Maggie 1.6 - Best Amp? Thinking about tubes.

Maggies require some serious watts for them to bloom. Tubes? You'll need deep pockets to get what you need...That Bryston is a beauty with Maggies.

I forgot--- what about a tube preamp?

Warren- The Shanling has a tube output, which you can bypass fwiw, a great looking unit that sounds pretty good for the money and can be run in several different configurations. Pretty neat how it works even if your not interested in the unit its worth looking into.

As other's have stated if you go with tubes you will need powerful tube amps which are a lot of $$$, if your willing to spend it some feel it is the way to go. The reason I did not run tubes was the heat they would generate. Even with central air cranking during the summer months I had a tube amp and it got really warm- with a pair of large monoblocks you would be uncomfortable. Other shortcomings: tubes need replacing and on large amps that can be expensive- tube rolling will eventually tempt you; you will not be able to leave them on all of the time and increase your cold/hot cycles which is harder on everything- not to mention you need to wait for them to warm up; big tube amps need each output tube biased and this will take a little while to get the hang of. The flip side of this coin is that tube amps produce midrange that no ss amp can, always trade off's.

As another member asked what is your budget? We could make suggestions both SS and tubed from that.

My experience with using tube amps with Maggie 3.3 and 3.5 is that you need something in the 200w+ range. The 110w ARC VT130 was absolutely spectacular in the midrange at medium volume levels but quickly ran out of steam. I then tried the older ARC Classic 150 monos. Much of the VT130 magic was gone but I did gain a little more dynamics....but it was clearly not at all enough.

I have since gone with the Counterpoint NPS400 and now things are working mighty well. This amp was so vastly superior to the CL150s in every way. I truly have no idea what all the hype was over the CL150s a decade ago.

If you are an ARC fan, I suspect the old D250 or the newer VT200, VM200 models might be worthy of an audition. But I think the VTL 450 or 700 is what would really do it....or maybe the big Melos mono amps or a mono pair of the Counterpoint amps.

Once I heard the incredible magic of the Maggies and tube sound, it was mighty tough to go with solid state....and the Counterpoint allows for a good compromise with its hybrid implementation. This could be a super match with the 1.6s.

I am using an Eastern Electric Mini Max tube pre amp going into a 25 year old GAS Ampzilla II that feeds my 3.6's.

I have been through thirty amps in the past 15 years and that does include the VTL MB250's. The Ampzilla comes so close to the VTL's. None of the other amps has all the things the Ampzilla does. And, you won't have to worry about tubes in the power amp to get great sound (some call it tube sound).

Sad thing is, I started off my audiophile passion with the
Ampzilla. Little else measured up.