DIY Planar magnetic Hybride

[WrineX]

Hi there, im wondering if people are interested in making a mid/high panel alla magie.

First of all why ?
well i made serveral ESL panels and speakers but i cants stand the fact theres always something wrong with it or one has lower SPL or its starts hissing after a while in my opinion they sound GREAT but i had enough of fixing them. i had a magie once sounded pretty good but i dont have room for a panel the size of a door so i thought why not make a hybride just like i do with the esl. can save huge costs on the audio tranformer and also we dont need a High current board, and maybe even higher spl and a nice load for your amp so you dont have to build a power plant to drive them.



What do we need ?

*Perforated plate
*Mylar
*Verry thin wire (like the one to make a coil)
*Magnets (loads of them)
*Some glue
*Maybe a frame


What do we got already ?

well i got mylar and i got some steel perforated plate from an old esl project that failed (cant get those panels isolated enough)
they have a nice size of 1 meter by 10 cm more then enough for a hyrbide i prefer even smaller because it will cost a fortune to buy so many magnets.

* Mylar
* Perforated Plate

Sites i already visited so you dont have to mention them ?

Lafolia
this site is pretty much the only one showing (sort of) how to make one , but i dont think erverything is clear and also hes not making a hybride but a fullrange. no actually pictures of the project to.


Anybody wanna help ?

is there anyone that would like to make some to ? so we can develope together as they say 2 know more then 1


Problems to solve?

1 What kind of magnet layout we need for a panel of 30cm h - 10cm w
2 - How much magnets do we need for such panel (depends on the magnet size ofcourse)
3 - Where do we get magnets ?
4 - How many leads of wire and the layout of the coil


Sites & info

Magnets
http://www.supermagnete.de
http://www.supermagnete.ch



well hope people want to build one to.

[Ed Holland]

WrineX

Great idea. I have Maggies (and space...) but there is surely a great opportunity for a hybrid. This is, after all very familiar to the ESL fanatics.

To my ears, the maggies have such smooth midrange and treble that a very good hybrid should be possible. Option would be to add woofers in open baffle, to complement the dipole mid-treble panel. Alternatively, one could employ a reflex enclosure to save space.

The maggie panels have bass-mid "voicewires" spaced about 8 - 10 mm apart. Treble wires are about half that spacing. If you could tolerate height, but not width in the speaker's form, I could imagine a very successful quasi ribbon line source, without all the hassle of trying to slit aluminium foil

Magnets are the real hassle - it would be nice if possible to use a few magnets to energise cheap steel pole pieces. Something I need to think about. However if you could use Neodymium magnets, these would offer much more flux than the ferrite material used in (my) maggies - should improve the sensitivity, all things being equal.

Some stuff that springs to mind:
mylar
frames
steel mesh
contact adhesive
enamelled wire
means of stretching the membrane
wire pattern jig


Cheers,

Ed

[WrineX]

i recon just stretch a little with tape to a table glue the whole thin in de the panel and after that heat shrink and then add the coil.

i think i have to buy some neodym magnets to try because now i keep wondering in the dark. gona try a real small setup first with around 15 magnets in 3 rows of 5 and gona check if the magnets really have to stick together or maybe i can ave some spacing within to save costs.

theres one guy on this forum that already made one but he uses magnets at front and back, but if i can remember correctly my maggies only had magnets at front no on the back and also they use ferriet magnets so witch neo we have to accomplish the same results or even beter. with less magnetss only at the front.

[Ed Holland]

Definitely - have a go.

I experiented recently (after getting excited about the Maggies). I happened to have quite a few Neo magnets around here at work. I stripped some multi strand wire, took an individual strand and stuck this to the centre of a strip of tape. This was held next to a magnetic gap about 1mm wide and three inches long, consisting of 6 one inch square flat magnets(this is all that was available..). Not much output when connected to the headphone output of my PC (not much current!), but it did work, and had very nice clean treble output. A properly stretched mylar film would offer further improvement.

In fact this experiment got me thinking along a different track entirely - what about a magnetic planar equivalent to the Stax electrostatic headphones? I think they could be very good indeed, though one would have to be careful about minimising magnet weight, for the sake of comfort.

Ed

[medum]

Originally posted by WrineX
Sites i already visited so you dont have to mention them ?

Lafolia
this site is pretty much the only one showing (sort of) how to make one , but i dont think erverything is clear and also hes not making a hybride but a fullrange. no actually pictures of the project to.

I have a pair of La Folia - made in the mid 80's, that yo can have if you come and get them - and I have the original danish article from danish magazine high fidelity, too

se foto left!

[Spasticteapot]

I'll vouch for this guy - he's great to buy from.

And look at his prices!

http://engconcepts.net/List_Of_Magnet_Bundles.asp

Personally, what I would really like to see is some speakers that don't have issues with "beaming". I know being in the "sweet spot" is important, but Maggies (and most electrostatics) are ridiculous!

[WrineX]

with my maggies the beaming whas not really an isue, but you can fixt that just make more sigments for the different frequency's
or make a real smal in width panel


and oooooh if i lived in denmark , i whas taking a train right now for your lafolia that would be great

[Spasticteapot]

As a side note, I found a guy who sells the Kapton ribbon with aluminum traces used for the Carver ribbons.

$20/ft - not cheap!

I was wondering if similar results could be created by taking some ridiculously thin aluminum and sticking it to some one-mil Kapton tape.

http://www.kaptontape.com/1_Mil_Kapton_tape.php

Ferric chloride will not - as far as I know - damage plastics at all. As a result, the aluminum could then be etched into smaller traces - for example, a 3/4" wide "ribbon" could have 5 1/8" wide traces on it.

While it would be thicker than a true ribbon, it would also be much cheaper - 3/4" 1mil kapton tape is $14 for 36 yards.

[WrineX]

well i do not intend to make a true ribbon , only quasie, because it's not that hard to make. but thanks for the info. could be of use when making a ribbon and not all that expensive if you ask me.

[medum]

Originally posted by WrineX
and oooooh if i lived in denmark , i whas taking a train right now for your lafolia that would be great

By train !!? lol - anybody else, who wants them?
My wife bought me a pair of Martin Logan Clarity - sound is almost the similar, but the Wife Acceptance Factor are higher with the ML's .....