Magnepan

Magnepan is a private high-end audio loudspeaker manufacturer in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, United States.

A Magneplanar's reproducing mechanism (magnetostatic loudspeaker) comprises thin conductive wires and or foil strips attached to a thin sheet of Mylar residing in a magnetic field created by a vertical array of permanent strip magnets.

When an electric signal is applied to the conductors, the resultant electric current moving through the magnetic field applies a force to the wires or tape, moving the Mylar film sheet, which projects sound as a dipole.

Since the force is applied only to the voice coil in a cone speaker, there are distortion modes called cone breakup; in the magneplanar speakers the force is applied much more evenly over the radiating surface, resulting in fewer distortion modes.

The Magneplanar design, using a passive magnet array, is not a unique loudspeaker implementation, although it was the first of its type.

Eminent Technology, Analysis Audio, Apogee and others also employ passive magnet designs.

MartinLogan and Quad Electroacoustics, among others, make electrostatic loudspeakers, which are another variation on the dipole model.

Newer Magnepans use 30 μm (0.0012") thick 1/8" (3 mm) wide aluminum tape instead of wire.

[3] Using the aluminum tape spreads out the driving force on the mylar speaker diaphragm, resulting in noticeably lower distortion.

Magnepan ribbons are constructed with a strip of aluminum roughly 5 μm (0.0002") thick, 1/4" (6 mm) wide, 60" (1.5 m) long.

This push-pull design results in a more linear magnetic field and noticeably lower distortion in the midrange.

Magnepan also produced a small, relatively inexpensive speaker, the SMG, which became the MMG and is now called the LRS.

The 2.6, 2.7i, MG-III, 3.7, Tympani IV, 20.7 and 30.7 all include Magnepan's ribbon driver and thus produce sound up to 40 kHz.