Magnepan MG II - picking up a set tomorrow

Just found them locally for $100. One has a bad tweeter, so I'm planning on a full rewire of the tweets at least.. I was looking for a project, and from what I've read, its not that difficult, just time consuming...

The owner swears that its just one spot on the tweeter that is bad, but I'm sure its more than that... I'll report back once I see them and have a chance to dig into them a bit.

I figure that even if I have to replace both tweeter wire sets and fix some delam on the mid bass its still worth it.

I had MMG's for a long while and sold them to get my current Klipsch rig... but I've been wanted to get back into Maggies for a while..

One spot on the tweeter? If the juice doesn't make it from one end to the other the tweeter is dead and might need rewiring. If the tweeter does work, it may be something else. But delam is something you can expect.

Not a bad project. Remember, removing the staples to get the socks off is the hardest part.

Yep, its only one spot on the tweeter. Been there....done that.

The tweeter wires will have oxidized to the point where they will fall apart if you so much as touch them. You are right to expect to completely redo the tweeters on both panels.

While you're in there, you'll be relaminating the woofer wires too, if not outright replacing them, too.

Call Magnepan, though, because they'll be able to tell you _exactly_ when they were made and will be glad to sell you the materials to repair them and the replacement covers, too. They're a nice bunch of folks who still care about their old models.

Lastly, get yourself the largest power amp you can find to drive those babies. You'll need it.

Cheers,

David

Now is a good time to get the rebuild kits from Magnepan. Thy won't ship the adhesive in the winter time.

Just got off the phone with Magnepan. For $100 they will send me everything I need to FULLY rewire both speakers bass and treble sections...

So, basically for $200 and several hours of my time I will have new MGII's...

Yup - this is gonna happen...

Blue Shadow said:

Remember, removing the staples to get the socks off is the hardest part.

Click to expand...

That should read, "Remember, removing the 7,364 staples to get the socks off is the hardest part."

-Mark in NC

Just got back from picking them up...

One panel had a broken bass panel connection and visible corrosion on the tweeter - so that confirms my plan to redo it all..

The other panel has a working bass panel but tweeter is not working either.

These are original MGII's.. so thats not surprising.

Now to order the kits...

If you bought these from a very nice gentleman named Frank then these used to belong to me, when they left my possession, 1 did indeed work very well, the other would work if you were to apply pressure on the speaker connection plate which I assume would indicate a bad connect from the speaker connection plate to the crossover which is immediately located behind it.
They are all original and in very good cosmetic condition including the socks, the only issue is 1 of the floor stands would need replacement as it had a slight convex profile to the bottom and would cause that speaker to lean back farther than the other, that is a simple and easy fix to fabricate a replacement.
Good luck, they did sound very good when placed properly in the room. I used to drive them with my Marantz 2325 (125+125) wpc.

I'm attaching a picture of the serial number to see if they actually used to be mine.

Good luck! It can be a wild ride, but rewarding as crap when complete. If I may give some humble advice... Patience. The mylar can be very fragile, steady hands is a must. Once again congrats!!

the staples are easy to remove….cleaning the mylar and replacing the wires takes hours.
I just rebuilt a pair in November, estimated time for cleaning off mylar-3 hours per panel.
Estimated rewire time-2 hours per panel

voodoocanoe said:

I'm attaching a picture of the serial number to see if they actually used to be mine.

Click to expand...

Sorry for the lack of replies!!

Yes - I got them from Frank - they are yours.. Nice to meet the original owner!

Only the bass worked on one panel when I got them..

Sorry its been a whirlwind few days.. but after about 12 hours total (4 hours with acetone stripping wire and cleaning mylar, 8 hours rewiring and tweaking).. I now have two fully working MGII's.

My back is about shot from bending over them all day yesterday. I made some mistakes in the process - mainly from my back getting worse over the course of the day and me not concentrating as well... but I got it all sorted out.

I can tell you this - the wiring on the bass panels isnt as crucial as you would think. The first panel has pretty clean wiring runs.. but the second one I had a big problem with the adhesive (3M 77) drying out and not holding the wires down. I used about 100 (literally) washers to hold down the wires as the 30nf dried... I then went back and hit a couple of ugly spots again with some large fender washers and more glue... now its all good - but its ugly as hell.

I also screwed up and didnt realize that magenepan had sent me two spools of the bass panel wire - once again - not thinking clearly with my back killing me... and I ran out of wire half way through. So I made a junction block and soldered in some new wire... and finished.

The runs on the second bass panel are nasty.. wavy but mostly in the magnet gaps.

Tweeter runs are like factory - perfect... the tweeter wire is a dream to run, and you can do it in about 15 minutes.

I tested resistance on each wiring section and all match within about 1/3-1/2 ohm. Panels are about 1/2 ohm apart total... I think one is around 6.1 and the other around 6.5 ohms total.

Play testing was perfect - great response and no differences between panels that I can tell. I did some quick RTA on them with my DEQ2496 and they look to be running from around 40hz-14.5khz or so... It was nearly midnight so I couldnt push the pink noise up very loud.. but will retest tonight.

Not overly concerned if the high end is a bit rolled off as my hearing doent get up past about 14k anyways...

Tonight the socks go back on.

I'll look into the base plate as you mentioned.. thanks for the heads up! Hopefully I can post some pics tonight!

Recommend you go without socks for a week or so. Make sure the speakers are working properly before stapling them up. Could save a bit of unstapling if you need to go back in. Spec is 50-16kHz ±4 so the numbers you got seem to agree with the manufacturer's spec.

Good point... I have also been toying with the idea of using some different fabric to cover them - like you would use when covering a guitar speaker...

Definitely wont be using as many staples though... that's ridiculous!

I had the same "problem" with my MGII rebuild, the bass wire was curling up near the ends of the panels. I used weldwood contact cement on any problem areas. I also replaced the 10uF cap used for the tweeter crossover.

These have great sound, and FILL a room.

I must confess... In a fit of frustration and pain I did break out the hot melt and did about three spots at the very ends..

I used the hot melt to tack the loops extra tweeter wire in place near the crossover as well.

Ohh and the one thing I forgot to mention..? When I did the last tweeter - it was the last thing I did last night... and I forgot to leave myself about a foot of extra lead to solder.. But the Lord was smiling on me.. I had *exactly* enough to reach the solder terminal... and I mean exactly.

Not that it helps now (sorry), but I once saw a blog post, of a Magnepan owner rebuilding and rewiring his speakers. This owner made a jig, for the wire. He basically cut plywood panels the size of the bass and tweeter panels. Then he drove nails into the panels, to act as wire alignment points. More nails through the top of the bends, to mimic the wire curves. Basically, a big 'string-art' project. The owner then cut off all the nail heads, and looped the wire up and down the 'template'. When finished, he inverted the template over the mylar panel, and carefully slid the wire harness onto each panel. Glued and done. It 'looked' easy, at least! :yes:

Yup - I saw several similar jigs... If I do another, I will definitely be looking into this.

Truth be told - the process is quite deceptive... you start out and its goes well up until you get 1/2 way through the first run.. I was basically tensioning the wire and then using small washers to hold each loop to the mylar at the ends, pressing down with my finger on the washer as I tensioned.

It goes well until you get to the point where the 3m-77 starts to dry out and lose its tackiness... this is about 30 minutes in... and then it all starts going to hell. All of teh sudden, the previous run you just tacked down will pop up and now you have this mass of wire you have no way of tensioning (the wire is quite slippery and hard to stretch without bending )... so you just try and re-tack it down.. but it pulls up in several places along its length..

The only way to fix it is to use washers to hold it to the mylar via the magnetic force... and then apply the 30nf. Wait for it to dry, remove the washers - apply more 30nf - and move the washers to any areas that are lifted (the 30nf takes about an hour to fully dry). Do this a few times and you eventually catch all the lifts.

At one point I literally had an entire pack of 1/4" washers (100) on the surface of the second panel.

Luckily - the bass panel isnt as susceptible to the added mass of the 30nf... so the little glops left my the washers dont really matter.

Done!

Got em done and installed. Awesome is all I can say.

My Magnepan lust started about 20 years ago... I flirted with MMG's for a few years, but they weren't enough and I strayed... But these MGII's remind me of why I started down the road in the first place...

Super wide soundstage and the detail and texture is awesome.

Awesome, sounds like they found a great home :thmbsp: