Tubes for Magnepan’s.

@pkatsuleas


Thank you. 

A wealth of information pertinent to the topic.

Investigate a rebuilt Harman Kardon Citation II.  I know of many people who used this amp to drive Maggies (and other current absorbing speakers) and were happy with the combination.   This amp sounds better than a Mac 275 or Marantz 9.

A rebuilt II can be found for under $3k, and then resold for the same price if you want to move on.

In newer amps, I would investigate amps that can use KT90-120-150 output tubes.   Rogue, Prima Luna, Icon, Line Magnetic all come to mind and should sound very good to excellent with your Maggies.

I love EL34 tube amps and always have.  From my first Marantz 8 back in 1975.  I had always enjoyed Maggies when I listened to them at dealers, but had never considered owning them because 2xEL34 amps are around 40 wpc. 

Around 5 years ago, I purchased a Primaluna amp, the HP version.  I paid around 4K for it, lightly used.  It has 4xEL34 per channel for around 80wpc.  You can roll the tubes, and I have tried others (6550) which increase it to about 120wpc, but don’t sound as good (in my opinion/taste/system) as the EL34s.

when Magnepan came out with the LRS two years ago, I thought I could try Maggies at home for almost no risk.  They are so inexpensive, I could just sell them off if I did not like them, or if I did not have enough power to make them sound good.  I did feel funny having such a low cost speaker in my $25k system, with my interconnects costing more than the Speakers.

I had several talks with the guys at Magnepan before placing the order. Bottom line was that they said the Primaluna HP was plenty to drive the LRS.  Apparently, the size of the power supply is important to be sure the amp has enough “balls” to drive the Maggies, and the Primaluna does.

So two years later, I still absolutely love the Maggies, and the Primaluna HP are more than enough to drive them.  I get them louder than I can stand, so volume and dynamics are not limited by the amp.  But I am not a bass freak. And don’t listen to bass heavy music.  Perhaps that might influence my thoughts.

While I only discussed the LRS, I have trouble believing the 1.7i are dramatically different, but don’t know for sure. Might be worth it for you to all the guys in Minnesota and ask them.  I thought they were frank and knowledgeable.  

I have thought about upgrading my LRS for the bigger of the small Maggies, but I am so happy with my Primaluna HP / LRS combo that I don’t have any incentive to change.

hope my experience was helpful to you.

To preface, I'm the guy that looks for sonic treasure at very reasonable price levels.  First pair of Maggies were SMGa, and while the sweet spot for listening was about 1 sq foot, I was amazed at how good a pair of picture frames with thin plastic film and wire could sound, even if not technically as accurate as my Thiel CS3.5 or Altec 604-8G.  I also restore tube gear, had just finished a Bogen DS265, about 65 wpc, and just for fun hooked it up to the SMGa, which shouldn't have been happy with less than 100 wpc.  The sound was remarkable, the stage, every bit as good as the mega SS amps I'd been running, from a vintage Sony TAN-8250 to Spectro Acoustics 500SR to Classe 25, along with scores of others that didn't make the cut.  Fast forward to this year.  Now have Maggie 1.6QR, and they sound great with the same assortment of SS amps as well as 50-70 wpc from tubes.  Picked up a pair of AES SE-845 monoblocks by Cary Audio.  After a bit of tweaking, they benched at 25 watts into 8 ohms at the onset of clipping.  Although volume constrained vs the big watt amps, they sound remarkable with the 1.6QR.  Edges of bass are predictably a tad softer vs SS, but the soundstage and realism is as good as I've ever heard with these 1.6.  Sitting position is about 10 ft from speakers and the amps still have headroom when musical peaks are hitting 83-85 db.  Going to run through the audio library with this setup before reconnecting the SS amps, just to see what's missing when I do.  Bottom line, try some different tube amps at various wattage levels....you may be surprised.  As far as the admonition that tube watts are different, they're not.  But the transition into clipping is much softer than with most SS amps, and the less edgy harmonic distortion of a tube amp creates the illusion of greater SPL.    

I've owned Maggie 2.5r's, 2.6r's, IIIa's and currently 20.1's . Regardless of anyone telling 40-50 watts of tube power is enough,  maybe that's all they has to drive their Maggie's.  They NEED Power and Current
 I currently drive my 20.1's with Classe CAM350 Monoblocks. My front-end is a kit tube preamp I built for my first set of Maggie's, a Bottlehead Foreplay with all the upgrades,  been using that since 2002. There are loads of people here telling you to stick with a nice powerful SS amp, and a Tube Preamp,  I would take their advice...