What is the minmimum room size for Magnepan?

I believe most people think the tweeter/midrange panel is at their limit but in fact it is the power amplifier that is running out of power. Clearly this was the case when I had the Innersound amp like I mentioned in the above post. Even with my Plinius SA100 MKIII with about 175 watts of class A power (into 4OHMS) these speakers are not even close to playing as loud as they could go with the Innersound amp.

It is true that speaker placement in the room varies (of course) but, the point I was making if you really want the 1.6's to 'sing' you will want a big room. If they get too close to the back wall they become 'thick' and lose definition in the bass, if they are too close to the side walls they will get a blare in the midrange.

That is my experience and I know I do not have as much experience as some but I am very diligent in my accessments.

What is the minimum power it requires to drive the Maggies with full potential? I was aiming at Bryston B60R. Looks like it won't do the jop. Will the 3B-ST or 4B-ST powerful enough for them?

Thanks a lot you all response.

ake

I do not think my Plinius has enough power with 175 watts into 4 OHMS, I would guess around 400 - 500 watts with a lot of current would max them out.

I know this sounds like a lot but I would like more power with my setup, and the Innersound setup never sounded strained at all with 1000 watts, so somewhere in the middle is my guess.

The Maggie 1.6's require oodles of power to sound right. I used a pair of 1.6's powered by a Spectron Digital One (500 wpc into the 4 ohm load...1 KW total power!) and the speakers never ran out of power or had anemic bass as others have often commented about. This is a speaker where wattage should be the primary consideration when selecting an amp. I also used a tube preamp, which gave the set up a much smoother sound, in my opinion. Happy Tunes!

I've owned two pairs of Maggies - a very early model that I bought in the mid-70's and a pair of 3.6's that I got last fall. The 1970's version sounded great until it failed when it was about 6 years old from what I was told by the factory was an overly UV-sensitive glue. The 3.6's are delightful. I use them in a room that is about 14x20 and (just to enter into the power debate) I started off running the 3.6's with a 100 watt solid state amp, decided I needed more power, switched to a 350 watt SS amp, which definitely sounded better - but now I'm using a 100 or so watts per channel tube amp (all McIntosh amps), which sounds the best of all. I'm not sure whether the differences among the amps had to do with raw power or just to better design as I moved from one to the other. Bottom line from my experience is that different things work, some better than others. I suspect that quality of design (whatever that means!) trumps raw power with these speakers. Try to buy at a price that won't hurt you if you decide to experiment with something else.
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