Maggie 3.6 amplification concern


I realize there has been several threads about amps for 3.6's but most everyone insists that you need high power solid state. I am curious if anyone has tried less power? I am thinking of using 120 watt tubed mono's and others feel that you need 500 watts minimum to make them come to life. I would really prefer to stick with tubes, and I don't paricularlly care for some of the high wattage solid state amps that are out there. I just can't imagine that the BAT vk-60 mono's won't drive them well, I could be wrong though. Would it be better to get a slightly less quality amp with more power(i.e. bryston 14b-sst)? Any thoughts would be great, but please only if you have experience with more then just the amp you own. Thanks in advance for any help.
tireguy

Showing 1 response by jwmazur

I cut my audiophile teeth on Maggies 12 years ago and have been all over the map with amps. I have had over 20 different amps in my various systems with the last 2 being a VAC 70/70 and VTL MB250 mono's into the 1.6's. As far as the comments on the Maggies needing power, belive it. I had a Pass x250 I was trying out that was getting its' meter tagged by the stop when bass notes played. After a while I just gave up, sold my gear, except the speakers and cables, to buy a new Harley Davidson Electra Glide Ultra Classic.

I know the 1.6's have that special sound. The 3.6's I heard even better. I decided that I was not going to get hung up when I bought gear to get the Maggies going again. What I ended up with was what I wished could have happened to begin with. I have thrown a lot of money at this audio bane in the past. I bought a Polyfusion 960 amp, 200 WPC 8 ohm. The rig has mosfets, LED VU meters, and a whopping 360,000 microfarads of capacitance. The build quality on this thing is fantastic. While it doesn't quite have the bloom of the tube rigs, there is nothing more that I want for. And having a meter again is a useful feature. It has a switch to shut it off also. The looks of this thing is great too. The company doesn't depend on audiophile gear for its' revenue. The owners just wanted to make something they wanted that no one else was providing. They are not going to go out of business if amps don't sell. Check out the website through the manufacturer list on AudiogoN.

One more note-the bipolar solid state amps I tried had sparkle and great clarity but lacked the depth. The Polyfusion gives me the depth with great image density, body, and color. I lose nothing on female recordings.

Cheers