I have Maggie MG 1.6's - need amp advice

Atmasphere...With a one-sided magnet, the field would get stronger in one direction and weaker in the other. I would therefore expect the speaker efficiency to change little with increased excursion, but with distortion increasing.
Do you have any solid info regarding the field spatial distribution? The diaphragm excurion is so small that I question how much field variation actually exists (as opposed to theory). I have always believed that getting the very low frequencies out of the woofer is helpful for cone drivers, but you point out that for Maggies it may be even more important.

Dear Atmasphere,
Could you write a word or two about what you mean by "The trick with any tube amp is an effective 3-4 ohm capability...". Thanks.

This was my solution to finally getting my Maggies to "come alive" and it worked wonders. The Innersound is frequently available used for about $1500. It delivers about 600wpc into 4 ohms.

More recently, I've ended up bi-amping mine, with a tube amp on the mid/tweeter panel and the Innersound on the bass panel. Best sound I've ever had from them in 7 years of ownership, and a lot of different amps tried.

Bi-amping greatly increases the power the amps are able to deliver to the drivers. The internal crossover is bypassed, and a line-level crossover is inserted between the preamp and the pair of stereo amps (or 4 monoblocks or whatever). My first bi-amp was using 2 stereo tube amps on the Maggies, and that produced much more satisfaction than my old Classe CA-200 despite having less power per channel.

YMMV. Hope this helps. Be glad to share details if you're interested.

dfhaleycko

When you say a line level crossover is inserted btwn the preamp and pair of amps. What do you mean by this. do you need to buy an external xover or is this something the maggies do on their own.

Nope, unfortunately it's harder than that. They don't do it on their own :-( the Maggie crossover has to be disconnected entirely.
* The amps are directly connected to the speaker driver elements (which is good for control and transparency).
* Each driver gets its own amp (thus you need 4 amps or 2 stereo amps).
* To keep each driver supplied with appropriate frequency range, you need to use some kind of external crossover. My suggestion would be to go active. I used kit components from Linkwitz Labs (their MT1 board), and about $80 worth of parts. You could also use commercial active crossovers, such as the Behringer DECX2496, or the excellent Marchand tube or solid state crossovers. You need the right settings, or modules (if Marchand) to duplicate the factory crossover curves.
* alternatively, you can design a passive crossover, which is only a few resistors and capacitors in a box between the pre and the amps. A lot more information on this is available on the AA Planar Asylum (see the "tweaks" links).

Major advantages: bi-amping gets a lot more of the amplifier power to the drivers. It effectively doubles the amplifier power, so you don't need to use such powerful amps (a real advantage if you're doing tube amplification).

You can use identical amps, or you can tailor the amps to the drivers. For instance, on mine I use an Innersound ESL amp on the bass panels (600 watts per channel at 4 ohms), and a homemade 60 watt tube amp on the tweeter/mid panels.

This is the best I've ever heard the Maggies sound. But it requires more work than most people want to get into (for instance, disconnecting the stock crossovers requires removing the side strips and rolling up the socks, scary but it's not hard, and it's completely reversible to sell the speakers stock later if you want).

Lots of folks have been down this path. There are good pictures and plenty of advice on the MUG (Maggies User Group).

The Maggies sound great out of the box, but they can be made to deliver so much more without spending big bucks. Crossover mods and rigid stands produce amazing results!

Good luck. Hope this helps!