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In Reply to: Re: Magnepan Voice Coil Repair - A Saga posted by Gagman on May 3, 2005 at 11:44:50:
"Dissing" Magnepan on here is akin to the problems I encounter reviewing music in the indie world. The majors have so beaten it down that everyone feels every review should be a good one, or nobdy will buy it, etc... so it is very taboo.My feeling is, if you tell them shit is shinola they sure as hell won't buy shinola again. I LOVE maggies, they are the only speakers I have ever loved, but they have problems, and so does the company.
In that vein, I think magnepan, or perhaps more pointedly Mr. Winey, reminds me a lot of the Wright Brothers. They both did some groundwork and suddenly found they invented something nobody else ever had. And the first thing both of them did was run to the patent office and secure every step so nobody else could ever make one.
It's theirs, they made it, period. You try to make one, see you in court.
Both of them also seemed to suffer from the belief that both were nearly perfect to begin with. Once the Wrights info got out, people like Glenn Curtiss were making planes that could fly rings around the Wrights, who were too busy suing everyone. It's very telling that we invented the airplane, yet in WWI we were the only country that could not make it's own front line fighter plane. We had none, because of the Wrights.
I think if magnepan had leased it's patents to say 3-5 other companies back in 1990, you would see planer designs that would boggle the mind and ears by now. But they didn't, and they won't, even though the royalties would more than make up for any lost sales. It's the Wright mentality, best illustrated in an old cartoon from the time with Orville looking up at a plane and shouting "Get out of my sky!".
They only make miniscule changes every 10 years, they don't correct flawed processes (I am sure someone could design a machine that could hot wrap the coils between 2 sheets of ultra thin mylar which would resolve this problem forever, and it would not kill them to build with better caps and coils upon request) and while their customer service is good, they don't even have a presence on a board like this.
And what can you do? They have a monopoly, the old their way or the highway. I would like to see them embrace their speakers with the passion we all do, but they don't, and I don't see that changing.
Follow Ups:
I agree whole-heartily on your take with Magnepan not chosing to license their technology. Mr Winey himself stated in a interview how his battle with Apogee had taken a toll on himself and his company.Add him to the ranks of the Wrights, the Jobs, the Wozniaks, etc.,
This also gives me a chance to toot my horn in regards to the Wright bros. Having been raised in the same home town (Dayton,OH) they're truly an American legend. Every self respecting Daytonian gags each time we see a license plate from North Carolina that states "first in flight"- not so! MANY test flights occured in Dayton long before they chose the windy shores of NC for that historic first flight. In fact, the area they did most of their testing is now sacred ground dead smack in the middle of Wright-Patterson Air Force base in Dayton overlooking F16's, stealth bombers and other SOTA aircraft now land.
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Yes, as much as I, and all of us love Maggies there are a TON of things they could do different... or better at the factory. I'm not even gonna start the list, like I said this could be a whole 'nother thread, hats off to Peter for speaking his mind and bringing up the subject.
I like your idea too, about letting the patents loose for other's interpretation of the Magneplanar speaker topology, but then again I find it kind of cool that Magnepan is the "only one" of it's kind and to own them is special and unique. Sure, there were a few other companies that had similar designs- Polyplanar is one a long time ago, but not quite the real deal. Don't know exactly how their designs were, but they must have been just different enough to not warrant any recourse sent their way.
And of course, there are many, many things abouut Maggies that I would not change a bit if I had the chance. Quite a few factors on improvement would be model- specific, having to adhere to the performance/ price ratio, and in this area, Magnepan accels like no other. I think we would all agree on one area that needs improvement... general build quality. I'm not talking a complete makeover, not a massive re-designed platform, just some changes and tweaks here and there, and some NEW ideas. Jim still designs each and every model, and has done an excellent job on every one of them (not to mention inventing the technology!) but there comes a time to evolve a bit.
And I'm not usually thanked for it....... :^ )I can appreciate the uniqueness. It's the largest selling high end speaker of all time, yet nobody in the general public knows what it is, even when they see one. But it's due to zealots like us who show them to friends, family, or hell, anyone who's interested! Magnepan sales come from word of mouth principly, and the mouth is ours. I suppose that's why we feel they "owe" us. :^ )
But I'm not talking about letting it all go, just a license to a few select companies with the background, resources or good ideas to make the most of them.
And imagine if the poor long suffering europeans could have a maggie factory in Germany? The Lord wouldn't have had to come here, and they can call them BMW's (Bayerin Magnepanishe Werke)
Then snobs here can buy them, brag that they're better than US maggies, and Mart can chew them a new cornchute. Imagine the fun!
Perhaps I was tough on magnepan, but I'd just like to see obvious problems addressed (do they not have enough real work to do that they can waste time repairing bad coils, or is that part of the profit scheme?) and it would be nice to see them offer auidophile grade versions of the 1 and 3 series. (better caps, coils, wiring, terminals etc...)
I cannot see how the latter could possibly be a problem or cost them money. In fact, I wonder how much business they lose because people would have bought a tweaked 3.6 but are afraid or incapable of doing it themselves so they buy some pricier speaker instead.
Ahhh, like all lifes mysteries, we'll never know...
I remain amazed how much Rutan's most "inventive" planes have more than a vague resemblance to that original plane, at the very least ... more so than rationality dictates that it has any right too. I remain impressed! They certainly optimized the lift to thrust ratio, but then again they had to with those POS engines running on crappy fuel.That's where I believe the analogy ends. Magnepan has access to excellent motors. It's one of those issues that makes one's head itch. OK, maybe I wouldn't expect ceramic magnets on its more affordable stuff, by why not their flagship? I realize that too already blasts its competition at its price point, but I can't help but wonder how many hassles could be solved via stronger motors. Hell, with reduced current, one can use thinner gauged wires for lighter moving mass at higher amplifier-friendly impedances, at much improved efficiencies.
♪ moderate Mart £ ♫ ☺ Planar Asylum
that stronger motors made of different magnets would sound OK.Keep in mind that the magnetic fields from the wires cause eddy currents in nearby conductors, which include the magnets if they are metal alloy. Any change to the conductivity or conductance of the magnet structure might be audible.
I did a little experimenting with magnets on the steel components in AC outlets. Some rare-earth magnets, which are very powerful, sounded awful compared to weaker ceramic magnets in the same places.
IIRC, the strong rare earth magnets have measurably less ability to eddy current. That's a difference all right, but that one seems superficially counter intuitive. Don't get me wrong, I'm not doubting you. This one stump is just gonna stump me for a while.
♪ moderate Mart £ ♫ ☺ Planar Asylum
The magnet material has an effective permeability to external fields as well as an effective conductivity. The source of the external field is moving with respect to the magnet. My head hurts!I don't know if my experiments with power devices will apply to the speakers, but it might explain why we haven't seen upgraded motors.
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Be-Bop and Mahler
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