Magnepan, How Low Can You Go...power-wise

Personal experience: I am running 1.6QR's with a Sunfire amplifier, biamped delivering 400W at 4OHMS to each speaker and they love it, I have as well discussed with Magnepan and they will never give a solid answer. A buddy of mine is runningthe 3.6R's and has 300W to each speaker and they sound killer, he attempted to drive them with a Krell 150W amplifier and found that they ate up the power and seemed to be asking for more.

Thomastrouble,

In follow up please don't misunderstand my post. I am not advocating tons of power, but there are a couple of things to keep in mind. First, and I speak from personal experience that the majority of time speakers are blown it is not because of too much power, it is because of too little or not enough to drive correctly. Most that have been in this hobby long enough will agree, speakers get blown when under powered and your finger takes over on the volume dial. Again out of personal experience I have never had issues with 'too' much power. Personally I have had 5 pairs of Magnepans and multiple floor standing and monitor speakers and have run amplifiers operating up to 750W and have NEVER had and issue. My second point is one of headroom a term thrown around on sites like this, well not being a trem freak I can say that power in my experience leads to headroom. Finally we all know that Magnepans are not quite well off in the efficiency department and thus can eat up power and really show the quality of your amplification. It has been my experience that a soild amplifier in the 150-200W range will nicely run Magnepan speakers, my taste leans a bit to the higher side as I suggested in my last post. I desired to not leave you with the feeling that you need tons of power, more that the sky is the limit with Maggies..... but quality power is an absolute must have......

Regards,

Thomastrouble,

Again my personal feelings here tell me that both the Bel and Sim should do the job as they are quality amplification and I am assuming that the power ratings we are discussing are 8OHMS, power output should come close to double or actually be double at 4OHMS so you should be more than safe.

Thomastrouble,

Assuming that you are going to double the power output of 150W at 8ohms as the 3.6 will present a 4ohm load which should increase power output of the Sim to close to if not 300W, based on this being solid amplification which the Sim is you should be fine running the 3.6's and your current Sim. If you felt the need for more power you could always add and external amplifier and use the Sim as more of a processor or if the ability is there you could actually use the Sim to power the highs or lows and an outboard amplifier to actually set up to biamp the speakers.