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Magnepan, How Low Can You Go...power-wise

Hi Guys,

I have used a pair of Maggie 1.6s with a little Naim Nait5i (50wpc) and they sounded ok. I hear a lot of people saying you really need 250wpc to make them sing. I have the opportunity to buy a pair of Maggie 3.6s very cheap in another country where I spend some months each year. I was hoping my Simaudio i7 at 150wpc would be enough power for these. Magnepan won't answer this question firmly - what do you think ?
thomastrouble
macdadtexas
1,794 posts
 
More is better, my experience with Maggie 3.6R's was that they woke up at about 400 W, started to sing at about 600, and came completely alive at 1000w (into 4 ohms that is).

My fav amps for them; Cary CAD 500 MB, Innersound (now Sanders Sound) all the ESL amps, and I have not had them, but I too hear the Wyred4Sound amps are sublime with the Maggies.
audiokinesis
2,750 posts
 
Thomastrouble, it depends on how loud you listen.

Audiogon member Onemug uses low powered SET amps to drive his 3.6's, and gets simply outstanding sound from them - for his purposes.
mst
163 posts
 
I would be interested in running these with the Glow Audio tubed amps. Thoughts?
thomastrouble OP
239 posts
 
Thanks for all the input guys. Yes, I realize that more power helps and it would be nice. However, I am hopping on a plane and can't carry heavy separates. Plus, if I put any gear into checked luggage customs are alerted straight away and a heavy taxing comes into force (twice the price of the gear!!), so it boils down to what I can get into my carry-on bag, which basically means a decent, not too big or heavy integrated, and even the Simaudio i7 is pushing it a bit. It is a great integrated, my only concern is would I be doing the Maggie 3.6s a disservice.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,942 posts
 
The guy that ran the Magnaplar User's Group over on audioasylum.com was adament that the best amp possible for the 3.6/3.8 was our own MA-1.

We have lots of customers running our M-60s, using a set of ZEROs. My impression is (for the ones with single-ended magnets) that the speaker is really not that hard to drive, as long as you do not go above the 'knee' in their efficiency curve.

Above that point it takes a prodigious amount of power to increase the volume, as at that point the diaphragm has enough excursion that the distance from the magnets becomes and issue (the strength of the magnetic field falls off by the square of the distance- the push-pull units do not have this problem as the magnetic field is constant).

The speaker is otherwise a moderate efficiency, as you can add about 6 db to the efficiency numbers since it is a line source.

As a result, 80 watts is plenty in many moderate sized rooms.
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