We'll argee to disagree, Kt88, although I certainly acknowledge the possibility that you built a satisfying system in your own way - mine is not the only way (and mine is also definitely not the best system out there, and never will be!), but I do think it's the most logical and predictable way. Listen on, brother!
For the record in this thread, Magnepans are not electrostatic speakers, nor are they ribbons, in the case of the 1.6's. They are planar-magnetic speakers, combined with ribbon tweeters only in the models with the "R" suffix. The confusion tends to arise because all of these types are frequently (but not always) configured as boxless, dipole radiating, panel-type speakers, but they do employ different operating principles. (The Maggie models with the "QR" suffix are designated "Quasi-Ribbon" for the tweeter, which is roughly speaking like a cross between a planar-magnetic driver and a true ribbon driver.) The following is my admittedly non-expert attempt to explain these differences (corrections welcomed where needed).
In a true ribbon, the best-known examples of which (aside from the Maggie "R" tweeter) are probably the late, lamented Apogee's, the driven membrane is a metallicized film that is itself the conductive element of the driver, much as the voice-coil functions within a regular dynamic driver. In a planar-magnetic design, such as the mid and bass panels of all Maggies, a thin-film membrane is embedded with a wire running through it that functions as the conductive element. Both of these design types employ fixed magnets to drive the membrane when current is applied to the conductor, again much as in a dynamic driver. In an electrostatic design, like a Quad ESL, Martin-Logan, Sound-Lab, or InnerSound, no magnets are used. Instead, a thin-film membrane is suspended between two perforated (for sound propagation) conductive metal elements called stators. The speaker must be plugged into the wall AC, to supply power that is used to impart the membrane with an electrostatic charge when operating, which does not vary. The stators then carry opposite phases of the variable alternating music signal from the amplifier (after being converted from current to voltage by an integral speaker input transformer), which causes the stators to alternately attract and repel the statically charged membrane, producing the diver's motion.
For reasons that I don't fully understand, panel drivers of the planar-magnetic and ribbon varieties are typically not run full-range, but crossed over using separate, frequency range-optimized individual drivers to handle the complete spectrum, while electrostats are in principle single-driver, crossover-less, full-range transducers, but in actuality are often crossed over to a dynamic-cone bass-range driver for practical reasons having to do with maintaining a manageable panel size. Also, ribbon tweeters have often been employed to handle the treble range in box-type, otherwise dynamic speaker designs, such as many historical Infinity models that utilized their EMIT ribbon tweeters, or newer models from Piega or Red Rose, for example.
