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 rayd

I've been using a solid state bi-amp system with 8 year old MG3.5's for over a year and I have volume, bass, attack, smoothness, etc. A Brytson 10B crossover feeds an Ayre
V-3 on top and a Levinson 332 on the bottom with a TacT RCS 2.0 providing preamp and room correction. I've tried using less power from both solid state and tubes (70 watts and down) and I have also tried each amp separately, but I feel the Ayre/Levinson combo (100 watts/200 watts respectively) gives me great sound. Both amps have enough current and I don't run out of power. There is no clipping, distortion, etc. I should mention that music sounds real good at 60 db or at 85 db. I am not the type of listener who cranks tunes at 100+ db. There is no need to! Remember, more power/more volume does not mean better sound.

I know some people think Levinson products aren't worth the price (or the sound) and Ayre is one of those "unknown" companies, but I am happy. As always, listener discretion advised. Your ears will tell you.

Rayd