MG 12 Maggies help needed

[Dmaumau]

Hello friends at Magnepan e Maggie lovers of this forum.

I´m in need of some help.

I have and love a pair of MG12 (had 1.7i in the past also) and also a kitten... see my problem ?

I live in Brasil and in here we are very well supported by Ivan and Valdet at Audio Shop.

But, with this pandemic we (and all of you) have been kinda stuck, so I could not send it for repairs.

Well, remember the kitten ? It has a couple of years now, but when we brought it home, it just loved to climb the maggies... WHAT ??? Yes, climb the maggies...

So, what happened then ? THIS




Now my so much needed help. Is there a way to "patch" this until I can have it properly repaired ?

Any help is very much appreciated.

Regards and stay safe.

Mauricio

 

[DonH50]

Copper tape or silver (conductive) epoxy might work.

 

[Gregadd]

It may not be an issue. Have you contacted Maggie? Also do they sell cat scratch trees and catnip in Brazil? '

 

[Dmaumau]

Copper tape or silver (conductive) epoxy might work.

Hey Don,

Man that´s a great idea. I didn´t know that silver glue and the specs say it´s recommended for fixing flat cables. Already ordered and I´ll take a shot at it asap.

 

[Dmaumau]

It may not be an issue. Have you contacted Maggie? Also do they sell cat scratch trees and catnip in Brazil? '

Yes they do, but the little furballs also have have an eye (and claws) for nice pieces of audio gear.

And YES, it is an issue. The cat perforarated the mylar and interrupted the tweeter tape, so only bass in this particular "speaker".

 

[Gregadd]

I know the feeling, we have two little dogs. They have an exquisite eye for destruction.
P.S. Fortunately the dogs show no interest in m40+ years old Maggie's.

Sorry you could punch a hole in my Martin Logan mylar diaphragm with no ill effect. Be careful to not otherwise void your warranty. Good luck.

 

[Dmaumau]

I know the feeling, we have two little dogs. They have an exquisite eye for destruction.
P.S. Fortunately the dogs show no interest in m40+ years old Maggie's.

Sorry you could punch a hole in my Martin Logan mylar diaphragm with no ill effect. Be careful to not otherwise void your warranty. Good luck.

Yup. Their solution is like a mesh, so it´s quite more difficult to cause real damage to the sound reproduction.

On the MG12 and I think the 1.7i also, Maggie uses a single wire to the lower and a thin aluminum strip for the upper frequencies. So, if any of them is interrupted there goes those frequencies away.

 

[DonH50]

For ESLs the entire panel membrane is conductive. Pinholes are (were, less so now) common and would not usually cause great harm.

Planar dynamics like Maggies, as well as the ribbons used for some other speakers and certain Maggie tweeters, are single wires or traces that provide the electrical conductivity and are glued to the membrane. Break a wire, or rip a trace, and that section of the speaker dies.

I have used conductive epoxy in the past with reasonable results. The hardest parts are cleaning the insulation off the trace (if present) without ripping a bigger hole, and getting a nice epoxy bridge across the gap. A couple or three thin layers usually works. If it is not clean,the epoxy will not adhere well, and the fix will not last long.

Soldering may work but is much more dicey and Al traces are essentially impossible to solder anyway. Epoxy was my simple, albeit often temporary, fix a decade or three ago.

 

[DonH50]

Cross post from another forum:

It should work, as long as the surfaces are clean so the epoxy adheres, but still may be a temporary fix. I've seen it fail in days, probably because I could not get good adhesion, and last for years. I had repaired my original MG-I's a time or two and they were going strong years later when I sold them (yes, I told the buyer). They lasted another 3 or 5 years (about 10 all told) until he flat-out overpowered and blew them badly enough they were not worth repairing. He went ahead and had Magnepan rebuild them at that point, with new membranes.

Aside: He bypassed the fuse with a short (wire), leading to catastrophic failure. That popular "mod" gave me a lot of business back in the day.

 

[Gregadd]

Don is right as usual.Magneplanar has come along way. The mg1 has what looks like giant paper clips.