Magico and Tube amp

I have heard that combination. I liked it better than many other combinations. Magico is so fast and detailed, when fed with the solid state amps / preamps like Luxman and Boulder I found them not to be musical enough for me.

OP, the Reference 160m is an excellent match with the Magico M2. It can provide the rhythm and pace and midrange bloom you are missing on the other amps. There may be controversy between the detailed / slam folks and the musicality folks. The character of the bass on very realistic tube amplifiers is very different from solid state… instead of bass being a brick wall it is nuanced and well… realistic. If instantaneous brick wall bass is what you want… then a tube amp is not what you want. If you want natural nuanced and forceful bass then the Ref 160m will do it. I seriously doubt that you would need more.. but if you really like head banging music at absurd sound pressure levels then you could trade up later to the ARC Ref 320.