry Love https://herexfile489.weebly.com/metro-last-light-redux-dlc.html. ', the bass guitars deep cord changes sound so verypenetratingly tribal. The result is exciting articulate and real, like aprimitive heartbeat it effectively modulates your senses. The improvementinherent using the quasi ribbon midrange and bass drivers is there for you tohear. The bass guitar drives the music and underlines the emotional content ofthe lyrics. The sound is so very real that it seems like my Sanders ESL poweramplifier is connected to the bass guitars pickups.
Not incidentally, the Magneplanar 1.7 loves lots of clean power and you will need to play these speakers fairly loud to hear what they are capable of. The Sanders ESL amplifier is a good match; it was designed to drive difficult electrostatic loads down to one Ohm. This amplifiers rated power into the Maggies 4 Ohm load is 600watts. Ilock 1 5 2 download free.
My long-term test disc is, Basia (Trzetrzelewska) Timeand Tide [Epic-EK 40767]. As far as I am concerned this complicatedstudio mix contains just about every aural clue I need. Let me tell you aboutthe first track Promises, if your speakers have sufficient resolution the firstline appears deep in the center between the speakers. Beginning within the line,'we forget about our promises' the microphone appears to zoom in on thestage. And yes, now Basia appears dead center within arms reach. The title wordends with a strong double sibilance, something that sounds like, 'miss, sez'.I use this and other sibilant consonants to gauge midrange articulation. Throughthe 1.7, it is very easy to hear the teeth and palate micro overtones that tellyou it is human in origin. The instrumental accompaniment contains highfrequency information that opens up a space in front of you. With the Magnepan1.7, this is good; this is very good.
Moving our audition farther, let us test the voicing of theMagneplanar woofers. To accomplish this I must refer to my long-standing bassreference: It is Adagio d' Albinonias performed by Gary Karr and Harmon Lewis. This was originally on a JapaneseFirebird label but it still might be available via the Cisco Music catalog[GCD8003]. The real test is not to see how deep the bass panels can go but moreimportant can they reproduce the overtones echoing from stone walls and thewooden body of Gary Karr's Amati bass. Recorded in a cavernous Japanesecathedral this is a duo of a large sonorous pipe organ and Karr's century'sold Amati bass fiddle. The thunderous reverberations of the low register organpipes hold the woofers for a time on a deep sustained rumble. The resinous bassbowing sighs and breathes a mournful moan that tugs at your heart. TheMagneplanar sound is chillingly organic and for moment or two, it feels like itis flesh and blood crying out to you.
Conclusion,Post Paradigm
Athe outset I wondered if any of the critical comments made some years ago inMagneplanar reviews would still be relevant. There was one comment about lowerbass detail and dynamics and a few additional comments regarding the ribbontweeter. Specifically the reference was to the speed and integration of thetweeter. It was said that the tweeter had better transient response incomparison to the other Magneplanar panels/drivers.
I found that none of these old paradigms proved to be true.Apparently, Magnepan and the Magneplanar 1.7 has evolved beyond any earliercriticisms. In fact, from my listening position the 1.7 is totally coherent. Nodriver panel, no frequency, no part of any performance speaks with a differentvoice. Only with your focused attention can the tweeter be detected, notdirectly but with a sense of expansive air and high frequency extension. Thereare a few areas of music performance bettered by different implementations.There are two speakers that I know well. The 70mm ribbon tweeters in my AurumCantus Leisure 2 SE speakers, are specified out to 40kHz. However, they are avery different treble experience, more of a point source like a Mini Maglite ina dark room. And then there is the greater delineation of depth from my Quad 63speakers. This is marked by a layered separation of the performers on the stagefrom front to back. However if its dynamics, extended bass and a sense ofexcitement you value, the Quad ESL 63 won't get you there.
How many ways to tell you about the personality, not of aperson, but the Magnepan 1.7? Its greatest strength is its lack of personality,excellent coherence and low coloration. Every thing about it tells youeverything you hear is the truth. In my room the 1.7 can be intimate or they canbe an exciting and formidable presence easily able to take control of thelistener and the listening space. Finally, I can only echo what others have saidbefore me, the Magnepan 1.7 speakers are unique, an amazing performance, at$1995 nothing near this price can compare. Semper hi-fi
ReferenceSystem
Marantz DV8400 Universal CD player, CambridgeAudio Discmagic-1 CD transport, Cambridge S-700 Isomagic HDCD D/A Converter, ARTDI/O Up sampling D/A and A/D processor, Magnum Dynalab FT 101a tuner and DynalabSignal Sleuth.
Speakers, Aurum Cantus SES 2, Onyx Rocket Strata Mini 4 wayspeakers. How to scan using macbook pro.
System connections: Three meter Kimberspeaker Cable 12TC, RCA, 3 meter, Wire World Eclipse-2, RCA, 1 meter ChordSilver Siren, 1 meter Audio Sensibility Statement interconnects, AudioSensibility Impact SE 5ft. power cable and Kaplan Cable 6ft. 10 gauge IEC PowerCord.
Power conditioning:Richard Gray 20ampere Substation, Islatrol Industrial 20 ampere ac line conditioner, Alpha CoreBalanced Transformer Power Supply, Audio Power PE-1 power enhancer, Triad2-ampere isolation transformer
Accessories:VPIMagic bricks, Argent Room Lens system, Room Tunes Panels, a comfortable chair.
Specifications
Type: Thee way full-range ribbon speaker. Tg pro (temperature gauge pro) 2 38 download free.
Frequency Response: 40 Hz to 22 kHz (+/- 3dB)
Sensitivity: 86dB/W/m
Impedance: Nominal 4 Ohms
Dimensions: 19.25 x 64.5 x x 2 (WxHxD in inches)
Warranty: Limited three years to original owner
Shipping Weight: 95 lbs.
Serial Numbers: 100282-1 and 2
Price: $1995
Company Information
Magnepan Inc.
1645 Ninth Street
White Bear Lake, Minnesota 55110
Voice: (651) 426-1645
Website: www.magnepan.com
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