Designed for Music Lovers
Taking your Magnepan speakers to the pinnacle of looks and sound
Welcome! Magnestand is dedicated to helping you get the most from your pair of vintage Magnepan loudspeakers, and in fact turn them into speakers capable of beating virtually anything out there, and we mean anything out there.
Now if you're thinking that’s exaggeration or “salemans hype” I fully understand because sadly the world of audio is rife with it. However there are good people in it and many are small scale cottage enterprises like mine. People who do it for love of doing it.
The truth is our modded maggies have been compared to and beaten expensive speakers from such makers as Wilson, Gallo, Harbeth, Merlin, Revel, Linkwitz, Lynn, Focal, Proac and Vandersteen as well as electrostats such as Quad, Martin Logan and Soundlab. I’m talking speakers costing 20K, 30K and up… and we beat them. A long time Quad owner told me his modded 12's were as good or better than any of them in the midrange department and another of our customers told us he compared his modded 1.6's head to head with Wilson Maxx 2's. He could have afforded either and told us "The Wilsons won in some aspects and your Maggies in others, essentially a draw, but the final card was sound presentation. In that respect you won hands down.” This was against a 45K loudspeaker.
And he chose our modded 1.6 In fact another customer just told me he compared his modded 1.6’s against the latest “fad” speaker, the QLN Prestige 3's and once again our modded 1.6 slayed another fabled giant.
Magnepans were always considered "excellent values" in their price ranges but if you step outside that price range and start to compare them against the best the high end world had to offer their flaws began to show. In response to that people usually said things like "If you don't appreciate planar characteristics you won't like Maggies". I can appreciate what they do right, but it never made me ignore what they do wrong. The fact is the Magnepan driver is capable of much greater resolution than anyone imagined and once their problems are corrected they can compete with and beat almost all the competition out there. Please visit our review page for some incredible customer feedback which isn’t just positive… it’s practically effusive. This speaker isn’t good - It changes lives.
If you want off the high end merry go round, if you want the last and best speakers you will ever own, then you found the right place. This is where the journey ends…. and the adventure begins….
I know, it seems incredible, especially when the used price for Maggies (roughly $350 for the MMG, $1,000 for the 1.6) is hardly the price range serious audiophiles consider when looking to buy speakers, let alone their "final destination" speaker. In fact used Maggies are usually bought by audiophile newbies who have little money and beginner systems and want the best "bang for their buck" they can get. Many long time audiophiles, aware of Magnepans inherent limitations have essentially written the brand off. Are these newbies going to spend the money for an upgrade? Will serious audiophiles come around and base their mega dollar systems around an MMG? They both should, because the days of maggies getting labelled as "bass poor", hard to set up, having a tiny sweet spot or "they can't play rock" are over for good.
Upgrading now no longer means what it used to in the Magnepan line, where you climbed the model ladder every so many years getting a bigger and supposedly better model only to find your amp insufficient, your room insufficient, or yourself just unhappy at where the sound is now at after spending all this money, and maybe you're not even sure why. Well, the problem is Magnepan doesn't make them better, they just make them bigger. What's more our mods have revealed that the "small" (as if a 48" tall speaker is small, the pic on top shows MMG’s) and medium sized models have literally no performance ceiling where clarity and delicacy is concerned, and they can even do bass, as in you don't need a “sub” bass. It's simply a question of unlocking the performance contained in them.
The journey to get where I am now took many years of trials, and in that time certain truths have been revealed. Most notably is that almost every old notion about Maggies (notions which audiophiles incorrectly applied from cabinet speaker design) were wrong and do not work. Magnepan speakers have been called "excellent values" which is a term that belies the real truth: Performance, as good as it is, was sidelined for costs sake when they were made. What we do here is take these speakers and make performance the main issue. Cost is not an object but like so many things we have found most expensive does not always mean best. We use the parts and designs which are proven to work best, period. Once transformed you'll be amazed at how they outperform not only stock maggies but all other commers in so many parameters regardless of cost.
True Story - A customer had just received his newly modded MMG’s from me, and with no break in took them to a friends house to have a “shoot out” against his friends speakers. They were Magnepan 3.6’s on Mye stands and using active XO’s and some other bell and whistle tweaks. After a full days listening, they were both in agreement on the verdict, which was and I quote -
“The MMG’s murdered and destroyed them in every meaningful way.”
In fact the pic atop of this page shows the MMG’s of another customer who owned a pair of IIIa’s and had me mod MMG’s “as a lark”. Once the MMGs came back, the IIIa’s went up for sale almost immediately.
Make no mistake, what we do is not a tweak, rather it is a full blown re-modification designed to extract every ounce of performance and music from the Magnepan driver. It really is like taking a stock car and modding it for high performance racing. Our design and modifications are based around our many years of personal ownership of these fine speakers and they seek to accentuate their strengths while reducing or even eliminating their shortcomings. All of this is done while striving to remain true to the inherent sound quality of Maggies. We know and love them for the same reasons you do, and it was not our desire to make something out of them they are not. Our goal was to retain what they do right and enhance it as much as possible, to increase performance in those areas they are sometimes lacking in and to make any flaws vanish or even become positives if possible. See our feedback page for real testimonials from our very happy customers.
We believe our design has achieved all this and more. The sound staging, "liveness" and warmth of maggies not only remain but are greatly enhanced, and to sweeten the deal they now have lucid detail, incredible bass and a sweet spot bigger than just you. Even more special, our work is a one of a kind, one at a time old fashioned hands on affair. Even if it's the 57th time we've done that model, no other pair will look quite like yours. To find out more about what we do please use the menu above to read about the modifications, and if you have any questions please click the contact link and write us any time with your questions or concerns. We look forward to making you your own pair of “forever” speakers.
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We’re happy answer any and all questions you may have.
If you are interested in DIY click here for more info.