Repair Magnepan MG IIa vs new 1.7 or 0.7, etc

You would think so kalali, but for some reason they need less power than Maggies. They are a nominal 8 ohm load (the m-p panels themselves 11-12 ohms), which would also lead one to think they would need a higher-current solid state amp, which put out more at the Maggies 4 ohms. But the LFT-8b actually likes tubes, especially if you bi-amp them---tubes on top, solid state on the 8" dynamic woofer. A hundred watter of each is enough for an average room.

Maggies can use as much power as you throw at them; I know a guy (Satie) over at the Planar Speaker Asylum who has a 2500w/ch Crown amp on the bass panels of his Magneplanar Tympani T-IV’s! Magnepan’s 75w figure is absurdly low---ask any Maggie owner. Sure, they’ll make sound, but they don’t really "come to life" until you pump considerable juice into them, and get the volume up enough to break through the "Maggie haze"---the somewhat opaque, veiled sound they have at low levels. The ET LFT-8’s play quiet better than Maggies, remaining transparent at even low volume, more like an electrostatic than a magnetic-planar.

The 1.7, though cheap to buy, is not as good a deal as they seem to be after you count in the cost of the amp necessary to maximize their potential. An owner of the over-twice-as-expensive MG3.7 can justify spending the money to get a Sanders Magtech amp, but can a 1.7 owner?