OTL Tube Amp for Maggie 3.6?

Glad to see someone going down this road. I ran 3.6's with my VZN 160's. I have very fond memories of it. I had the OTL's driving them full range and even bi-amped them with various amps for just the bass panel, including the H2O ice audio class d amp. My recollection is that the biamping of the 3.6's in this manner was overkill for that speaker. I much preferred running the 3.6 at full range and augmenting that set up with a sub. As a Maggie enthusiast, I also augmented the 3.6 with Tympani bass panels (single pair and double)driven with the H2O. That was a good system for a while. I always ran the OTL's with the zeros. I don't think I ever turned the volume past 12 o'clock. OTL and ribbons are a glorious sound. But for the lack of imaging, I'd still have that system.

If you are trying to stay below 6K, then perhaps you may need to change your mindset of using OTL's with a pair of Maggie 3.6's. For a beefy enough OTL to create the dynamic swings, and loudness to make these particular speakers sing and swing, I think you are going to be out of your budget. A few suggestions made here for OTL's seem to be way out of your price range, and the few that are close, may not supply all of the power you require. I do not know about you, but I like to play my music at real volumes, not as background music, so having the ability to play louder is important to me, along with the ability to explode dynamically when necessary.

Generally speaking, most users on the forum suggest matching amps to speakers, the Maggies are no exception. The trend in the forums for Maggies seem to suggest high current and beefy power supplies, something you are not going to get with smaller wattage OTL's. I am sure that the Zero's may aid in some cases regarding matching impedance and ohms, something I would like to experiment with, but, how do you get around for the lack of power and or reserves necessary to make music come alive with small power supplies?

If I were you, I would experiment not just with OTL, but, with other options, such as hybrid and push pull.

If you are dead set on an OTL solution, then please evaluate and provide us with your findings regarding dynamic range, explosive power, and how loud you could play without sound degradation before the amp ran out of power.

It would be interesting to hear some feedback of users using lower watt OTL’s with this particular speaker and how loud they play them.

Ciao,
Audioquest4life

Audioquest4life, there is nothing about 6K- but he did say something about trying to keep it under 6 *figures* :)

Ooops. Okay, 6k and 6 figures are vastly different meanings regarding spending money. Heck, if I had enough money to splurge on a beefy OTL, I would be tempted to evaluate the MA2 or MA3 with my B&W 800'. Perhaps one day when we return to the United States from our European vacation. You don't offer 30 day trials to Germany by any chance? How about military discounts? Just sayin:).

You can see the equipment I am using by looking at my system profile.

Ciao,
Audioquest4life

OTL,,you already avoided output transformer?and why in the world you will put a ZERO in your output?You better off with an SE