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Magnepan planar magnetic/ribbon speakers (or “Maggies” for short) have a dedicated following out there.

VPE Electrodynamics Little Dipole Woofer Model 1 with Magna Riser Airborne Stand hero

Magna Riser Airborne Stand

Their virtues are many including producing a large and deep soundstage, having a superb transient response, and they allow for excellent detail retrieval. Maggie devotees claim that the results sound more like live music and less like a speaker playing music. Their downside is that, to produce any real bass they need to be a rather large pair of panels or the smaller panels need to be crossed to a subwoofer. This is especially true of Magnepan’s smallest model, the LRS. Enter the VPE Electrodynamics Little Dipole Woofer Model 1 and Magna Riser Airborne stands.

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VPE Electrodynamics Little Dipole Woofer Model 1 with Magna Riser Airborne Stand

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VPE Electrodynamics Little Dipole Woofer Model 1 with Magna Riser Airborne Stand side

Don Bingaman, the owner of VPE Electrodynamics, approached us with an interesting proposition. He had noted our writer Glenn Young’s fine review of the Magnepan LRS and said that he and his team had developed a purpose-made subwoofer for the LRS, and when used in conjunction with Magna Riser Airborne stands (developed separately by Robert Raus) significantly improved the overall performance of the LRS. If he sent us a pair of Maggie LRS speakers, a set of Magna Riser stands, and a pair of his VPE Electrodynamics Little Dipole Woofers, would we be interested to verify his claims? I was excited because, while I had heard various panel speakers at audio shows, I’ve never had a set in my own listening space before, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. This little experiment involves the use of two different products to essentially turn a ribbon speaker into a hybrid ribbon/dynamic driver speaker.

In my initial discussions with Don, we agreed that I would assess the Maggie LRS on their own first, then add the Magna Riser Airborne stands, and after a little time finally integrate the woofers into the system. Look for a full review, with measurements, to appear on the Secrets website soon.

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A native of Toronto Canada, Carlo's interest in audio began at a young age when, unbeknownst to his mother, he started taking apart her numerous transistor radios to see how they worked. This desire for “knowledge through deconstruction” continued through to the family’s 8-track tape player, turntable, headphones, and speakers. Carlo subsequently spent a lot of time in his room. Toronto was a fertile ground for Hi-Fi in the 1970s and 80s and Carlo spent much of his wayward youth hanging out in downtown Toronto stereo shops, listening to all manner of gear and picking the brains of the various store owners. Through that formative experience, Carlo developed an appreciation for good music and good sound reproduction. Also, as a budding graphic artist, the aesthetic aspects of a given piece of gear became increasingly of interest to his eyes. It was at about that time as well that Carlo began purchasing “Audio Magazine” on a regular basis and came to appreciate, in particular, the writing and reviewing of the late Leonard Feldman. Later on, he was also influenced by the writing and observations of the staff at Sound and Vision Canada, helmed at the time by Alan Loft. Carlo graduated from Sheridan College with a degree in Classical Animation and was subsequently employed by Walt Disney Consumer Products for 10 years as a Character Artist and Art Director. Having become disenchanted with Los Angeles, he then decided to strike out on his own. Carlo started his own company and has been freelancing artwork, from his home studio, primarily for the toy and publishing industries since 2001. In 2013, on a bit of a lark, Carlo answered a “Call for Writers” ad from an AV website that he had been regularly reading for about 5 years called Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity. He had come to appreciate the website’s combination of subjective impressions along with the objective bench-testing available in several of the reviews. The “B-Team” must have been working that day because by some miracle he was hired as a writer and his first review for the site was published early in 2014. Carlo has been continually writing, editing, traveling, listening, and learning on the company’s behalf ever since. Carlo currently lives in Granville, Ohio with his wife, two sons, and a very old, but chill dachshund.

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