The 1.7i is a departure from Magnepan's 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 provides a new level of coherence.
The quasi ribbon driver is a deviation from the true ribbon design. A very thin film backing is used to hold the delicate ribbons in place. One of the advantages of quasi ribbon drivers is extremely wide frequency band width and high power handling. The result in the 1.7 is low distortion and seamless ribbon clarity--a sound so clear and effortless that it has changed the thinking of thousands of audiophiles about planar speakers.
The 1.7i is not big from an acoustical standpoint. However, the bass driver is big. The ideal speaker would be a massless line-source that would look like a pole--from the floor to the ceiling. The 1.7i comes as close to that ideal as is possible with real-world devices.
