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Newbie scored some Maggie's! Advice appreciated!

T

T ympaniGuy

New Member
Hello all, I have been a lurker for a while, but today's find has me scratching my head and prompted me to join. I found this set of Magnepan Tympani 1D magneplanar speakers on CraigsList today and picked them up, for a screaming $100! The PO "didn't know much about them", though he acquired them because he bought out an old audio store and had them sitting in his basement for some time. He said he never bothered to test them and put them up for sale knowing they needed some work. I picked up all six panels and hoped for the best. Brought them home and pulled back the covers on most of the panels. To my newbie eye, I could tell someone had worked on them rather sloppily prior to the PO, or who knows, maybe he worked on them. Anyway, as far as i could tell, the one tweeter panel is totally stock and un-molested, the rest have all been worked on. For giggles, I plugged the best tweeter panel into my Audiosource Amp Two and... Huzzah! Life! For just being a tweeter panel, it sounded incredibly smooth, compared to my frame of reference, my Acoustic Research AR18s. Took turns plugging panel after panel in, and ended with both tweeter panels functioning OK and 2/4 mid/bass panels functioning. Phone quality pictures until I get a chance to pull them out into the garage tomorrow. Any advice on rebuilding the mid/bass panels will be greatly appreciated. Any advice at all is cool :) I know I need to re adhere the wires to the panel as a starting point and address the broken connection in one bass panel. Unsure of anything else really.
Thank you all
Chris
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Magnepan can provide you with the wire and Meloxithane (I think) goo that holds the wires to the panel. Order soon as they don't ship in the colder months because the Meloxithane can't be allowed to freeze.

There are also numerous YouTube videos on Magnepan repar. It is messy and tedious, but otherwise fairly simple.

If you can give them the space they require they are quite impressive. Many people have a hard time going back to traditional "box" speakers once they have experienced the Magnepan magic.

Great score, hope you enjoy them.
 
I have rebuilt/repaired several sets of Maggies--it is not difficult or expensive, just tedious. Previous post is correct--Magnepan will not ship the Miloxane in the colder months as it susceptible to freezing damage (they are located in White Bear Lake, MN); however, it is just a 3M product (Fastbond 30NF) with a UV protective additive proprietary to Magnepan--so you can source it elsewhere, or perhaps even locally. Unless you have them sitting in front of a big window or sliding glass door in the blazing sun, the lack of the proprietary additive will make no difference. There are two adhesives involved--one solvent based and then the water based latex Miloxane--both are available from alternate sources, and while you're at it, don't forget a can of acetone and a bag of rags to clean off the old adhesive. The original solvent adhesive is 3M Super 77 in a spray, but a lot of people (including myself) prefer to use Durabond Weldwood Contact Cement (paint on application)--it is neater to work with and tacks up better to hold the wires in place. Magnepan will still ship the wire kits in the winter if you actually need them, they just will not ship the adhesive or ribbon tweeters for the "r" series speakers due to temperatures.

There are many threads (here and elsewhere) on refurbing Maggies, so there is a lot of help out there with different tips/tricks that people have worked out. The key is patience--take your time and when you get frustrated (and you will), walk away for a while or til tomorrow and start back again. They are not like refoaming a woofer--you are not going to do two panels in an hour.

Good Luck!!!
 
wmgwizard said:
If you can give them the space they require they are quite impressive. Many people have a hard time going back to traditional "box" speakers once they have experienced the Magnepan magic.

Great score, hope you enjoy them.
Click to expand...

^^^^ +1 on this! I have "box speakers" that I use daily, but still keep around a pair of Maggie 3.6r's that I restored. They sound amazing when properly placed and given enough "breathing room"--basically, they need a fairly large room and to be placed at least 3' from the backing wall (a little more is even better). They are a 4 ohm load, so they do like a bit of juice to really make them sing. Don't know what your living/listening room situation is like, but keep in mind that they are very placement sensitive. I have a decent sized room for mine, and am single and the dog doesn't care when I drag two 2' X 6' panels out into the middle of the room LOL.
 
Cool. Just a little bigger than AR 18s. :)
You are going to need more amp. Maybe a second Amp Two since it monobridges to 200w. ?
 
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