Can single ended 211 or 212 amplifiers drive magnepan 20.7?


Dear All

I have been reading up about maggies and am chasing after a huge immersive soundstage that the maggies provide, and would like to combine them with a sweet and musical sound that single ended tube amplifiers provide. 

I currently own the cary 805 ae mono blocks which uses a single ended 211 class A output of ~25watts, and am wondering if an amplifier like this or something much bigger like the 212 single ended tube amplifier with 40-50w of class A1 output can drive the magnepan 20.7s? 

Cant seem to find much info on the web, or people with any experience. Would definitely appreciate any advice or sharing of experiences here! :)

 

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,

Thegreenman

thegreenman

Showing 2 responses by joeycastillo

OP

My answer is NO. 

The 211 or 845 in your setup just can't simply make the Maggie sing. I tried it and all I can say is there is music playing and that's it

A year ago, I owned the LRS, and about that time, I acquired a Clone Audio Note 845 /211 power amp (see my profile) and I thought, that being an 845 power amp, it can drive the LRS. Well, it did sound very good, but it needs to be in a really quiet room and be about 3 feet away from the speaker. Well, that won't work for me. my amp pushes about 18 watts.

I think the 845 can push out 30watts or may be more, but The Transformer is the limiting factor. it cannot seem to push enough current to drive the Maggie to its full potential. Connecting the LRS to my XA-25, and presto, I have a wall of beautiful sound emanating from the panels and LOUD enough to become deaf.

 

Atma-Sphere may be the closest one can get to resolving tube magic on the Maggie's as they are OTL. you can ask them if they have 845/211 based implementations. I have heard the Ma-2 pair (fully modded) driving a pair of Maggie 37 and supplemented by 4x REL S/xx speakers just earlier this year and boy the sound is amazing and outstanding. I believe those are end game setups

just my 02cents  

@thegreenman 

yes sir! Let me describe the 845/LRS synergy. The tone and PRAT are there. Timbre is correct. BUT it seems kind of "Thin". The body of male singers like Belafonte and Johnny Matis seems thinner to me. Switching the Xa-25, then their voices have more body. Also, with the 845/LRS, the Strings and Bass guitars seems different in terms of the body of the string. While when using the Xa-25, then it changes to a fuller body. 

don't get me wrong, the 845 is on par with the xa-25 BUT only when they are driving the Falcon LS3/5a.