I have Maggie MG 1.6's - need amp advice

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!

OH MY G-D!!!

What if i just connect a tube amp to the top connectors and a solid state amp to the bottom connectors without anything else will this work?

Soundwatts...Yes, that will work. In general I favor "proper" biamping with a line level crossover, but Maggies are not your typical cone driver speakers. First of all, the MG1.6 crossover is, superficially, a model of simplicty, but is not that easy to duplicate with a line level electronic crossover, at least not one off the shelf.
High pass is 6 dB/octave. Low pass is 12 dB/octave. The crossover frequencies (3 dB points) are not the same. All this is taylored to suit the characteristics of the panels.

A better approach (for these speakers) is to upgrade the passive crossover. Change the iron core inductor to an air core, which you will need to mount externally on the back of the panel because of its size. After removing the stock inductor there is room to install upgraded capacitors internally. I did that. However the stock capacitors are not junk at all, and I would recommend that you leave them alone. I did not remove the socks. I cut a neat rectangular opening on the back over the cavity where the crossover resides. This opening is covered by a wooden plate on which the large air core inductor is mounted.

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.

Let's put it this way- tube amps in general do not perform as well on 4 ohms as they do on 8 or 16. Output transformers do not do as well on lower impedances due to increased turns ratios, which have inductive and capacitive effects that reduce bandwidth and absorb power.

OTOH, there are speakers out there that sound best with good tube amps and are 4 ohms. Maggies are an example. Not all tube amps with 4 ohm taps really work with the 4 ohm tap. For this reason, you are often better off with a set of ZEROs which are optimized for low impedances, while running the amplifier on a higher impedance tap.

In the old days Magnaplanar made some 8 ohm speakers which made the tube vs. transistor demo that much more profound. Going to 4 ohms has caused a lot of tube amps to cede some ground to solid state, but if the impedance issue is leveled, tubes easily win out. The ZERO is an easy access to this.