With all respect to the previous post, Maggies are notoriously inefficient and, the larger the surface area, the more energy it will take to drive them.
There is no direct relationship between speaker impedence and it's efficiency. If there were, all speakers of a given impedence would have the same efficiency rating (measured in dB @ 1 watt @ 1 meter).
I happen to have a pair of 12's and tried the SA-100, but had a similar experience to your's in that the sound was weak and turning up the gain only over-drove the amp which resulted in some harsh-sounding mid-bass/mid-range and sometimes strident highs. The SA-20 cleared that up.
Maggies are very revealing speakers and you need a fair amount of high quality power to drive them well. Don't discount that there might be a problem with the speaker as Fdriver suggests, but first borrow some more power (around 200 wpc)and see if that solves the problem.
Let us know how it turns out.....
Regards
Jim
There is no direct relationship between speaker impedence and it's efficiency. If there were, all speakers of a given impedence would have the same efficiency rating (measured in dB @ 1 watt @ 1 meter).
I happen to have a pair of 12's and tried the SA-100, but had a similar experience to your's in that the sound was weak and turning up the gain only over-drove the amp which resulted in some harsh-sounding mid-bass/mid-range and sometimes strident highs. The SA-20 cleared that up.
Maggies are very revealing speakers and you need a fair amount of high quality power to drive them well. Don't discount that there might be a problem with the speaker as Fdriver suggests, but first borrow some more power (around 200 wpc)and see if that solves the problem.
Let us know how it turns out.....
Regards
Jim