Audience Au24 with high current SS amps....

worked very well with a Bryston 14 B,and Musical Fidelity KW500,great cable

Have you bypassed the fuses in the Magnepans? This seems to be a popular thing to do by many people but I never felt it was worth it for the miniscule improvement in clarity. Many times a fuse failed when the levels got high and I'm certain it saved the ribbon tweeters. But a couple times the fuses did not prevent a ribbon failure. I replaced two of these over the course of 6 years.

What tube amps were you using before and what SS amps now have caused the failure? It sounds like you have concluded the cause is the Au24 cable but the failure could be any number of reasons.

John

blown drivers are a result of underpowered amps / clipping "the majority" of the time... maggies are a notoriously inefficent load and require quite a bit of current regardless of listening levels..

i would consider looking at your setup... what amps and pre are you using ?

First scenario:
Midrange and tweeter fuses blow on the left speaker with Classe CA-200 at moderate - high volumes. Fuse did NOT protect tweeter. I suspsected the amp passed DC.

Second scenario:

This one was the fault of the previous owner who put the incorrect value fuse in for the tweeter. At medium volume levels the tweeter is blown in the right speaker using a McCormack amp, and of course the fuse did not blow. BUT, the volume was low enough that the tweeter should not have been damaged even if the fuse had been by-passed.

So wh at is inconsistent here are the following:

Playback level
amplifiers
distinct speaker
fuses

What IS consistent is the speaker cable. Hence my query.

BTW, the tube amp was a Music Reference RM-9, not nearly enough power. But the two SS amps should have been adequate if not ideal. I do have a pair of McCoramck DNA-1 monoblocks on the way. If 700 watts/channel is not enough for the 3.5s, I am throwing in the towel. But I just wondered if anyone knew the capacitance of the Au24 cables and whether of not this would be an issue.

Oz

I had excellent results with mono and fully bi-wired versions of the Au24 speaker cables with my high-powered McCormack DNA-2 Revision A amplifier.

Highy recommended.

I realized further improvements by elevating the Au24's about 1/2" off the carpet.

-IMO

Wow, this is interesting. I have used AU24 speaker cable with a BAT VK200, Bel Canto SET40, Blue Circle BC22, Pass Aleph 3 and a Bryston 4B and never experienced anything close to this. With the balance of my system I thought they excelled more with the solid state amps. Since you blew tweeters in different speakers using two different amps, I'm curious to see what you find out. Could it be that the ribbon tweeters are more sensitive to inductance/capacitance variances during music than regular tweeters?

>Could it be that the ribbon tweeters are more sensitive to inductance/capacitance variances during music than regular tweeters?<

I think that could very well be. At least for now I will have a late 99 pair of 3.5Rs with brand new ribbon tweeters. One more tweeter goes and it's time to re-think this setup....

Oz

I used AU-24s to drive Legacy Whispers from a McCormack DNA-500 without any problems. Lots of current, 900wpc into 4 ohms. My Whispers are pretty highly efficient (95 according to website) and never had any issues, regardless of volume.

Doesn't sound like your problem is the Au24s, but in your setup, as others have suggested. Good luck.

I use Au24 with my DNA-500 with no problems (speakers are Thiel). However, I thought their sound better complemented my VTL tube mono's in certain respects, and am presently checking out some other SC alternatives for comparisons.