Magnepan 20.7i Amplifier Pairing


I am considering buying a pair of Magnepan 20.7i speakers (maybe I will receive them before the snow flys ;))  and would like the latest opinions on what are the best pairings for the 20.7i's.  What are your thoughts?

wlp3

Power- hungry speakers! I bought a Perreaux 2150B for such use! 340/680/920wpc @8/4/2 ohms! There was one on eBay for less than $1K. A great sounding amp equal to a big Bryston, Levinson or Krell.

I would think most of the larger Pass amps would do a wonderful job.

I use a 250.8 with 3.7i and it hardly ever leaves class A.

I know in the past Magnepan discouraged class D amps.

You definitely want a high current amp

op

many recent threads on amps paired with maggies -- search bar above is your friend

short answer - ultra clean ultra pure ultra powerful solid state - of which there are many out there, but none inexpensive...

At this point I am considering:

a)  Pair of Rogue Apollo Darks with el cheapo base level Rogue line level preamp RP-1

b)  Pair of Rogue M 180s with top preamp RP-9

c)  Parasound Halo JC5 Stereo Amp and Audio Research LS28 SE Preamp

 

At this point I am considering:

I have run my .7s with a PrimaLuna integrated and my MMGs with my AES SixPacs. My brother ran his 3.6s with Parasound JC1s. I love tube amps but if there is one speaker that needs good solid state power, it’s the big Maggies. The .7s played OK with the PrimaLuna, a change to Gold Lion KT-88s helped but a solid state amp worked better. The MMGs with the SixPacs was a total fail with some kind of distortion at the crossover frequency. I put a Parasound A21 on them and that sorted them out. I think the JC5 is your best pick and it might work well with the LS28SE but I have to admit, I didn’t like the two AR preamps I had but I’m thinking it might work if you like super detail vs a more musical presentation. I would give the Cary SLP-05 a solid thumbs up with a big Parasound or a Bryston. A pair of JC1s would be spectacular but they are pricy nowadays. And they are HUGE. Not sure if any of that helps but I thought I throw that out there.

Thanks for your comments.  It looks like Rogue Apollo Darks with RP-9 Preamp.  Heard really good things about this with the 20.7s.