MarkLevinson331 BiAmp or Jeff Rowland 7 for MG3,6R


My system includes Mark Levinson 26 pre-amp and 331 power amp to drive my new Magnepan 3.6R (Just arrived few days ago), it sounds wonderful on mid and high, a bit shy on the bass.
I am thinking of buying another used 331 and a Bryston 10B for bi-amp configuration
or
sell my 331 and get a used Rowland model 7 (unbalanced RCA IN) to drive the Maggies.
I listen to all kind of music, my listening room size is 22X35X10. Any advise would be most appreciated, Thanks.
128x128imhififan
More power would with out a doubt would help you, I would suggest looking into the new Parasound JC-1 amps(with a budget)- though I haven't had these amps on my 3.6's I can't imagine it would be anything less then amazing. Or with out a budget I would go for the Tenor hybrid 300 mono's- which is what I am saving for right now. Also since your speakers just showed up I would give them a chance to break in(a real long time if they are new) and play with room placement, it took me about 3 months of toying with location to get them right. I have found room treatment can be very helpful I am playing with tuned helmholtz resonators(3-4 of them), also cables and your front end are very very important with these speakers. Also when/if you become comfortable with it doing the fuse bypass does amazing things to the sound, then do some custom stands/frames and new crossovers and you'll have a speaker that is capable of running with the big boys! You have a great foundation to a superb system- enjoy!
I agree with Tireguy about the break-in, especially the woofer panels. Might want to give that item the rest of the month, at least, and see how the bass is then (play 'em loud). Of course, room placement is very, very important. Play with toe-in and whether the soundstage is better with ribbons out or in. I have my 3.6s away from the back wall about 5 feet.

I like the bi-amping idea, I use a Marchand XM44-3 balanced and/or single ended. Just got my second InnerSound ESL amp (600 WPC /4 ohms) so I will know more next week. One InnerSound is awesome but I want to play with the tonal balance just a little bit, maybe warm it up a tad.

The reason for the 3-way crossover is to roll off the deep bass of the 3.6. I'm not believer in making the bass panels try to make 95-100db of low bass, that's what a good sub-woofer or two is for. I've got frequency modules (20 bucks the pair) that allow me to experiment with rolling off at 40,50, and 60HZ/24db per octave. Then my sub-woofer can do the dirty work.

I disagree with Tireguy when it comes to the fuse bypass bidness. Speaking from experience, if you clip the output of the power amp, it will blow the fuses and sometimes the ribbons as well. Without a fuse, I think you're just asking from trouble, unless you really don't like it loud. The InnerSound amp has no problems in this area. In fact, the top end sounds an awful like my Atma-Sphere amps which I will be selling soon.

You're going to have fun whatever you wind up doing. I know I am and the meantime listen to a lot of really good music played back superbly.
I do agree with Travis saying that the fuse bypass isn't for everyone but if you want the most out of your speakers you gotta do it. Life ain't perfect and something could happen to the ribbon, but after 6 months+ of no fuse problems at all- I didn't feel it was that much of a risk. Besides the ribbons are fairly inexpensive as long as you give them your old blown tweeter back as a core- new tweeters are about $100ea. For how much I spend on this hobby that isn't really much of a concern to me. But it is a good point to restate the fact that something could happen with out your fuses- be warned!