I have Maggie MG 1.6's - need amp advice

i too have magnepan 1.6 speakers and am looking for an amp. i am looking for a tube amp. i am considering the macintosh 2102 (100 watts) or the wolcott stereo amp (140 watts). i don't think either of these amps is insufficient to power this speaker. remember, quality of sound is more important than spl.

Mrtennis...At least with Maggies, the "quality of sound" delivered at a five watt average power level (about six volts rms into 4 ohms)is better when it comes from a powerful amp although one would think that 100 watts would be plenty. That's my experience, and I am not alone. I haven't a clue why this is so.

By the way, you could actually try a ZR1600 amp for less than the cost of rolling tubes once!

Contrary to popular belief, the 1.6s don't need nearly as much power as the 3 series maggies. Actually, I found them to sound better with tubes. But you will need a good solid 100-150 watts of tube power, but the coherency and midrange you get will sound much better than an average SS behemoth. My RM-9 did a fine job with 1.6s, but was a total flop on 3.5s.

Oz

Look for a used Spectron Digital One. 500 wpc into the Maggies; it really opened my speakers up and tightened the bass on my pair. Class D switching amp...tiny and the idle current is only 20 watts, so you can leave it continuously on without juicing up your electricity bill.

Think of it this way: all cars will do 70 MPH, but some get there MUCH more quickly! It's not just a question of "loudness" [SPL] but the "opening up", or just darn sounding better...the 1.6's require a lot of power to "open up".

Maggies are easy to drive up to the 'knee' of their magnet system which is not push-pull (MG 20.1s are an exception and are easy to drive at any volume). Getting additional volume above the knee requires a lot of power as the speaker dynamically compresses. This has to do with the distance that the diaphragm gets from the magnets during excursion- the strength of the magnet decreases by the square of the distance. Getting bass off of the diaphragm helps a lot too as that effectively limits excursion, allowing 'below the knee' operation as some fairly high sound pressures.

Below the knee, they are easy. A set of our M-60s will do quite well if used with a set of ZEROs. The trick with using any tube amp is an effective 3-4 ohm capability, which is a stretch for many tube amps. A set of ZEROs solves that nicely.