Tubes for Magnepan’s.

@william53b This is all very interesting to me, as well. I have two systems. One has a pair REL T/9i and a pair  Magnepan 1.7i which has evolved to be my solid state system. I also have a system with a pair of Magico A3s. I move the RELs around when I play them. This is evolving to be my tube system. The Maggie system is driven by Bryston equipment: 17B3 preamp, BDA-3 DAC and a pair of 28B3 monoblocks. The 28B3s are beasts with a lot of headroom for dynamics and sound great. But it seems that folks are having success driving Maggies with high power tubes. I haven’t gone back to inspect all the prior postings. But I suspect that 300B and EL34s won’t cut it. KT88 tubes might. But the safer bet is KT120 or 150s. I would be very interested in learning what your experience with tubes on Maggies might be or the tube preamp. As for a tube preamp, if you are unsure you can get a B-stock Schiit Freya+ and see how that goes. If it’s not good then sell it. It will move. If it does work then you can either stay with it and save some $ or sell and get a Backert, Rogue or AR preamp. However, I too am wondering how much tube flavor is transmitted by a tube preamp across solid state power amps. I am thinking that the best chance of the tube preamp affecting the power amps like that would be with the Benchmark AHB2s since they are very transparent amps. Let us know what happens. 

Since someone got their panties in a twist over my last comment,  I will just quietly enjoy the misinformation being spread here. Carry on.

@secretguy

just so others here understand, what exactly is the misinformation you are referring to? 

the forum is an exchange of facts, opinions and experiences...  

I have Andra Eggleston very difficult to drive, and very hard to match, Tsakadiris tube mono apollon did the trick, they are 150 w per channel. They are 4K. My guest your Maggie will be happy with this amps.

Since someone got their panties in a twist over my last comment, I will just quietly enjoy the misinformation being spread here. Carry on.

@secretguy  If you had a post removed, its not just that someone got upset. The moderators don't care about that. They do care about forum violations- such as calling someone names (such as 'stupid') or being abusive. If your post was reported (which is usually the only way the moderators find out about a given post) and it was an obvious violation, it will get removed. Most sites have forum rules to which you agree to before you are allowed to post. These are clearly stated on any website.

If you click on the 'report this' link in the bottom right corner of any post, you see a list of the forum violations that bother moderators the most. So as a helpful tip, since name-calling is the most common violation (and I know this because I'm a moderator on another site), use this tactic: 'Attack the post not the poster'. IOW you can call a post 'stupid' (or whatever value you want to assign to it), that's OK. Calling a forum member stupid or the like is something different!