Okay I Bought the Magnepan 3.6's

I had the McIntosh 501's with my Maggies and I changed them out for Innersound ESL's. I thought with my Maggies the Mac's were slow and muddy in comparison to the Parasound JC-1's they replaced. The Mac's are great amps, and sound great at my buddies house with his big B & W's, but I did not like them with the Maggies.

I still think the best amps I have heard with Maggies are the very hard to find Cary CAD 500 MB's. I like them better than the Pass X350.5 that I recently borrowed, and that is high praise, because the Pass did sound very good.

Okay, it's still early, but my initial reactions to the Mac 402 are not knocking my socks off.. Sounds a little slow, too laid back and too polite, lacking some speed and rhythm, and the bass is absent... Haven't given up yet; will let them play a few more hours and let them cook overnight...

Maybe I am headed for a Pass.

I should know, I have one and use it myself with my Maggie 3.6's. Really plenty of power, and the sound is, I think, superb, not much different than, or maybe identical to, the Pass 250.5's.

The thing with the Pass 150.5 is that it's not really 150 wpc @ 8 ohm. It's really like other manufacturer's 250 wpc amps. Explanation: Hi Fi News, the British mag, when they reviewed the Pass 150.5 about 2 years ago or so, found that it clipped at 8 ohms at 270 wpc!! Not 150 wpc. And, at 4 ohms, it clipped at close to 400wpc. I may be off a few wpc in my memory (I have the review someplace here) but not by much.

I use my Maggies in a reasonably sized room and barely have the amp turned up. My friend had the same set up - 150.5 with Maggie 3.6, and felt it was a great match.

If you try the 150.5 and for some reason want more power, you can sell it very quickly on A'gon.

I wondered if the 150.5 would be enough for the 3.6's in my room which is 17w x 26l x 9h. Or, maybe the 250.5?

I think the Pass 150.5 could definitely do it in your room. Depends on how loud you play your system. The difference might come down to the fact that the 150.5 would be out of class A into class AB, while the 250.5 might stay in class A, though if you play loud the 250.5 would also be out of class A.

Hard to say more than that, unless you had both amps and did a direct comparison.