Building a Magnepan System, Please Help...

What Frogman is saying should not be dismissed. However, The difference between a McCormack DNA 0.5 deluxe and a high powered Adcom is also laughable. Forget Adcom. It is not necessary to have 1000 WPC to get decent sound from Maggies. I drove my 1.6's for a long time with the 100 WPC McCormack DNA 0.5. They sounded a lot better with 300 WPC McCormack DNA 1.0 monoblocks.
Also not to be dismissed is the room placement issues to get the best sound. But---- Maggies not optimally placed, not optimally driven, maybe doing 85% of what they are capable of, can still sound better than most other speakers in a comparable price range.

All speakers, planars or not, dipoles or not, boxes or not, rear vented, bottom vented, transmission line, accoustic suspension, horns, you name it--- respond favorably to careful system matching and room placement. Things get blown way out of proportion with maggies.

Start somewhere then tweak, adjust, experiment-- it's what we all do, and what can make this hobby rewarding. My current set up with my MG 3.7R's is heavenly. But it didn't happen in a day.

I used 360 w/ch Carver m4.0t (SS amp with tube amp voicing, not particularly high current)for many years with very good results with my late 80's vintage Maggies.

Same amp did not fair nearly as well with similarly inefficient box designs with good bass extension that tend to like a lot of current as well. The Maggies were a much better match.

ALso the best sound with Maggies I have heard in recent years has all been off tube amps typically 80 w or more. Soft clipping with tube amps may buy you more per watt than typical hard clipping SS amps, but better to stay away from clipping altogether.

You need a lot more power with a SS amp in general to do that and avoid serious effects of hard clipping on sound quality.

So for Maggies, I would go for as much power as needed to avoid clipping at target listening levels.

Budget may limit options, but you may well get more than your moneys worth out of an otherwise lesser amp with the Maggies.

Jrodefeld,

After reading your response, I understand what you are saying. I'm not surprised, though. I could have guessed to about 80-90% of what you wrote, almost word for word. Its not that I know so much, but that I've made many of the same mistakes myself, and have watched countless others do the same.

Right now, you are putting your system together. You haven't bought anything yet so its all in your head. You're trying to get an idea as to what all this is going to sound like when you are done. Knowing your situation from reading your 2 posts, there is only 1 fact that I can tell you. I guarantee it. And that is, the system that you've put together in your head is not going to sound like the system that ends up in your listening room. It can't. You have absolutely no reference to compare anything to. You may love it or hate it.

"Could you tell me why some people "hate" them? They sound quite appealing to me and I can't imagine not being happy with them."

That's exactly what I'm talking about. Using your imagination can be a very costly thing in audio. Its best to imagine as little as possible. lol. (I put the lol in there because people don't always get my humour.). To answer your question is difficult, though. I can tell you what I didn't like about my 1.7's, but it really wouldn't do you any good. But to give some perspective, think of it this way. There's only a small handful of companies that make ribbon speakers. Magnepan is the biggest, by far. All total, the market share for these speakers is very low. I guess maybe 1 or 2%; possibly less. That means that the vast majority of high end speaker owners go with other designs. Looking at it that way, you start to see why I highly recommend you demo the speakers first. Also, don't think I'm putting Magnepan down. I'm not. Magnepan owners are some of the most loyal customers in all of audio. It wouldn't surprise me at all if you end up loving them. I just say use caution.

If you really want to get into high end audio, you may want to going a different route to start off. Maybe just get an entry level receiver or integrated amp ($300-400) and pair it with a decent small speaker in the same price range. It doesn't have to be expensive gear. Use that system to learn. Get to know things like setup, imaging and all the rest of the qualities that you read about in reviews. From there, you will be able to make much better decisions as to where you want the system to go. If you want to be successful, there's no easy way. You are going to have to learn as much as you can from your own experiences.

I use:

WD Caviar Black HDD in a Thermaltake Max5G enclosure-->laptop-->Stello U3-->Benchmark DAC-1-->Crown XLS 2500-->Magnepan 1.7.

Jrode - You're getting a lot of questioning here so let me support you. You are going to LOVE your 1.7s - awesome speakers. They're going to shock you with how good they sound. The preamp I consider to be a more important piece of equipment than the amp. I would suggest a passive preamp but the XPA-2 isn't a good candidate for this so look into a tube preamp and buy USED, not to save money, but to allow you to sell it and try another unit if it doesn't please you. Same comment about the DAC - buy used. The variability between DACs I find to be much less. Budget $400-500 for a DAC and go with it.

And welcome to Maggie-world. You are going to love them.