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want to know: amp power requirement for magnapans

post #1 of 9
1/31/09 at 10:51pm
Thread Starter 
I am thinking about maybe building a high power 41hz amp, for a set of magnapans in the (near or not so near) future.

What kind of amp power do I need, to drive the floor standing magnapans well? 300Wx2? 150Wx2? 60wx2? or are the class-T amps good for driving planars, at all?
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post #2 of 9
2/1/09 at 7:02am
Bump for this as I would like to get some info on this as well.
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post #3 of 9
2/1/09 at 9:24am
It's been years since I looked at buying Magneplanars. I remember several conversations I had with the Magnepan sales rep and I'll pass on what he told me in the hope that it will help.

Maggies are a relatively constant 4 ohm impedance so whatever amp you use has to be stable into 4 ohms.

Maggies like high current amps (I guess just like low impedance headphones). The most frequently recommended amps were pure class A or tube hybrids. Amps with caps on the outputs weren't recommended. Most OTL amps were not good matches. Well designed Mosfet amps were o.k. They all had to have good heat dissipation since the amps got very hot into a constant 4 ohms.

Efficiency was AFAIR about 85spl. Not the most efficient speakers, but apparently not as hard to drive as it would seem. I was told to buy the best amp I could afford (since Maggies scale very well with better electronics) of at least 100w x 2 into 4 ohms.

I'm not that familiar with digital amps except that technically they are capable of driving low impedance loads.
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post #4 of 9
2/1/09 at 1:07pm
Get yourself a big ol' honkin' Adcom GFA-555 or GFA-5500...those will make the Maggies sing great. Maggies are very inefficient, so you need some power to make them work good.
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post #5 of 9
2/1/09 at 1:30pm
My Maggies should be here Tuesday and I'm chomping at the bit. Talking to my local dealer about the ICE amps, he said that they could drive them (we were speaking of Bel Canto specifically) but in the long run they were unsatisfying. You really need a lot of current and the class T amps just don't deliver.

He argued that you don't really need a lot of watts. When I auditioned the 1.6s, he played them with an Audio Research 100 watt amp on its lowest gain setting and they sounded great. The huge watts thing is a myth. I bought a Van Alstine insight 250 (120w per channel into 8, probably close to 200 into 4 ohms), and I'm hoping it will do pretty well driving MMGs. I also remember reading that even the 60w Van Alstine leaves an Adcom 555 in the dust-- I hope so, because I remember listening to a 555 years ago and liking it.

We'll see next week.
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post #6 of 9
2/1/09 at 8:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by hypoicon View Post
My Maggies should be here Tuesday and I'm chomping at the bit. Talking to my local dealer about the ICE amps, he said that they could drive them (we were speaking of Bel Canto specifically) but in the long run they were unsatisfying. You really need a lot of current and the class T amps just don't deliver.

He argued that you don't really need a lot of watts. When I auditioned the 1.6s, he played them with an Audio Research 100 watt amp on its lowest gain setting and they sounded great. The huge watts thing is a myth. I bought a Van Alstine insight 250 (120w per channel into 8, probably close to 200 into 4 ohms), and I'm hoping it will do pretty well driving MMGs. I also remember reading that even the 60w Van Alstine leaves an Adcom 555 in the dust-- I hope so, because I remember listening to a 555 years ago and liking it.

We'll see next week.
I have a Van Alstine modded Hafler 220 and a Van Alstine modded Hafler 500. Although I use my 500, the 220 (110 x2 into 8 ohms) had no problem driving my Celestion SL600's which are 4 - 8 ohms and 83spl. It's slighty to the warm side of neutral. The Van Alstine should sound great with your Maggies.
Audio Research was one of the recommended amps with Maggies back in the day along with Counterpoint, Bedini, and Krell.
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post #7 of 9
2/2/09 at 12:28am
I have some MG 1's, MG 1.5's, and MMG's. I drive each of them with an Apt Holman amp. It's 100 w x2 and is good into 4 ohms (it has an impedance switch). It sounds great, and you can usually find them on eBay for about $200 or so. A great match for the Maggies.
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post #8 of 9
2/2/09 at 3:05pm
I used to own (about 2 years ago) an old pair of MG2B's and they did require a lot of power. I tried several integrated's from the time period when the Maggie's were made (sort of as a vintage system) and settled on a 300x2 Sansui and the speakers would take 75% of the volume knob to bring them up to a listening level that I liked. Unfortunately, I never got to try them with any sort of high powered tube equipment so I can't say one way or the other on that. But with standard Class A/B stuff, I felt, with my pair anyway, the more watts the merrier. But, those were some old speakers and I don't know how they compare to current MMG's.
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post #9 of 9
2/2/09 at 11:37pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks guys.

Which audio research? I know they also build some class-D switching amps, such as the 150.2/300.2.......
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