2. amps-preamps
  3. 172369-91258

Solid state amp recommendations for Maggies?

I am looking for another amp to drive my magnepan LRS, looking for a solid state amp to deliver more detail than my current tube amp, but don't want to give up (much) of the soundstage and depth.

I have a small listening room with a near field set up, so I don't need a ton of power for ear piercing volume. I listen mostly to acoustic rock, acoustic jazz and female vocalists.  I want more the guitar on Keith don't go and hotel canifornia intro from hell freezes over to  to sound... better...

at the risk of sounding stupid, I am driving these $650 speakers with many thousands of dollars of electronics.  The amp is a Primaluna HP (80wpc using 4 EL34s per channel), CJ ET7 preamp, PS Audio Direct stream DAC and a Naim digital source. All with MG audio silver interconnects and speaker wire. Even the interconnects cost more than the LRS.  

I am very happy with my current set up, but would like to grab another amp to a change of pace.

My budget is $5-8K, used or new.  My room is such that mono blocks set up well, but that is not necessary. 

thoughts/recommendations?

 

 

meiatflask

Showing 1 response by vt4c

vt4c
31 posts
 

The stereophile measured this speaker well and came up with a quite low efficiency and lower than advertized impedance.

Tube amps use output transformers with secondary taps for loadmatching and typically do well with "nice" loads. The reflected load impedance may well match the output tubes, unlike solid state amps where the voltage on the load does not change much  with the load impedance. 

These Maggies don't fit into the "nice" category either for load impedance or efficiency.  I think you be chasing your tail with these speakers trying to find a suitable SS amp. It is hard to beat tube amps, especially if they have sturdy power supplies that don't dip under peak loads, i.e. massive capacitive energy storage.

Look for speakers with 90+ dB/ 1W /1m.

Beware of the "2.83V" spec used in speaker measurements for tube amps which mostly resemble a "current source" rather than a "voltage source". The 2.83V is used to mask impedance problems. 

 

 

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