Magnepan Owners? Your favorite amplifier?

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firewallx

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Dear Reader,

I've owned Maggies for years.

I started with purchasing the most expensive receiver @ Best Buy's Magnolia.

I was disappointed.

I've tried an entire clan of amplifiers and the only one that puts my Magnepans in line is Sunfire by the genius Bob Carver.

When it came time to upgrade, I bypassed the McIntosh 462, PS Audio's BHK line (and others,) and I decided to go with Bob's Sunfire TGA-7401. Not only does the Sunfire deliver more power (800 watts x2 @ 4 ohms,) but it is a seven (7) channel amp that *can* deliver 800 watts x 7 @ 4 Ohms...(this has not been tested.)

The control, details (macro/micro,) and immediacy of the device are startling.

So now tell me -

What do you run with your Magnepans? :)

Best,
 

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I run my 1.6's with a Pass X250 amp. I used to use a Parasound A21 which sounded midfi in comparison. Preamp is a tube BAT VK51se.
 
firewallx said:
Dear Reader,

I've owned Maggies for years.

I started with purchasing the most expensive receiver @ Best Buy's Magnolia.

I was disappointed.

I've tried an entire clan of amplifiers and the only one that puts my Magnepans in line is Sunfire by the genius Bob Carver.

When it came time to upgrade, I bypassed the McIntosh 462, PS Audio's BHK line (and others,) and I decided to go with Bob's Sunfire TGA-7401. Not only does the Sunfire deliver more power (800 watts x2 @ 4 ohms,) but it is a seven (7) channel amp that *can* deliver 800 watts x 7 @ 4 Ohms...(this has not been tested.)

The control, details (macro/micro,) and immediacy of the device are startling.

So now tell me -

What do you run with your Magnepans? :)

Best,
Click to expand...

Yep not even by Carver himself .... :)
 
Back when I had my 3.6's it was a Threshold S500, more than satisfied with the combo
 
Mikado463 said:
Back when I had my 3.6's it was a Threshold S500, more than satisfied with the combo
Click to expand...

Nelson Pass designed the Threshold S/500 if I'm not mistaken and was built from 1983-1988 and provides 250WPC into 8 ohms. The power doubles into 4 ohms and the amplifier still has the grunt to even drive a 1 ohm load. Pretty decent.
 
I used to have Maggie's. In the Magnepan forum there are a lot who recommend Class D amplifiers. I also believe that Magnepan voice their speakers using Bel Canto (their neighbors). I like the new NAD Purifier amps over the Bel Canto that I recently owned. However, in my quest to physically downsize I have moved on from Maggie's.
 
Esoteric powering Maggies ..........
 

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The speaker system is Magenpan 3.6s with subs, Kinergetic SW-800 bass towers, and it's tri-amped directly through a Pass Labs XVR-1 3-way active crossover so: 1) two custom built stereo hybrid tube/SS amplifiers (by Mike Elliott, not old Counterpoint design) at 400W/ch, 2) 1 stereo Krell Evo S2250e 500W/ch amplifier. Effective power is greater than 1300W/ch as 2 amps with electronic XO deliver wattages almost 4 times the rms wattage of 1 amp. Damping factor is better too.

Most of everything in the system is modified included the ARC Ref 40 pre, REF10 phono, Pass Labs crossovers, and the 3.6s (rewired with 6 9s copper, no fuses, no inside socks, and remaining internal passive XO is bypassed with an outboard quality, matched, circuit containing Duelund Cast caps & inductors. I'm a little nuts - for example it took 2 years, 30 separate listening sessions totaling 500 hours and over 130 parts changes to get the Pass Labs XO to sound the way I wanted. The ARC stuff didn't need much. The modded 3.6s sound quite nice.
 

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I own the Bob Carver 350 Raven tube mono amps. I would like to buy a Maggie but I am concerned that even though my mono amps are rated as 350 RMS it being tube it still may not have the power to run them properly.
Can anyone comment?

ozzy
 
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