Here's my two-penneth on 3.6R's and tubes, for what it's worth.
I bought my 3.6R's in October last year and have tried a few different amps, both tube and SS.
If you search old posts for Magnepan you'll see a few of mine, asking for help and advice and basically venting quite a bit of frustration along the way.
I'm still not happy with amps for these speakers, but I have a better understanding of what is required, through several months of trial and error.
First of all, the most important consideration when amping the 3.6's is room size.
If you have a larger than normal room, these speakers are capable of opening up and creating a huge soundstage (width), given powerful amps, particularly in the area of current delivery. Given power, the Maggies just dissapear in a large room and you feel the full scale of the music.
In a smaller room, you are just not going to recreate that scale, regardless of the power, and so you can look for a more sensibly rated amp.
I suspect that a lot of Maggie 3.6 owners have never really heard what these speakers are capable of producing in terms of soundstage, given the dimension constraints of the average listening space.
Tubes in my opinion are the only way to go with these speakers, if you can afford to buy adequately powered tube amps that is.
I've moved my speakers between two different listening rooms, one is 14X22, the other, my prefered room, is 45X28'
In the smaller room, a pair of 200 w/channel Cary V12i Monoblocks work great. Given the room constraints, you never really feel that you are missing out on scale, and the vocals, brass instruments, piano...it all just sounds so natural and pure. In this smaller room, the amp isn't being driven too hard, and everything sounds natural and in proportion.
Using the same amps in the larger space is a different matter. On smaller scale music, say an accoustic trio, or something along those lines, you still have that same 'musical rightness' that tubes deliver. But on larger scale music, say big band or classical, you start to feel that something is missing. I have my speakers about 14' apart along the 45' wall, and the sound doesn't open up much beyond the speaker edges when I use the 200w tube monoblocks.
When I add a solid state, with good current delivery, then the soundstage widens and the whole picture changes. However, with the SS amps that I've tried so far, I just can't get the same sense of 'musicality' as I can with tubes.
So, I think that in a larger room, the goal is still tubes, but they must be in the 400+ watt region, based on what I've heard so far.
In a smaller room, a good quality 200 w tube amp should work great, but I wouldn't go much lower than that.
The amps I've tried, with a quick run down:
Belles Integrated - great amp, good current delivery, just too bright and forward.
McIntosh 252 - big heavy powerful amp, started to sound pretty good until the cutouts kicked in at around 80db and the amps just shut down!
McIntosh 6500 Integrated - actually played louder than the more powerful 252 without shutting down, but forget it!...so 'colored' and completely lacking in transparancy. I read other posts where people claim the 6500 and bigger 6900 sound great with Maggies, well, each to their own.
Cary V12i Mono's - great sounding in a smaller room, just not quite up to the larger room.
Perreaux 2150b - I found one of these by accident at a bargain price, and it sounds pretty darn good. So much so that I bought a bigger 3150b but unfortunatelt that has a fault on it. The Perreux really opens up the soundtage on the 3.6, it's almost right but just lacks the tonal quality and liquidity of tubes.
CJ CAV 50 (45 watt tube integrated)...all the glory of tubes, just not enough watts).
Anyway, that's my story so far!....I'm going to dump off all of my amps and try to find something like a Manley 440 or a VTL 750.
I would recommend that anyone at least tries tubes with Maggies.
I usually get a bunch of flack when I post here, so I'm going off to find my safety hat, anyway, it's just my opinion.
Rooze
