Warmer class D amps for magnepan?


I am planning on buying a pair of lrs+, and i need a poweramp. I am well aware that class D is despised in the magnepan community, but its unwarranted. Nuforce and the new purifi amps are designed to handle 2 ohm loads, and have been used to power Maggies without falt. My only concern is they will kinda rip my head off if i play any less than perfect recording on them. I’m aware that all modern magnepans are unforgiving, but can be tamed with a smoother amplifier. So why not class A or AB? Unfortunately, i simply dont have the space for the ones that are actually rated at 2 ohms (the lrs is around 3.5ohm, but dips to 2.8, it MUST be able designed to handle a 2 ohm load). Also, any one of them that does go up on sale, the owners almost always refuse to ship them, and want you to pick it up in person (for which i dont have the resources to do so). So I ask if there are any smoother, more forgiving class D poweramps (not intergrated models) that you are sure will power magnepans correctly. They can be discontinued, as i will be buying it used regardless, so anything from 2008 to 2018 would be preferable and my budget is around €2000, so say $2500. Thank you.

hamark

Maggie man Wendell Diller says "any amp that doubles it's wattage into 4 ohms will do just fine".  Makes sense.

I’ve been using Bel Canto REF500m monoblocks with a pair of Maggie 1.7i and a Primaluna tube preamp, have been happy with the power and sound, although it could be just a tiny bit warmer imo.

JJSS49 stated: i haven’t tried them all, by a long shot, but my suggestion would be to try a well designed gan-fet based power amp, rather than typical class d ones using ice purifi or hypex modules

Absolutely dead on correct!  My PS Audio M700s sound fantastic with my 3.7i Maggies and replaced my Bryston amps with zero loss in quality sound. 

Anyone who has not listened to like designed class d amps should not make any judgements regarding them!

When I had my LRS speakers, I tried a bunch of different amps.

One of the best was the CIA (Channel Island Audio) D200 Class D mono amps. Just superb. Pretty cheap used too.

(Big shout out to Dusty!)

further thoughts on this topic

- we know that maggies big and small are wonderfully accurate transducers, highly revealing of what is upstream of them, in this respect they are a superbly clear lens into the upstream system and the musical content

- we also know that maggies, at least most smaller ones, need careful work in terms of placement, and quite often, subwoofer support, to develop a truly full range response and presentation - from my own experience i would say this is true of all maggies below a 3.7/3.7i in a typical room

- also, older maggies (i still remember my mg iii-a’s in the 80’s) had even less bass and notably thinner mids (wendell and crew have smartly worked the newer products for a significantly richer tonality over the years, without sacrificing clarity, kudos to them for doing this)

- we also know that the better makers of class d amps graft nice sounding front ends onto the various pre-engineered amp modules or ’back ends’ and then voice the end product very very carefully, to achieve the sound profile they seek (i believe that most of this is trying making the treble and midrange have more texture, air, depth, dimensionality, and thus more ’lifelike’, and less like a bleached out 2d cardboard cutout of the musical performance)

all this said, i think the case is strong for trying various good class d amps on maggies -- the class d tech seems naturally able to provide tremendous bass energy and grip -- and if the gifted designer can sprinkle in 'the right stuff' on the amp front end to give the music the breath-of-life that many of us seek in the sound, then we can often have something that performs very nicely, and also be very green and conserving of resources, not mention small/lightweight and cool running