I was just reading on a forum… the topic of new vs vintage Magnepans.
Now, I know a lot of old guys have a Jones for yesteryear, but boy, there is so much blatherskite being written that I have to clean it up.
Most contributors were telling the original poster to get old vs new- for no particular reason other than … they had an affection for yesteryear and the guy could save money going the used route. Wrong door guys!
Magneplanar Design
The Maggie design was created in the late 60s. Jim Winey created the technology in his basement. The technology used a stretched Mylar panel, with piano wire glued on. It was placed in near proximity to a perforated steel plate with magnets glued on to it. The signal was sent through the wire and the panel pulsated to create sound. It was innovative and wonderful. Jim quit his job at 3M and opened Magnepan in 1969.
The Magneplanar design was tweaked a bit, but basically ran up until 2010.
Quasi Ribbon Technology
In 2010 Magnepan introduced an improved version of its panels, called Quasi Ribbon. With the Quasi design, Magnepan scrapped the piano wire. Instead of skinny wire running around the panel, they went to thick strips of foil.
The voice coil covers about 90% of the Mylar diaphragm with the Quasi design, vs about 10% with the older Magneplanar design! The improvement is dramatic. All the Quasi models are superior in every way, shape and form. They sound cleaner, play better bass and are much tougher to boot.
The improvement with Quasi is a slam dunk.
Here’s a perfect example of… having to take a grain of salt with what you read from well meaning posters online. Often they’re fervent contributors, even though they have no idea what they’re talking about.
