I’ve been lurking around the MUG site for 6 months or so reading the various threads especially with respect to priority of tweaks for my Maggies.   Stands came through loud and clear with the Mye Stands seeming the most often recommended.   I looked at them longingly and then figured I had pushed the WAF about as far as I could over the last 6 months after first getting the Maggies and then a new CDP, so I opted to roll my own stands first before trying to explain what a bunch of packages from Canada were for.   The results are attached here.   I confess to roughly copying the Mye stand concept/layout from the photos (I’ve never actually seen a pair), converted it to wood for the typical hobbyist and then borrowed a bit from Green Lantern’s DIY stands for the upper straps at the top of the bracing struts to hold the Maggies steady.

Total cost: Approx $35.00 plus your favorite flavor of spike or other form of foot (I spent another $40.00 on those for about $75.00 total).

Requires no mods or holes to speaker frames themselves – reuses existing Maggie mounting holes and screws.

Except for spikes, all material is available at your local home improvement store.

Basic construction is Poplar which takes paint well – All 1” x 2”.   How much is up to you depending upon how deep you want the base to be.   Mine are 20” on each side (a bit longer than Maggie standard legs), so I used a bit under 7 feet to make each base (near 14 feet total), plus another 16 feet more to make the 4 vertical struts.   There is 32 feet worth of 3/4” x 3/4” “L” shaped pine trim wood used to provide a decorative edge for the vertical struts and also to make them a bit heavier and more rigid.   In addition to the horizontal strut under the maggies to which the short vertical mounting posts are attached, I added another cross-piece a few inches back, so a bag of shot or sand could be added if desired, or to provide for a mounting platform for a crossover box at some later date.

Misc Parts & Hardware:

1/8” Plexiglass sheet scrap to make the brackets securing the base and struts together

1” wide x 1/8” thick aluminum strap, 3” long – 4 pieces used as “washers” so Maggie screws don’t crush wood when attached at usual mounting points.   Plain old #8 flat washers would do fine here instead – I just had some of the aluminum laying around (Warning: if you crush anything, you’ve way over-torqued the mounting screws and potentially damaged the threaded insert mounts in your Maggies)

1/2” thick weather stripping for top of cross member so Maggie does not rest directly on wood.

2” dia, one-hole straps (4 req) from the home depot or Lowe’s electrical department.

Hardware is your choice – here’s what I used:

#8 x 1-1/4” flat head wood screws (steel) to assemble bases – I pre-drilled pilot holes to avoid wood splits in everything and also only screwed things together from the interior surfaces and/or rear so no hardware is visible from the outside.   I used two, at right angles to each other for the corner joints between the main parts of the base and the vertical supports that Maggie gets screwed to (where the factory feet used to go).

#8 x 5/8” round head wood screws (brass) to attach plexiglass brackets to base and vertical struts to brackets.

#10 x 3/4” round head wood screws (brass) and #10 Fender Washers to attach vertical struts to one hole straps at top.

Carpenter’s wood glue for all joints in the base.   Also used it to attach the L-shaped trim pieces to the vertical struts.

1/8” thick closed cell foam (black) to pad the one hole Conduit straps where they attach to Maggie sides at tops of struts.

240 Grit sand paper

1 – can Spray auto Primer (I used Krylon automotive – Gray)

2 – cans spray paint of choice (I used Krylon textured black)

The photos are pretty much self explanatory – details & even shapes can be adjusted to taste.   I used clamps, rubber bands, really anything that was handy around my house & garage to fixture and clamp things together while glue dried or while I was aligning things before pre-drilling for screws.   Just use your imagination.   I do recommend a drafting triangle and/or T-square up front though when fitting things together.   It will help avoid embarrassment after the glue dries or the screws are in.   A bench vise is handy to “adjust” the steel straps to fit Maggie’s frame nicely before painting, but a medium “C-Clamp” will do the trick too.

Depending on what you do for feet/spikes, you may need 8 T-nuts to mount them.   The spikes I bought (from Parts Express) came with the T-nuts as part of a kit.   Due to the size of the T-nuts, I was a bit worried about splitting the wood and/or breaking out through the edges, so I first drilled the main blind holes for them, then pushed them in just hard enough to mark the wood with the points on the nuts.   After removing the nuts, I drilled holes for the points on the nuts and then finally glued the nuts permanently into the bases before painting them.

Add 2+ quarts of sweat if you live in South Florida or similar climate.   If I had to do it all over again, I’d risk the argument with my better half and get a pair of Mye stands from Grant, but all-in-all, it was fun to do – breaks the ice so to speak as far as “working” on your Maggies is concerned, and the resulting improvement in soundstage, bass, etc is definitely worth it whether you decide to go the dehydration route as I did, or withdraw funds from the wallet and place an order with Grant.   The steel Mye Stands are undoubtedly more rigid than these and also have the advantage of being able to be filled with sand or shot, but this DIY set will still hold your Maggies a lot steadier than the original Magnepan supplied feet and you'll hear tangible improvements in sound.

PS: I considered bass panels on them as suggested in some of the other DIY mount tweaks, they are easy enough to add, but in my room they didn’t and still do not seem necessary.   The stands by themselves bring out noticeable bass impact to the otherwise stock 1.6QRs.