Magnepan MG-1C's fully repaired and refurbished.

Magnepan before picture [beige with pecan panels] and after picture [black covers with red oak panels].

I Bought a pair of Magnepan MG-1C's on craigslist for $350. I'd read that Stereophile Magazine surveyed their readers and more of them had chosen Magnepan speakers than any other brand. Well, of course I had to go for it.

So I drove out to Danville and bought a pair from an unemployed venture capitalist, serial-dot-com-creator. His claim to fame was that he used to own a winery and took guitar lessons from Jerry Garcia. In fact, Garcia played at his Middle School Graduation due to the connection.

Of course I had to mention that I had come into possession of Garcia's original pedal steel guitar. This guy was able to confirm that Garcia did in fact used to hang out in Santa Cruz and that he played the pedal steel. In fact, this guy who I bought the Magnepans from had picked up a little pedal steel from his association with Garcia.

(time to move the narrative) anyway, we talked a bit, I met his kid, a girl scout dropped off about 30 boxes of cookies and then we made the exchange. I got the puppies home and fired them up. They were incredible. They sounded good at this guys house (Scott), but he was playing them through a guitar amp and his Ipod. I had my playing through my Marantz DVD/CD player and Mcintosh C28/2105 combination.

All superlatives for speakers have already been used, and often, folks who listen to speakers and say they were incredible, have been listening to mostly mediocre speakers. If they have been listening to "great" speakers, individual tastes are such that there's no way to find the one, "best" speaker. so there's no way to tell how to "relativize" the commentary. But let me put it to you this way. A few months back, all I had were Bose 301's. Then I picked up the Mcintosh and got a pair of Boston Acoustic T830's. They were and are incredible. Then i got a pair of Polk RT12's, even better. they originally retailed for over $1000. Then i got a hold of a pair of Klipsch 5.5's. waaaay better. a great product. Then i found out that Vandersteen model 2c's, were rated the #3 audio product of "all-tie" by Stereophile magazine. So I got a pair, and boy, they were incredible, soft, velvety, clear, full. Then I read about the Magnepan's, and put simply, they blew away the Vandersteen's in every possible way.

In short, as mentioned above, the use of superlatives in describing stereo equipment is almost useless when you get to high end products. The one way I would like to describe how these speakers sounded to me is that while listening to a cut of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong made me feel like they were 50 ft. high giants and i was a mere few inches. The same great sound, but BIG. Full, detailed 3 Dimensional, etc.

But, when I played Sgt. Pepper's, I noticed that the treble wasn't playing properly out of one speaker. i switched sides, tweaked, checked connections and sure enough, they were busted. What to do?

I researched and found some loose leaf answers that gave me an idea that the main company would repair them for around $175. But when I called, they said the repair cold be $520 plus shipping (another $175). I was heartened to hear that they sent out repair kits. That meant that they were repairable by the average schmoe.

So, I ordered some new covers (at $31.50), went to home depot and bought some 3M #77 spray, some dap contact cement, a quart of acetone, some wooden dowels, a some brushes, Minwax stain, sandpaper, satin finish polyurethane, two sturdy clamps and cut the covers off the Magnepans to see what was wrong.

Sure enough, the voice coils had separated on both ends of both sets of speakers. But the reason the treble was out on one, was that the voice coil had also separated from one of the magnets in the mid range section.

not to bore you with the details, but i became frustrated with the repairs on three separate occasions and repacked and unpacked the speakers thinking that I would send them in to Magnepan one day for repair. Then one day a few days ago, I got my confidence and passion back and repaired them, step by step. That entailed putting on new covers, refinished the wood, testing the repairs.

I'm as pleased as I can possibly be with these speakers, which is the ultimate superlative. They look and sound magnificent.
so yeah, I'm a freaking expert.