Amp help for the Maggies?

My summary observation is that your low power amp will never sound better than when it drives Maggies. Depending on musical tastes, and listening environment (eg: apartment) the low power amp may be the best choice. However, the Maggies can do more. Lots more.

Within your Budget, an Aragon amp would be the ticket. I've heard many Maggie setups, and bang-for-buck-wise, they are tough to beat.
FWIW, agree with much of what Gregadd said about folks being too focused on power ratings, but when it comes to current production Maggies, the current and power both matter a lot. As much a I love tube amps, this is the last place I'd recommend them to someone on a budget! Cheers,
Spencer

NO, NO, NO...you are ALL wrong!!! (just kidding :) ) let me chime in as having owned SMG "A"'s 1.5, 1.6 ,2.7's and 3.3's( formerly Jafox's own beloved 3.3's!!) As many of you may know, I have indeed left the Maggie camp( for now anyway) and here's why. Yes, I agree with both camps to some degree. Indeed Maggies will sound good with lower power amps, especially triode tubes as long as you dont ask the amp to do more than is expected.Please dont waste your time with low power designs or most SS amps in the 100W range, and try to get the BEST sound out of them, no matter what front end stuff you have. I also have used Hi power SS amps in the 300W range with decent headroom that makes them come alive, but at the expense of revealing the short commings of the upstream components and the amp itself. The Maggie 3 series are that good at letting you know where your problems are. I really think that if your going to run Maggies full range and expect to have a world class speaker capable of high resolution, detail, stunning dynamics and play real world music, you better have not just power and current from an amp...but the BEST amp to do the job AND sound good doing it wheather it be tube OR SS. The likes of the Wolcotts, ARC Ref 600, VTL 450's, Plinius SA 250's, new McIntosh 6 chassis monoblocks,CAT JL3 Sigs Monoblocks would be what Id want for my next pair of Maggies. OR... I could be satisfied returning to my 1.6QR's and Quicksilver 60's, place them 12-15 feet apart and listen in the near field and low to moderate volume. For sweet sound, imaging and depth, especially vocals, it didn't get much better than this! Perspective is the key and knowing what sound your trying to achieve, and how you'll drive them makes all the difference...BTW...FWIW, I will never forget how good my lowly pair of SMG A's sounded with vocals and light jazz..In some respects, the best Maggie of all.

Kehut- if your running in the class of those amps you don't need any advice from me. I'll get folks into the maggie camp by showing them they are one of the easiest speakers to drive. Whats' that phrase, "easy to drive difficult to master." You guys can take 'em from there.

I have had approx. 15 different amps on my old 3.6's in less then a two year time period. From that experience and all of the other's I have come to know in the maggie community over the past few years really seem to agree on one thing, the more power the better. Yes you can achieve high level's with low power(I never tried anything lower then 60 watts) but the soundstage shrinks, dynamics are virtually non-existant and bass suffers dramatical- both in quality and quantity. If you don't listen to "complex" music, low wattage MAY work, but your limiting your potential right from the start. The factory uses 7B-ST's last I knew(usually bi-amping), so there just MAY be something to needing a bit of power on newer magnepans to play a wide variety of music.

Gregadd- On the 19th of this month you said this and now THREE days later your engaging in the very thing you found fruitless then- what gives? If you feel low power is the ticket that's great, I am really happy for you, but I have tried more amps then most on these speakers and EVERYTIME high power allowed me to get closer to the music then there lower power counterparts. This is one of the reason's I decided to move on from my beloved maggies, wanted more amplification choices. So you have your experiences and I have mine, I have NO desire in investing any time in changing your mind, but please understand your not going to change my mind either- I trust my ears.