Interested in Magnepan MMG

The more power the better for those. There are a handful of integrateds in the 500$ range, but I chose the Onkyo 9555 for its solid power, and great reviews and definitely like it more than the Cambridge 340A that I tried. I havent heard the NAD amps in that range, but they get good reviews as well. I am very happy with the 9555 and have no reason or desire to upgrade it till I can hit the few thousand dollar mark.

I'm not sure if you have preamp capabilities (headphone amp with pre outs?), but if you do you should check out the emotiva UPA-2.  It's a great deal.  If you need preamp ability any of the standard brands should treat you well.

I've not heard the Emotiva amps but they are consistently well rated with Maggies and very reasonably priced- http://www.emotiva.com

Also, if you haven't been over the planar asylum, I highly recommend it- http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/etv.mpl?forum=mug

Just got and Emotiva UPA-2 as an interim amp until funds allow another Audio-gd amp. Well, I may not need it, this sounds slightly less refined than the FBi-500 I had but it's very impressive for $300. If you are running RCA's (not balanced), this is a great amp.

that's a toughie. magnepans are little harder to power compared to regular speakers. I would suggest in a better amp instead of thinking of upgrading later since investing in a good amp will open your possibilities to better speakers later on. The NAD integrated amps are pretty good for the money. I understand it might not be as appealing to spend more money now but it'll save you money in the long run assuming you'll upgrade later on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tdogzthmn 

So I found a nice Adcom power amp which has good power ratings.  It has both RCA and XLR connectors, what I am unsure about is if it will work straight from my CD player which has an output of 2V rms. 

How will you do volume control with this setup?

Quote:

Originally Posted by driftingbunnies 

that's a toughie. magnepans are little harder to power compared to regular speakers. I would suggest in a better amp instead of thinking of upgrading later since investing in a good amp will open your possibilities to better speakers later on. The NAD integrated amps are pretty good for the money. I understand it might not be as appealing to spend more money now but it'll save you money in the long run assuming you'll upgrade later on.

Actually, Maggies are quite easy to power. They are almost a pure resistive 4 ohm load making them easy for most amps to handle. What the small Maggies are is bloody inefficient meaning it takes a lot more power to reach X volume than most normal speakers and quite frankly, they don't reach the volume of most normal speakers and therein lies the problem. The bigger the Planar, the more efficient they are and the more output they are capable of. Conversely, the small planars are far less efficient and not capable of much in the way of output dynamics. People tend to try to crank them up to get any sense of impact and that is when your cheaper amps fail.

I owned or sold a TON of different planars over the year including a ton of Maggies. They are pure as heck...but the limited dynamic range gets boring after a while and you always end up going to bigger planars (think of MMG's as the little Magnepan drug dealer taste...you are gonna want more...oh so much more). Doesn't matter how much power you throw at the small ones, they simply hit the stops and that is all she wrote, it ain't going to get any louder or bigger. In my quest for the purity/impact thing I eventually ended up with Acoustat 8's and MG-20's to get life like dynamics. Both are ridiculous. The Acoustats were beyond massive at 4' w x 8' tall, needed 4 channels of amplification and wanted/needed BIG tubes. MG-20's also needed two amps, ate ribbon drivers at a ferocious pace and were finicky as heck. I'd tweak the toe in's to the 1/16th of an inch. Eventually got tired of it and moved on.

Best combo of small with halfway decent dynamics that you can find relatively cheap in my planar experience? IMHO Martin Logan Aerius or the newer version Martin Logan Source. Buy them used. Those speakers aren't so easy to drive as they are a combination of resistive and capacitive with a big impedance dip at high frequencies (typical ESL), but not too horrible. If you put a reasonably stable amp on them, they will surprise you. ML got smart and uses a dynamic woofer so they have some bottom end, and they use a curved panel so you don't get the head in a vice one person sweet spot like you get with many flat planars. They are not a 6 person across the row speaker...but you won't get cramped from having to sit still in one place. I've seen them both in the $600 a pair range.