*They had a full service sticking down any delaminated wires as part of the price.

I did consider some Magnepans a while back but realistically just do not have the room for them. They are essentially multi-way as they typically contain more than one size of panel so not designed for close nearfield listening. I do like the dipole principle and if I had a large room, they would probably be my speaker type of choice. Although they're designed for very modest excursion but high sound purity so would take some careful consideration for best performance.

Now I have the much cheaper and smaller SMGa panels. Ash is right about the HF/LF split mylar panel. I have the narrow HF strip on the outside of each speaker and it crosses over quite low at about 800 Hertz but first order. Magnepan advises that the distance from the listening position should be the same for the HF panel as the LF panel. Similar to getting the height and vertical angle right on multiway box speakers. After that the toe-in focusses the sweet spot of box speakers. On my panel speakers the toe-in sets the horizontal offset between HF and LF in each panel and the sweet spot... experimentation is key.

This has also allowed me to hear the speakers naked and they sound better. It is not a look I want in my living room so I will be sewing up new socks this week.

Sounds like a great DIY project you've got going Jon. 

Hope you can eventually share some pictures.

My next step is to make some wooden stands. I'll start with some 2 by 1 offcuts.

My speaker cables are very short (about 300 mm) because I have the Propius amps very close to the left and right floor standing speakers. I made a four way plait with Spatia hookup wire and connected one pair to each plug. For bi-wire I fitted two red and two black at the speaker end. The Magnepan terminals are at floor level which helps.

Back to my Magneplanars...

They have a steel panel at the front with vertical lines of holes between the fixed magnets. Just behind them is a stretched mylar film with parallel aluminium (light weight) wires that the amplifier current runs through causing the mylar to move back and forth. This photo is from rear and shows the mylar with the wires glued to it (or 'laminated'). The ends go to the terminals at the top. In this early Magnepan the two sections are wired in series and the crossover elements provide a bypass for the full range signal with the inductor in parallel with the thin treble wiring on the left and capacitor in parallel with the wires on the large bass/mid panel.

This photo shows the recovered SMGa's from the front so you can see light coming through the vertical lines of holes mentioned above. To avoid long term UV damage I have been dropping the manufacturer's protective sacks over the SMGa's when not in use.

That was after, below you can see the original cloth draped over the recovered SMGa. Note the heavy texture and remember this is after I washed out 36 years of grime.

I made the new covers or 'socks' by buying some acoustically transparent cloth, turning it inside out and machine sewing seams top and side. Turn it the right way round and slide it over the speaker panel which has grooves cut into the mdf edges.

Now the terminals and crossover...

You can see the four terminals at the top, just under the tea towel I used to protect the mylar and laminated thin wires from the hot solder.  The gold coloured panel has the original terminals which I contact cleaned and the fuse designed to protect the tweeter's thinner wire.

I replaced the original red, blue, and black wires above with Spatia hookup wire and ran similar length wires out to the newish capacitor I fitted instead of the small original component...

This is the after photo seen from the other direction, hence you see the plain aluminium of the gold painted panel. Note the coloured heatshrink (red, blue, black) to distinguish the new Spata wiring. I know I can easily bypass the fuse and 15 ohm resistor by resoldering the black wire on the left of the photo to the terminal with the blue wire.

Edit: another option is to fit an attenuating resistor of 1 or 2 ohms in place of the fuse. This would reduce the higher frequencies and is a feature in many of the later Magnepan models. I would do this by burning out a spare fuse then solder a watt resistor to the fuse's metal caps, carefully so they still fit into the fuseholder.

This is an 'after' photo showing the recovered SMGa panel with a Majestic DAC close by. The creases drop out quickly.

The tonal difference between the bass trap fabric (too dense to use as speaker covering) and the SMGa fabric is smaller than it appears here. Even so I might make another pair of socks in 'white beige' colour at a later date. At the moment I am quite happy now at the audio and visual gain from recovering the speakers.

I will try measuring the sound with REW in part to see if panel speakers are as hard to test as some say. I am curious to see the measured bass response compared to my listening impression. Also the distortion % and chacteristics. With other speakers I usually test close-in, then at 1 metre and at my listening position where the room acoustic is key. However, another test also in Yorkshire may take precedence...

So far I like what I am hearing on a range of musical genres and at different levels. Before buying new wood I shall add to my prototype stands. A longer rail front to back may be better ...

Much more directional I bet? That's one thing I like about dipoles or no box; sound is forward and back so I personally find it easier to achieve a purer output.

I found them easy to locate for bass response with plenty of it and pretty even in level.  Perhaps the dipole helps due to the side-nulls but the front corners are less bassy. I agree about the lack of box, it gives a tighter sound. I find the same with the motional feedback speakers where the servo feedback cancels the box sound, as even as the Q of 0.7 is.

Until I decide on the final design I won't round the edges or stain and varnish the oak. No rush as I have tried some woodstains in my collection but none take the oak offcut close enough to the colour of the side rails so far.

Although I don't wish to invest in large panel speakers, it is always interesting to analyze the transducer concepts and study the strengths and weaknesses over dynamic designs.

They do sound different to a traditional round speaker on an open baffle. Did you ever get a demo session to hear a set of magneplanar speakers, Ash?

As the SMGa's are temporarily leaning against my kitchen door I can see more of the bay window and front wall of my listening room. The speakers are over six square feet each so I am glad I didn't cover them in black grill cloth. They would have looked like the monoliths in 2001!

This is one video that piqued my interest in the Quad ESL 57. If I had the listening room size, I would consider trying them out. Although speakers like this require care, maintenance and clean in-situ conditions.

I like the current setup with HF on the outside and marked it with some tape with an outline of the legs. Handy for hoovering and saves measuring distances from scratch if the panels are accidentally moved. It slso makes a changeover easier...

Now for some more listening...

My endorsement of cardboard boxes hasn't gone unnoticed; a colleague at work joked that I could make a TV out of a cardboard box and some cling film... 

I liked your cardboard boxes Ash.

And that is exactly it; the driver pressure loading contributes too. The more you turn up the volume, the more audible it becomes as well.

I've been impressed with the low bass achievable from drivers like the 12PW and CHR-120. An open baffle or a big box with an open back gives great results in the nearfield.

A very large panel or one with wrap around wings can help. It mimics the classic infinite baffle to extend the bass but not if you use a driver meant for a box!

P.S Brought a sturdy cardboard box home from work today. Time for another pair of speakers.

As promised here are a couple of photos. First of all these are the second set of legs I made for my SMGa's. After prototyping with offcuts I bought some oak pieces cut to size as below. They were drilled and countersunk then glued and screwed to form the right angle joint.

You'll see the original stand has screws into the lower part of the SMGa panel and is longer because the panel leaned back. The oak legs ensure the panel is perpendicular to the floor. I have since added another pair of holes to the panel sits lower, bottom edge flush with the horizontal runners. And I sanded, stained and varnished them.

A few pages back I mentioned that the fuse socket could be used to insert an attenuation resistor, a feature otherwise missing on the SMGa. I bought some cheap fuses and used an old PP3 battery to burn two out as you can see on the top fuse in the photos. I then soldered 1 ohm 5 watt resistors across the fuse. When inserted the current going to the HF section passes through the resistor causing a voltage drop for 2dB attenuation. It also lowers the crossover slightly.

The 4mm plugs on the Spatia links give a sense of physical scale. Also this morning I switched to using those jumpers between the Proprius amps and the SMGa speakers, made possible by the low terminals on the SMGa. I haven't tried the resistor/fuses yet.

In due course I will need to cut a cavity or rather a large hole to house the new caps. I shall be measuring twice before any cutting! The caps are on back order so no hurry. More tme for listening to music.

The Magnepan construction has a perforated metal panel ('the grill') which holds the lines of magnets and the taut sheet of mylar ('the film') with the aluminium wires stuck to it. On the SMGa the grill faces the listener where some other models have the film side facing the listener. Some writers say the latter setup is preferable and I am tempted to try it. Visually it means I'll be looking at the back of the SMGa's with the terminals in view as well as the large caps. Should be interesting...

Tomorrow, weather permitting, I shall experiment further with the four options.

Grille obstruction is another reason I avoided electrostatic speaker panels; there are stators on both sides of the membrane. Back when I was researching the AKG K1000 earspeakers, its manual outlined why a dynamic driver concept was selected over a planar magnetic or electrostatic design. It was something described as AOC or Acoustic Openness Coefficient, relating to dispersion or the ability of the sound to spread out in a natural way.

Metal grills and fabric covers will alter the sound, subtly if the designer has done it right. I think the visuals do matter so thin speaker cloth is fine by me.

Anyway, look forward to reading your progress.

Yes I think you are right Ash that arbitrary language does technology no favours. A science-based explanation first then an analogy but don't start with adjectives. It's a small step from that to everyday language like rich, juicy, sweet, etc.

Today I was working on my kitchen units but I also tried various options with my SMGa speakers and am back to having the grills facing me with HF on the inside. It lets just enough of the musical goodness out (joke). They look better too! I am also thinking how to fit the smaller capacitors to the panel when they arrive. Either cut out some of the mdf for larger cavity or extend the panel downwards around the new caps which I would have in a line.

Initial listening was fine, slightly brighter than before due to the new caps. Good stereo image so the crossover parts are connected right and all in correct phase. Best of all I have modern hifi terminals without a large capacitor hanging off the back of each panel!

I took some photos of the work in progress including a schematic of the finished version. I'll downsize and upload them when I'm next on my PC.

Here are the components that I fitted into the cavities. First the left channel where I took out the HF fuse so nothing is connected to the left tag 1.

I have crudely drawn on the thicker LF wires in red and the thinner HF wires in orange. It is a series crossover so the capacitors are all in parallel with the LF (between tags 2 and 3) and the inductor is in parallel with the HF (between tags 3 and 4).

For completeness here is the right channel with the LF and HF wires in the same places.

I inserted 1 ohm resistance (actually two of 0.5 ohms)  in series with the HF as it was about 2dB louder than the left. You'll see that I just moved the inductor and input wires from tag 4 to tag 1 and fitted the resistors between those tags.

Today I ran L/R sweeps with the microphone where my head would be then for half a dozen places nearby. I had REW generate an average response for the left readings and the right respectively, took each into the EQ module and generated filters for my house curve. I used REW"s parametric filters in Roon, manually input for each channel as a procedural equaliser. I am happy with the adjusted sound. Another time I'll try an impulse file as a convolution filter.