Planar Speaker Asylum

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Original Message

Finally-MMG mods

Posted by powermatic on May 30, 2008 at 22:13:55:

As in finally took some pictures.

My priorities for this project were to stiffen the frames, but try to keep the dimensions as close to the same size as the stock MMGs as possible, both to lessen the aesthetic impact in the room, and to minimize driver edge diffraction with too-wide frames. I used a single brace mainly to minimize apparent size-I like that 'monolith' look of the maggies, so I was trying to maintain that as much as possible.

Materials used were rock-hard maple, maple veneer, black walnut, scrap plywood, MDF for the grills, various fasteners and/or etc. Grill cloth and speaker cable posts are from Parts Express. The new frames can be completely disassembled via socket-head bolts and threaded inserts.

The grills can be removed for real listening, and I made some stands to turn them into diffusers-they actually work surprisingly well, and it's fun to move them around to different positions to hear the effect.

Driver panels were through-screwed at about 4 1/2" intervals into rabbets routed into the frames. It's tough to make the bare mylar look even half-ass decent, but I ended up covering the perimeters in wide, black plastic tape-that helped hide the crappy paint and the edge of the mylar hanging past the metal. The walnut 'things' hiding the wire terminals seem a little out of scale-I may try something else.

Rear shot shows base containing xover, and diagonal brace. I painted the pole pieces satin black-worked like a champ, no paint through the tiny holes onto the mylar. Though frankly, from all the black overspray that the maggie factory allows on the front mylar, that may not be much of an issue.

Interior of the base shows xover location. I know, wire nuts, but I'm still screwing around with the xover. Wire is Kimber 5/9s copper, teflon, 19ga. The thought was to weight the bases with lead in the compartments on either side of the xover. I'll experiment with that-the speakers are pretty damn heavy as it is, and since when did lead become a precious metal? Four bucks a pound for lead shot-wow!.

I'll need to disassemble them one more time for a finish-can't decide between a water-base satin poly to keep the true wood color, or my usual Ben Matte/Satin Oil Poly 50/50 combo rubbed on with 0000 steel wool and then wax.

Thanks to everyone on the PA who offered help, but in particular Dawnrazor and RodH who were the first guys to get me started on modding the MMGs. Thanks everyone....and if anyone has a question feel free to ask.

vaya con dios

"Dammit..."