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Magnepan Mods

It appears that they are using upgraded crossovers. I guess I'm confused as to why Magnepan wouldn't offer these upgrades themselves. It's super inefficient to pay for shipping both ways, have someone rebuild it, and then wait a few months to get it back...hopefully with no shipping damage. If Magnepan isn't maximizing their products, it seems like a competitor could make a me too product with a better crossover and a nicer stand option. Am I missing something?  
seanheis1
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,788 posts
 

The Peter Gunn Maggie mod (Magnestand) is rather controversial. He not only removes the magnetic-planar drivers from the Magnepan MDF frames and installs them in real nice hardwood ones, he abandons the stock cross-over and uses a completely redesigned one, radically changing the character of the Maggies. Magnestand owners seem to universally love their modded Maggies, but Maggie purists disapprove of the redesign.

There are lots of Maggie owners who share their modifications to the various models on the Planar Speaker Asylum. Most involve replacing stock cross-over parts with boutique ones, bypassing the fuses, and installing Cardas binding posts in place of the cheesy Magnepan connectors. Old-timers still like to bi-amp their Maggies, so prefer the older MG 3.5, 3.6, and 20.1 models, which allowed that. The newer 3.7 and 20.7 have series cross-overs, which don’t allow bi-amping without surgery to the x/o.

mikepowellaudio-old
38 posts
 
Peter Gunn only mods the earlier, "wire on membrane" Maggies. He thinks the .7 are junk and will not touch the foil on membrane Maggies. Well, I’m the opposite. While heavy wire is good for bass. its much slower than the foils which have incredibly fast transient response. This is the exact thing in real life as compared to recordings that make real life sound real. Immediacy. e11even stereophonic will be releasing a line of Maggie mods for the .7 series to die for. Finally a nice kit form that makes it easy to put together at home, so no shipping. There are ways to disable the xover and wire direct to the panels and tweeter direct with your amp channels and do it the right way with active filtering before the amps. My opinion.. Maggies cant do it all well, they can do it all in a compromised fashion only. If you accept that then optimize them based on what they do best, you will reap the rewards. I also believe the crossover points and slope are way off. Probably an attempt to give them more bass perception. Knock the midband down 5db. Bad Maggie, no cookie. Then get the sub bass the heck out of those panels! They muddy what mids are left. By the time I’m finished with my 3.7i project, I will have taken tweeter and mid panel out and chucked everything else. You will not believe your eyes when you see the radical departure from early 80’s cloth and oak...
ozzie1
1 posts
 
Yo Mike, many Maggie owners have done pretty much what your mod does to a stock set of MMGs. No need for cryo, or anything else, simply bypassing the stock fuse improves the mids and highs. Do you even cryo the fuses? I ask since the sound quality improvement from a simple bypass is somewhat dramatic. I think you may be creditting a process that you aren't really doing in the first place.

Going on the net to trash a competitor in order to boost your own sales is sleazy at minimum.
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
Magnepan Mods

Often thought to myself, if I ever came across another pair of Maggie Tympanies cheap, I would like to do a mod on them and change the old Ferrite bar magnets for some  new Neodymium bar magnets now that they are not too expensive to buy, this should radically lift the low efficiency of the Tympanies to great heights.
https://aussiemagnets.com.au/magnets/Rare-Earth-%28Neodymium%29/Blocks/

Cheers George
tweak1
3,658 posts
 
Search YT channel OCD. He just finished modding a pair with custom frames. Looks awesome. He should be posting a listening session soon
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