Tube-amp for Magnepan?

Maggies are not that hard to drive. The types with the magnets on one side only do have a knee in their power response curve due to the fact that the magnetic field falls off at the square of the distance.

Below that knee 50 watts should make them work. I suspect your power tubes are shot.

We have a lot of customers using our M-60 (60-watt OTL) and a set of ZEROs- you should be able to do it with what you have.

They were using Bryston amps at THE SHOW with the 1.7s, no complaints here. One of the best rooms I heard.

Atmasphere,

I completely disagree as do the majority of people who have ever dealt with Magnepan's, especially the larger models. I have owned, and tested Maggies and amp combos for years, and my excellent local dealer (who went out of business, sadly, last year) let me try many amps with their demo models, and not with any tube amp, including the big ARC's and VTL's did the Maggies wake up and sound good, when compared to high powered SS or Class D amps.

Maggie's absolutely DO need a lot of power to sound good. You can get them to make sound with almost anything, but it will not be what the speakers are capable of.

Sell your excellent amps, and try some Wyred4Sound amps and you will be shocked. Or, keep you amps, and get a pair of speakers better matched for them.

Either way, you will improve your listening experience.

Backing up Atmasphere on this one. Went from a Counterpoint Solid 2 (200 into 8, 400 into 4) to M60's with Zero's into 1.6 Maggies. Way tighter bass, no noise, no harshness and plenty of SPL for me (and my neighbors).

I heard the 1.6 at a local dealer, which were fed by some nice McIntosh amps. They sounded fine, nothing offended there. So it must be possible, at least. Of course price is a consideration there.

There is also the tube-SS hybrid option. You get tubes in the input stage and SS output stage. and lots of watts.

Van Alstine, Moscode, Alta Vista are some sample brands, roughly in ascending order wrt price.