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Magnepan Owners

Hi - Have any of you ever changed out the standard nickel Midrange or Tweeter jumpers on your Maggie’s with something else. Or have you replaced or bypassed the tweeter/midrange fuses? The reason I’m asking is that I read a review on Absolute Sound where the reviewer did, well at least the jumpers. After looking on the internet I came across a site called Verastarr and they offer a Magnepan kit which includes jumpers and a fuse replacement. The jumpers are Cryo treated 10AWG Silver plated copper in PTFE dielectric. The fuse is replaced with a polished 99.7 pure solid silver hollow tube. I understand the warranty risk with the fuse but wanted to see if anyone has ever tried the above. Supposedly this tweak takes the Maggie’s to another level of performance. I purchased the kit on Audiogon but will most likely just use the jumpers. Please let me know if you have any experience with either.

Cheers
bluesy41
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
10,277 posts
 

Head over to the Planar Speaker Asylum forum. There are some serious, long-term Maggie owners who have posted all kinds of ways to upgrade Maggies, from the simple to the extreme.

Replacing the jumpers and fuses with good wire is fine, but it ignores a serious problem---the ferrous parts Magnepan uses in the connectors themselves! I took a magnet to find the steel (steel!) parts in my Tympani-IVa’s; there were a couple---the fuse holder and speaker wire/banana plug receptacles both contain steel. Unacceptable.

You can do what other Maggie owners have done---bypass the fuse holder altogether, and install Cardas binding posts in place of the horrid Magnapan wire/banana plug receptacle. The Cardas post fits into the stock hole without modification.

rodman99999
6,206 posts
 
@bluesy41-   I have little doubt, that the Verastarr kit would yield better sound.    That kit accomplishes the same goal as the internal bypass trick, but, still leaves four, inferior metal, connection points(at the fuse and jumper ends), between the tweeter's hot wire and input to the fuse holder.  Almost anything made of copper or silver, would be better than the piece of steel, providing as the stock jumper, which can still be bypassed internally, eliminating those steel, screw-crimp, connectors.   Replacing fuses with silver tubes, should further account for cleaner highs.   You only mentioned using the jumpers, but, I'll say it anyway: If you do put their fuse replacements into use, Be very judicious with your volume control.   
tomic601's avatar
tomic601
13,182 posts
 
Are you blowing fuses ??????

bluesy41 OP
211 posts
 
No I just stumbled across a review and heard replacing the jumpers would yield a better sound
audioman58's avatar
audioman58
4,390 posts
 
Vera Starr has a totall maximum rebuild of the whole unit with premium external 
crossover, their premium wires  custom ridged frames . A 3.6  can easily beat the 20.series. Not cheap. You would have to call them.
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