I Bought My Dream Speakers And They're Already Broken 

Great lesson for the rest of us. I have made similar mistakes on a smaller scale. I always wanted a smaller pair of maggies, but this is exactly the kind of thing that worries me about expensive used speakers

Glad you can rebuild and they aren't a total loss

I have the same pair. You really need a much more powerful amplifier to get the most out of these!

An Adcom GFA-555 Mk II would be great. The Mk I has issues with caps, but the Mk II doesn't. 200W per channel and would drive those dream speakers fine. Cool speakers and I'm looking forward to seeing the rebuild.

Key tip: Dealers in stores often get flagship larger models because the brands require them to show off their best of the best line. What often happens because most people have limited money is they buy the lower and smaller price point lines of the brand. So after say 6 months the dealer wants more showroom floor space for Christmas to sell the volume cheaper stuff. When they sell the bigger stuff the dealers make thousands to tens of thousands profit at a time but those buyers take a very long time to decide ( many months and reapet visits) and not as many of them with that cash. The bulk buyers buying the smaller stuff in the low thousands the dealers might make hundreds in profit per piece sold. So they want back that showroom floor space. You can often get brand new high end speakers with a warranty used for only 6 months or 1 year in the showroom at cost or slightly below the dealers cost. I don't buy used online privately that is a haven for getting ripped off or the seller really doesn't know what is wrong with the product when selling it so a crap shoot. It's a like a car could be something minor or not worth the repair because it's so big of an issue. The wives often say even if space they won't allow such a big speaker in the house so harder for dealers to move. If you have a dedicated room that is your space that wife won't tell you what is acceptable you have an advantage negotiating with a dealer. The dealer has the big stuff to wow the buyer as to the potential of what a brand can do and then the buyer often goes down the line until a piece of the brand fits in their budget. Always ask a dealer if they have a trade in program and how long you can trade it in and what is the value for the item. Some might say within 6 months 90% of purchase price, within a year 80%, 1 year plus 60% etc. if you are trading UP. That is because as a model ages out and newer stuff comes online from the brand it might be harder to move. Some stores only take trade ins from brands they carry or that you bought from them. Others will take trade ins from other brands they do not carry if they have a massive network of buyers looking for a certain speaker they do not carry. WHY would a dealer do this? The customer might like other items they carry and if they can locate that one speaker or other item they want they can package it with their store items to do a bigger deal. Hope it helps.

13:37 Phil Spector had his “wall of sound.” You have your “room divider of sound.”

I really appreciate your videos and your overall presentation and demeanor. No nonsense, no fluff, no conning. Just a genuine music lover and magnepan appreciator. You’re doing great work. I have 3.5r speakers. I have no rattling, but you never know what may happen one day. Seeing your how-to on this era of 3 series would be a great contribution. I feel badly that you got stuck with delaminating speakers. I believe he knew. However, you are taking it in stride and making lemonade; your positivity is inspiring. I wish you all the best in your endeavors. your channel is so refreshing. I really like that you use nice vintage gear, as well. you don’t need to spend a million dollars to have amazing sound. I will say that those 3.6’s are capable of a lot more, so I agree that it might be time for an upgrade so you can hear them really sing. Be careful around those ribbon tweeters when doing your refurb/repair. They are ever so delicate. Especially sensitive when laying then down flat. Just the air pressure can break them. Use caution. regarding vintage options with a lot of power- Krell is nice. Adcom sounds very good and can be picked up pretty affordably. GFA-555 has plenty of power. Enjoy.

You remind me of my self when i was exsploring the hi fi universe, and diy possibillities. Your straight forward representation is very likeable😊

I've been kicking around the idea about trying out some Maggies. My daily drivers are Klipsch Forte 3's, Dahlquist DQ-20 and ADS L810s. After a quick search and a little haggling I found a pair of repaired/restored MG3a's about an hour away in Los Angeles. I'm in love with them, powering them with a restored Pioneer SX-1250. I told the wife it was all your fault..Great videos, keep them coming.

Owned a pair of Magnepan 2.6R since new. I had room to play the Magnepans for about five years. Never had a proper high current amplifier. Magnepans went into storage. Later puchasd even larger speakers (Polk SDA SRS2.3TL). A couple of months ago I finally bought a really nice Yamaha amplifier. Partly to check out the Magnepans with a higher current amp and partly because I had the cash. Anyway, the Yamaha drives Polks like amazing. Still, there is the Magnepans. I wedged these large items into a bedroom, ran lots of speaker wire to the Yamaha and prepared my ears for sound of speaker damage. Well, the Magnepans sound like twenty five year storage never happened! Now, to the reason I am writing. I am owned by three indoor cats. I made easily removable speaker covers out of thin sheets of a foam/plastic construction material from Home Depot. Cheap and light weight and stops (so far) claws of cat.

I LOVE Magnepan speakers. Their latest line of base model speakers (LRS+) piqued my interest so I called Magnepan to ask if my rebuilt vintage Yamaha CR-2020 (100wpc) could adequately power them. They said 'no'! Ended up buying a pair of Vandersteen 1CI+ speakers w/ stands (new) for $1,500 from Music Direct. I'm blown away with them but surprised that Magnepan thought 100 wpc was not enough to drive the LRS+ units.

You should be able to refinish those MG IIa pretty easily, I'd think. It'll take a little elbow grease, but it's not expensive. If they work fine, I'd say you got a pretty good little bonus there. The white does look like a mud fence though.

You paid $2000 for these, without listening to the?. This guy saw you coming! You should put his name up to protect the rest of us

Looking forward to the rebuild … Thanks for your efforts!

Look forward to watching your rebuild video of these speakers.

Live and learn, right? You're not the first believe me. A video repairing the MG-3.6R speakers would be welcome, and you do have some experience. The white speakers can be resold or refinished or both to recoup some money. You have lots of options available, good luck going forward. Cats😉

A nice demo of how the Maggies are constructed. As to your learning experience. We've all been there where our excitement and desire for a piece of gear leads to a temporary failure of common sense. I've just had the opposite, where what I knew was a failure of common sense led to a very positive outcome. I have monster, forever, retirement, floorstanders in my main system, but couldn't resist a pair of ex dem single driver full range floor sanders from Icon Audio in the UK, despite having really nowhere to put them. I knew it was daft but did it anyway, and by God they sound like heaven with my 300b SET. I now know how good that amp can be. So now I have two large pairs of speakers in my living room, my wife is pissed at me, but I'm in sonic heaven. My Elysian-4 s are still better with my solid state amps and dynamic music, but with jazz and acoustic the full range, SET combo is incredible.

I also bought speakers that were way too big for the room...that was 40 years ago, I learned my lesson.

Try placing the sub woofer in the corner of the room. May seem strange but I read that once and tried it and it is better. Stange but true like how facing subs towards the rear of a car often sounds better.

Since you're incredibly skilled...what would be the point of buying new, unbroken speakers? That's so boring. You drew me into your channel with the repairs of your Maggies (and the pressure-washed receiver...and the crazy LS-swapped XJ-S). I hope you enjoy transforming these speakers into something you and your cats can listen to for many, many years.

I think the quasi ribbon maggies are less prone to delamination than the wire versions. I hope you are able easily resolve the issue with your maggies.

One can hope he didn't know and that it was an innocent mistake, BUT I think he knew exactly what he was doing.

You now have a rare chance to have a quadrophonic magnapan set up. That would be pretty cool to see.

Very Interesting! I look forward to the re-build videos. What model Marantz are you using?

I don’t mind the white paint. In the right room, that could work. Seems like the finish could have been better, though.

I drove to NC for BB chevy 2 motors (8 hours away). Had to get them out of a soggy backyard with no help (seller was too feeble). Drive them back home (it was dark), next morning I have to get them both back out of the truck and into my garage and then I sat down, looked across the room and saw my first crack in one of the blocks. Before it was over I had two small piles of parts and a whole lot of anchor weights. Got most of my money back and a 3rd junkyard motor the guy sent me trying to smooth things over. Now I just assume (ass-u-me) that everything I buy online is total junk and if not it's a bonus.

Sorry to hear they’re broken bro. That Marantz has a nice patina on the dial much like my 2245. The vellum gets old, and it gets that turquoise tint. I love it!!!!

It is disappointing to deal with people that don't have the same integrity level as you do. Openly trusting people has been a positive attribute for me. I also have been burned, the risk is still worth it

I had a set of 3.5 r's. Magnepan will rebuild these or at least they used to. I had mine done for the same reason. Also you will need a quite powerful amp for them BUT they are just a great speaker and you will enjoy them. The ribbon is a joy to hear for the upper end, nothing like it. I have also owned MG 2's and a pair of the old Tympani series, the tympani 1-C in the late '70's. Magneplanars are unique speakers, once you have them then nothing else seems to satisfy you. I would fix the 3.6's, they are one of the very best systems Magnepan ever made. Everything else they make now is very expensive and possibly only slightly better. Hopefully you got the ribbon tweeter protective strips, be sure to use them when handling the speaker. Remember there is no such thing as too much power for these. You need it to reproduce the dynamic range they are capable of. Have fun, you made a good choice.

I always look forward to one of your videos young man! Keep 'em coming. I have vintage amps and receivers and I use a headphone amp with RCA ins/outs and remote volume control. I i insert it in the tape monitor loop and I have remote volume control.

All is not lost. Strip the white paint off and refinish. And you've got another video as well and you'll get lots of advice from viewers too.

First time hearing them and with a vintage Marantz» That is just cool. They do sound as good as I expected them to sound. I heard the Sound-Lab A-1 for a while and the only speaker I prefer to that one is the MBL Extreme set up. I have never in my life heard anything like the MBLs. Anyway. At least you can fix them yourself. Even teach others how to do it and that is really good. You get content for your channel. It cost you 2k but you get fun with repairing them and we appreciate the input. But I get you. You look for something for so long, you finally get it, only to realize it has a few issues. If they were cheap and the guy was not being able to sell them should be a sign something was not quite right. But you were the one who complained about the distance and he only went to meet you half way because you did not want to go all the way and lose so much time. but I did not hear you say he was not willing to let you test them. Maybe you both did a good deal and you even got another set. Thaks for sharing.

i had a cat just like yours many years ago

I have a friend who had a set of magnepans in the '80s. As I remember his also started to buzz at certain frequencies which is why he got rid of them. He thought the driver panels were stretching due to him cranking them up all the time. He was driving them with a pair of adcom GFA-555s each running in bridge mode. I think he told me it was 500 watts per speaker. The Lights in the house would pulse when he cranked it up. Luckily the maggies aren't very efficient or he would be deaf now.

I know you must be bummed about finding your dream speakers were delaminating. However, I've found I far more appreciate components I've worked on myself - it demystifies them and helps you understand they were engineered, not conjured up or sprinkled with pixie dust. By realising they were engineered gives you the confidence you can fix them yourself. I find I appreciate my loudspeakers much more because I've had to repair and replace their drivers over the last sixteen years I've had them. I will never part with them now (they are Audio Physic Spark IIs). I love the way the look and the joy and and pleasure they provide when they deliver music to my ears!

I was just going to ask you if the subwoofer was playing because you hear quite low notes, they sound fantastic, and I'm not talking about the price because many times you find speakers that are ridiculously cheap for what they sound and others that are ridiculously expensive and don't sound good at all. Very good buys!

Sorry for your experience. I bought my 1.7i from a local dealer work well

Looks for Joseph Pelon here on RU-vid and he is the absolute God when it comes to anything flat panel speakers since he literally makes his own.

Agreed. You need at least 200 wpc to really appreciate them. I'd look into some vintage parasound amps. Can be affordable and 200+wpc. Or even further vintage a crown dc300. Originally pushed 210wpc I have one that bench tested at 188. Still an amazing power amp all these years later!!

Those things are a cat paradise, how do you keep them off?

Good luck on the rebuild! Sorry you had to deal with a less than honest seller. Maybe you can sell the cosmetically challenged speakers to someone who doesn’t object to the paint scheme? Should help offset your costs.

As much as I love the sound of my Marantz 2245 on my living room system, when I take it to my main sound room and use the preamp section to drive my power amps the sound is pretty muddy when compared to my DIY tube preamps or 80s Audio Research preamps. So yes, a stand alone preamp would likely provide a sigificant upgrade to your sound but I'd suggest that your borrow one to try before you jump in.

great speakers. The sound is fantastic. Did you ever see or hear the Pioneer P-580 vintage speakers from the 70's. They also have ribbon tweeters. They have that Live music performance sound. They are smaller but very heavy.

I would love to see how you rebuilt those. If you need wood pieces made for those 2 series, try to get in touch with me somehow. Be glad to help you on that. Hey - nice Sony PS-X (5 or 6) turntable. Wish I still had mine. If the automatic part of that ever fails -- I can tell you how to repair that too. Pretty easy.

You can also send them back to magnapan and they rebuild them as well just call them or look at the information on the website at the factory in the Minneapolis area, I would imagine that shipping would be costly but worth it. I think that they have a video about rebuilding them process on the internet

BTW you did a great job of recording your speakers. I could tell from watching the video that the sound was amazing. I've never heard Magnepans with the ribbon tweeter, but people rave about them.

I'm only 5:48 into the video and those speakers sound amazing! WOW!

Really can’t wait for the next videos….!

I know that you love your Marantz, but before you do anything drastic, it really needs a more quality amplifier that can deliver a lot more current to the speaker's. From experience i know that panel speaker's can buzz on certain frequency's because the amp cannot cope with the speaker demands.

I have not heard Magnepans in the flesh but those one's sounded very good on your video demo. It's unfortunate that after you paid $2000 you discovered they have some sound issues that need repair. As you know, that's the risk with second hand stuff if relevant tests are not carried out before buying. I look forward to getting a close look at the inside of these speakers as you go about repairing them in the follow up video. Good luck with that work.

Awesome, Story and definitely looking forward to more... Relax you're good just work it out. You seem very normal and Honest YOLO. Nice job!

Those Magnepan have sweet-spot about the size of a dime, but if you're seated on that dime, and don't move, they sound amazing. Personally my favorite speakers have been the Ohm Walsh, built in Brooklyn ✌️

Nad as well, I have two model 214's which are only 75 wpc but in mono bridged are 240wpc. Sound amazing. I also would seek an nad preamp, or parasound. Or even the crown ic 150 preamp same vintage as dc300 was an excellent preamplifier. My other choice is a Yamaha c4 preamp. I absolutely loved mine and kick myself all the time for trading it away, lol.

If you treat your room to get rid of the echo (heard while speaking in the video), speakers half that price would sound WAY better.

I like how the white ones look. They'd be better with a more golden colored cloth, but they are still ok as-is.

I've had inexpensive opportunites for both the large maggies and a set of Apogee's. Passed on them both, while I like the sound of planar ibbons, I sure don't need the headache of those frailures. I've tried to repair ribbons before and it's just a pain that I don't need.

You saved 6 hours. I would have auditioned them unless they were coming from a dealer with a return policy.

Search for it, an older guy builds a set from scratch. I always like the magapans but i think my Favorite from the late 70s was Bob Carvers Amazing loud speakers with 2 tall Ribbon tweeters. Others from that eara Was the infinity preludes with the side installed sub. Unless i got into B&Ws Now it might be the B&W dimond 800s or if i had the money the upper end stuff. But i am not rich, so I'm going to have to go with Polk audio. I am happy with that. My AVR cost over 2 k and put out plenty of power to drive my entry level polk audio speakers yes i could do a lot better. Loud enough not quite audiophile but better then consumer grade. Its an Advantage 3040. And yes i could add Amps but it gets plenty loud and has plenty of headroom. Just enough power to drive some decent speakers.

YUP! I feel your pain dude! I've gotten my forever wanted vintage NAD amps and now all 3 of them are freak'n broke. Since I don't have the confidence, skill, time or money to fix them there they sit on my office floor. Really SUX!

The whole time I was watching I was thinking “But you can fix it, right?”

I am a former Magnepan owner, all I can tell you for those is I would bi amp them, and I would look at getting something maybe like a Orchard Audio Star crimson, or if you want to go cheaper the crown class D stuff, you might look at getting something with tubes like a shit Freya+ as a preamp then I might put a tube amp on the tweeter like you use a musical Paradise MP-501 which you can run KT-170s in, this setup would give you a really holographic sound stage, my Maggie’s sounded the best on tubes, but tubes have a hard time driving them, with this setup you could. If you have high current tubes on the tweeter section like KT-170s that would allow the sound stage to open up.

Used speakers are always a risk to purchase. Looking forward to your rebuild vid.

That is too bad with your buying experience, bummer! I bought my used Maggie's after watching your original video about repair. Mine have been working well in the time since & I have found I really don't need a subwoofer with them but, I am not a high volume listener. I use an Eversolo AMP-F2 class D to power them & at 145wpc into 8 ohms they drive them nicely. I could also buy another one & use them as monoblocks if I decide I want that power per speaker. I look forward to your video about fixing your's!

Parasound A23+ for an amp will do those Maggies justice, if you want to keep the Marantz as the pre-amp. Parasound Hint 6 integrated amplifier would be an even better 1 box solution for you. Both the integrated and the stand alone amp have the same power specs (as they share the same guts). The relatively high damping factor and high current design of these Parasound (John Curl designed) amps will drive your Magnepan speakers into a whole new level of performance and clarity, and will do so without completely breaking the bank. That's how I'd go anyhow.

Hey I watch your channel all the time. Will be interested to follow the Maggie repair. I’ve got a pair of 3.7i that might need some work

I prefer natural wood myself over painted but not everyone has the same taste and I have seen some pieces of furniture that actually looked better after they were painted.

Got the 20.7s and they are everything I hoped they would be and still going after 8 years

That sucks that you have run into this problem. In my experience, the folks at Magnepan should be able to provide some solid advice to help you fix the problem. I have a pair of SMGC's that luckily still work perfectly. Seems like perhaps the previous owners of your speakers pushed them very hard, or kept them in an environment that had unstable humidity levels. There are some unscrupulous boomers in the used market who will try to flip stuff that is in much worse shape than their descriptions. I've dealt with a few of them.

The seller might not have know the fault BUT the clue is in the time he had them up for sale. Unfortunately you got a rough deal but at least you can fix it and I’ll bet you the seller will find himself on the end of a much rougher deal down the line karma is real!! The old saying ‘Honesty is the best policy’ is no joke!!

I like natural wood too. That said; I also like the white. The finish looks good, at least on camera. The white may be hiding flaws which is why they were painted. Give it a while. The white may grow on you.

I feel your pain. I bought a PL-540 recently that was a fair price and people were lining up to come look at. I was the first person there, checked it out and noticed the speed was good but the strobe was off at 33 but not 45. I figured I could fix it myself so went ahead and bought it. Turns out there is a bad IC in it. I managed to find a used board on Ebay for $50. I bought it hooked it up and the strobe worked great initially. I reassembled and then it went back to not working. Not sure if I messed it up reassembling or if something is frying the IC. Hate to buy another board if I can even find one and have it fry again. It mostly works but the strobe is off. I can stick it in my living room where I mostly play CDs. It's just disappointing.

I have enjoyed your posts. Can I ask how you attached the small trim pieces after you have completed your rebuilt?

Thanks for sharing this video. And i love your cats ❤

I owned a pair of my dream speakers back in the day: the Sound Dynamics 15s. Absolute beasts, eh?

You should have bought a pair of Eminent Technology LFT-8b speakers. They are superior to Maggies (I owned Maggies - 12 Q/R - for over 10 years), made in Florida and cost $3200.

Buying used Maggies can be a crap shoot. I bought a pair of MMG's that I was able to use for about one week before I got delamination rattle from the right speaker. That was money down the drain that also required a four hour drive to pick them up. A year later, I got lucky and bought a pair of 1.6 QR's that were practically new. The seller bought them brand new and only had them for about a week before his wife demanded they be re-homed. Apparently, they failed the WAF and he had to let them go. I've now owned them for over 6 years and to this day, they look and play as if brand new. The moral to this story is that anyone buying used Maggies, really needs to do some tests before pulling the trigger. And be very weary of any seller who insists on controlling the testing or who is purposely playing one channel at a much lower volume than the other to conceal rattle or distortion. Owning a good subwoofer dialed in properly will extend their life considerably, as will pairing them with quality source components. Even with potential headaches, Magnepans are still my favorite speakers. Their speed and transparency is a peerless value at their cost.

I’m surprised given your knowledge .! Magna-plainer need 300 wpc and have fantastic mid and high freq response . They never had deep bass, you need a couple of good sub woofers with a sub crossover like a Dahlquist Lp1. These speakers were always prone to delamination and in essence blowing the ribbons. At one time I had an entire shelf of sections of ribbons and driver modules . I may still have them in storage but I gave up on these speakers 20 yrs ago.

as soon as i saw that thumb nail. it had written all over it , mid life crisis and the cat was willing to give us the clues too. but i am not laughing at you because last month i went online and got big speakers that could go boom boom too, i try to tell myself that i won't play them super loud. it's all about sound detail," yea right i will re live my 20s as soon as the coast is clear " 👈👺👀👀👍👈👂🏻😒🚬👉🔊

You should check out the upgrades from GR Research.

I have a Perreaux 2150B for power-hungry speakers - 340/680/920 wpc@8/4/2 ohms. Paid $900 on eBay. Sounds as good as any $100K made-in-Switzerland amp.

You refer to the 3.6 as using wire internally? I thought they had moved to foil strips by then?

I've also been down the same road several times... I now have ESS AMT speakers, and i'm never going back.

Can you explain how you high pass your main speakers using the Marantz as a preamp? Thank you!

What tone generator app is that?

Those are some very good speakers, although very revealing. You may want to try out some better preamps in the future, the preamp section in those marantz receivers arent that good.

would you take a project to do recondition an SX-1050? It is for a 17 year old jazz musician who loves vintage gear and is building his first system.

Hi Aiden. What do think about the Bose 601's series 2? I love the tweeter response in those! I feel the highs are similar to your Magnepans.

Good Luck!!! Vintage is a never ending journey Fun 2 C....

Thankfully you can fix them !

So I suppose they need to be that tall for the ribbon system to work?

Phase Linear 400 rock these speakers... 700 even better. Especially if the Phase is rebuilt using White Oak Audio components and Don Imlay speaker protection circuits..

You need high CURRENT amplification. Don't focus on wattage with Magnepan. They need to be much further off the front wall to get the best out of them. Don't know if that room is ideal. And for the love of God don't unplug speakers and plug into others with the amp on.

What happens is the wires inside break and become unglued you have to reglue and take completely apart

First thing that would happen in my house? Cats scale and destroy speakers.

What does the fact that the 30 years older pair still works and the 2000 vintage doesn’t? Manufacturing has suffered ! Oh and get some stripper and restore the og finish on the frames.

Great speakers! YOu will need the likes of 400-500 watts to drive these properly. And they will sound their best then. ..and on the funny side.. I was listening to your video with headphones, when my granddaughter came behind me and asked, "...is this man selling doors?.." 🤣🤣🤣🤣 I suspect, with a lot more power on tap, the 'buzzing' will disappear. Best of luck!

is what it is as far as the deal goes ,ya can't negotiate after the seller drives half way.the tone test might even be a bit much for some sellers. seen your cat come and look at the new speakers,hope he is good cat cause he looked like he wanted to start scratching on them!!!! lol good luck

Maggies are power hungry speakers. If you give it lots of good clean power, they will reward you with sounds that only speakers costing many times its price produces. I am a happy Magnepan owner and after I will never trade my Magnepans in unless if I no longer have space for them or I want a newer pair.

first time I've seen these....they're COOL...

And you have a cat in the house...Hell no. Brave man.