Amp help for the Maggies?

too bad there is so much bad information out there. I bought my maggies almost 30 years ago. i bought them precisley because they were so easy to drive. For a slice of heaven try the cj premier 11a. a used pv12al if you don't need phono a pv 12a if you do. If you are addicted to power try to find a NYAL moscode 300/600. I saw one for sale on audiogn.
greg

Jafox- perhaps it is appropriate for me to discuss amplifier power after just watching a repeat of Tim Allen's "Tool Time." Tim Allen makes fun of the American males insatiable desire for more power in every mechanical device he can get his hands on. Almost always with disatrous results.
Amplifier wattage and frequency response became vitallly importat because it made good ad copy. The Amercian consumer had already been conditioned by madison avenue to beleive power is good. More power is great. This brainwashing was alredy paid for by the auto industry. Thus it is easy to sell my product. Buy my amp because it has flat frequency reponse,lots of power and vanishingly low distrotion.
I see amp and speaker as a system within itself. If we may return to the auto anology. Car design means mating the right engine with the right suspension for the prevailing driving conditions. You wouldn't race a stock car at Monte Carlo or Formual 1 car at Daytona. Mate the wrong engine with the wrong suspension and you have a nightmare. Most of us drive the wrong car for the conditons we have to navigate. Mostly because we hae been brainwished about the need for power. You may be awre that there is a racing series where manufacturers race three cars with few modifications right off the factory assembly line. Two cars so dominated thier field that the other cars were racing for second. This casued the other car makers to file a complaint. They both had rather average horesepower.One was the twin turbo maxda rx-7 and the other was the Audi quatro. Four wheel drive gave the quatro a significant hadling advantage. The wankel engine gave the mazda a handling and speed advantage because of its' power to weight ratio. Even in cars, massive horsepower is not always the way to go especially when one is working under restrictions

Turning back to hifi. To say that the Maggies require or even benfit from massive amounts of power aprroaching a kilowatt is just wrong! It bothers me becasuie making that claim could deter others from owning a speaker of which I am a huge fan.
Now in making recomendations for the maggie with no restrictions there are a wide range of amps that will work well. I on this very Audiogn site have reccomended the Bryston 7B. Hardly an anemic amp.

This thread asks a very specific question. What amp in the $1K range should he get to drive the Maggie 1.6? A solid state amp with the kind of power being recomended is not only not necessary but is a recipe for horrible sound. The CJ premier 11a is a much better choice and can be had used for about $1550 used. Despite it's meager 70 watts it will drive a nail. And unlike the low priced high powered solid state designs, it will sound like music. Could it benefit from an upgrade to the CJ premier 140. You bet.
Remember it is not I who have thrown down the gauntlet on this issue. I have repsonded to two other threads own this subject only to be shouted down.
I recommended the cj premier 11a to another owner of maggies. Only to have others claim it was underpowered. I also suggested that the owner of a fifty watt Forte might be able to squeak by driving MG 3.6. Especially since the Forte doubles down at 4 ohms.
FYI even though my maggies are thirty years old I have kept up with all their models except the MG 20 whcih IMO exceeds the price range that makes the maggie a great deal.

Because most music is handled by about <1 watt what we are realy talking about is dynamic headroom. The necessary dynamic head room is about 3db. A cursory explanation is given at:http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/34579/109459.htm

Kehut- if your running in the class of those amps you don't need any advice from me. I'll get folks into the maggie camp by showing them they are one of the easiest speakers to drive. Whats' that phrase, "easy to drive difficult to master." You guys can take 'em from there.

tireguy- "...but the soundstage shrinks, dynamics are virtually non-existant and bass suffers dramatical- both in quality and quantity. If you don't listen to "complex" music, low wattage MAY work, but your limiting your potential right from the start The factory uses 7B-ST's..."

It's clear I'm not going to change your mind which is why I wrote the anecdote of the "housewives and the recipes" and abandoned that thread. It just seems that the misinformation keeps growing like some mutant desase.

Pay attention. I recomended the 7B as an ideal amp for MG. 3.6 which I repeated in this thread. In the threads where I approved what you call "low power" it was in reponse to parameters set by someone else. Last I checked $1000.00 will not get you a quad of Bryston 7Bs'. On the other hand someone was thinking about 1.6 or 3.6 but was wedded to the Forte 50 watt which I thought was borderline but they might get buy since it doulbed down at 4ohms. They last one was the guy was already considering a premier 11a for 1.6 I think and I told him it was working perfectly for me. ( I don't have a 1.6 but likened that speaker to be the current model closest to what I have. I have no interest in having a system with shrunken soundsatge, non-existant dynamics or severely restricted bass. Nor would I reccomend it to anyone else without severely qualifying my reccomendation.
As for power look at this thread. I provided a link regarding the need for 3db of headroom. You'll see that it takes quite a bit of power to accomplish that.
Just to let you know my point of reference I heard the 3.6 at Gifted Listener Audio in Crewe, Virginia when I was considering bying it. I listened to it with both the 7b and the vac 70/70. To be honest I prefereed the Bryston but the vac acquitted itself quite well. The vac was quite a bit more expensive than the cj and the bryston.

I tried to exit this thread gracefully.

I say it again those who are neither intereted in or can't afford hgih quality mega watts, fear not. You can swim in the shallow end of the magnepan pool and enjoy yourself quite well. When you get the money you can if you are so inclined move into the deep end. After you reach a certain depth however you are just kidding yourself.

I think I have said all I have to say on this issue. However I will continue to respond to any misinformation on this subject. The potential purchaser can make his/her own choice.