DIYHiFi.org

Back in 1978 my Brother-in Law purchased a set of Magnepan MG2A's. In the late 80's the tweeters quit and they've been sitting on a shelf ever since. My nephew would now like to use them if possible and I took them apart. The tweets use aluminum wire that had disentegrated to nothing.

I removed the wire and cleaned the mylar with acetone. Then I sprayed the mylar with 3M "77" glue. I laid new 30 ga copper transformer wire down and used the end of a pen to press the wire down into the glue. Hooked the first one up and it works great. Still working on the second one. Pictures coming.

Had a lot of help from a number of sites that explain how to do this.

Magnepan has a real problem with aluminium tweeter wire. I repaired my left panel Maggiee IIb (1981 model) about 15 years ago when proper procedure was still unknown on the internet.

I also cleaned old wire and glue residue with acetone and used copper magnet wire (0.15 mm diameter). But I first layed down the wire tacking only ends of the wire with superglue and then painted the whole tweeter portion of the membrane with air drying transformer varnish. I did not notice any difference in sound between the repaired and the original panel. The other panel failed several years after.

It took me 15 minutes to repair the speaker and almost 5 years of mental preparation to get to it. Meanwhile I was listening to only one speaker and got so used to it I was not missing stereo at all. Maggies are great speakers IMHO.

I just finished repairing the second this morning. Powered it up and functioning normally. I've always liked the Magnepans. I looked at them back in "91 but didn't know what/how to repair them. I was afraid of doing some real damage. After looking on line I found out that it's a piece of cake.

There is damage to one of the side rails and I'm going to have a new one made. Hopefully it won't take to long.

When I was a member of the Audio Society of Minnesota we would take a tour of the Magnepan factory every year. Always a lot of fun being able to see their listening room. Magnepan has had a long relationship with Audio Research which is also here in town so they would have the top of the line AR gear running the latest speakers. Drool, drool....


My oldest has the cable for the camera so I can't download pictures yet. I'll post 'em when I can.

Before and after

more before

after