I would like to hear for myself the touted improvement that bypassing the fuse and attenuator on my Maggies could make - I'm aware of the risk I will be running.

Am I correct in assuming that I will bypass the fuse and tweeter attenuator by removing the connections circled in red, and moving the yellow wire to the centre-top terminal? What brand of binding posts should I consider?

Does anyone have other tweaks (crossover upgrade, custom stands, vibration absorption, etc) that they would recommend?

Yes, move the yellow wire as you’ve indicated. I found the fuse on all my Maggies was a source of compression. It’s a bit more transparent and open without but you might want to retain the resistor if you find the slight increase in tweeter level a bit much. I never did get to the crossover but others have had success changing the wire inductors to flat copper ones. Frames that brace the sides are meant to help as well but I’ve not tried that myself.

AMR-iFi R&D

Excellent - thanks Colin!

I think there used to be aftermarket stands available too (Mye ?), but I never used them myself. The only other Maggie tweak I recall was to tilt the panels forward. I cant remember why but it made little effect in my too small room.

Thanks - any suggestions for upgrading the crossover?

These are my Maggie 1.7's after applying noise-dampening material as described here: www.audioasylum.com/forums/MUG/messages/15/155318.html

Both the fuse/attenuator bypass, and the damping material have made appreciable improvements to the sound

I'm in the process of making braced steel stands, and looking at crossover options to avoid the Maggies reproducing the subwoofer frequencies. I have been using a MiniDSP 2x4HD for sub and room corrections with my home theatre playback, but I would prefer not to run the DAC and turntable output through the MiniDSP now that I have the Hegel H190 to play my music through. All suggestions regarding crossover options gratefully received.

With the attenuator connectors leave the link in or you won't get any highs

To attenuate you replace the link with the supplied resistors.

The link can affect the sound so bypassing as you indicate is a good move.

With my old MG1b I went keep the x-over stock but used custom stands.
The 1.6 was such an improvement in all departments over earlier Maggies I left mine stock except for replacing the bi-wire links with some high quality speaker cable.

Thanks Michael - my main objective is to manage the signal from the phono stage and from the DAC before getting amplified by the Hegel H190 amp and sub. The crossover in the Denon AVR is fine for home theatre audio, but I don't want to run the phono and DAC audio through the AVR, and I still want to use the sub with the Maggies. But I believe the Maggies sound better if the bass of a full-range signal is separated out and handled by the sub. So I presume I need 2 active crossovers with sub output, one for the phono line into the amp, and one for the DAC line into the amp. (I have used a MiniDSP 2x4HD for sub and room correction for my AVR output, and I could try it with the DAC output, but it seems counter-intuitive to use it after the DAC has already performed one digital-to-analogue conversion)

This is new territory for me, and I would appreciate any advice re suitable crossovers - would something like this be appropriate? www.ebay.com/itm/Behringer-Super-X-Pro-CX2310-2-3-way-Crossover-with-subwoofer-output/333566258111?hash=item4daa192bbf:g:CB0AAOSwY2peh6ha

Or is there a DIY kit that would suit my needs? Using something like this: www.marchandelec.com/xm1-electronic-crossover.html

Or should I just buy another miniDSP 2x4HD and run the phono and DAC output through them?

Too complicated for me !

Give Paul Quilter/PQ Imports a call, he's been NZ's Maggie distributor for the last 25 years or so and has the knowledge on Maggie/sub combos.

No worries - thanks anyway Michaelw. I bought my Maggies from Paul - he's been on holiday of late, and back at the coalface this week, I believe. I will talk to him, but meanwhile I have started a new thread for this subject at darklantern.proboards.com/thread/2657/active-crossover-advice