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Amp Section for New Pair of Magenpan 3.7i

Not long ago I purchased a new pair of Magenpan 3.7i speakers after listening to them driven by Classe preamp and amp. My uncomfortable truth is the Magenpan speakers never sounded half as good at home as they did at the dealer which I attribute to my aged but working 40 year old Yamaha M-2 power amp.


My only source of music is a (lossless files) USB hard drive by way of my Oppo 105D optical drive.  I foresee no more tuners, tape drive or vinyl in my future and after my experience with RTA and equalizers I would say I am a straight wire with gain type of person.  With my bad knees at least a minimal remote control for off/on & volume control is essential.  Stereo music is the critical priority so 5 channel and 7 channel home theater amps are not something I would be interested in. The total budget is less than $10,000. Given the dealers willingness to make deals on demos that would mean perhaps under $15,000 retail price.

One huge reservation I have is that in my experience the Classe amps do double duty as very effective space heaters which is not desired in my modest 15’ by 24’ listening room.

The same dealer also sells AR and PrimaLuna. I assume PrimaLuna is not the same quality as AR and Classe?

Right now using the Oppo 105d I select music from my USB hard drive that I can view on my TV. Is there a more elegant solution I should consider?

Thank you in advance.


timothywright
gdnrbob
4,445 posts
 
AR and Primaluna are pretty good quality. The question is:
What will be the best fit for the Maggies?
My suggestion is to PM John Rutan (Audioconnection is his Agon tag).
He sells Maggies and knows what works with them. And, despite being a dealer, he's a really nice and knowledgeable fellow who won't try to sell you anything unless you want it.
Bob
timothywright OP
55 posts
 
Thank you I will PM John Rutan as soon as I figure out how.
roxy54's avatar
roxy54
8,001 posts
 
I would think that a Prima Luna would put out more heat than a Classe amp.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,817 posts
 
Because Maggies have rear-firing output, they should be at least 5 feet from the wall behind them for best results.

If you are using a tube amp its mandatory to keep the speaker cables as short as possible- we've made 8" cables for our customers for this purpose (the amps our customers use on this speaker are monoblocks). It makes a big difference in the amp's ability to make bass on the speaker!

Its a good move you're getting the Yamaha power supplies refurbished. A speaker like this needs power and the power supply has to be up to snuff.

Pass Labs makes great amps for this speaker but since heat is a concern you'll want something class AB (your Yamaha is class AB) or else class D. The newer crop of class D amps can do quite well on this speaker. Your Oppo already has remote volume control. As remotes go, their solution was not too bad; Oppo had/has a lot of respect in the high end community- they were missed when they elected to get out of the sport.
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