Solid state amp recommendations for Maggies?

I know this is long past but for the curious who continues to look at the thread. I run Magnepan 1.7i and have used a multitude of amps and integrated amps and most have been very good to exceptional so my contribution is to say ...find an Atoll signature series amplifier. they range from a AM200 to 400.  If you like detail yet smooth....l know you can pick these up cheap used so keep an eye out for them.  thank me later!!  

Way back in my hey days I had Tympani 4's with Levinson ML-2 monos on the ribbon-midrange panels and a ML-3 on the bass panels along with a Levinson LNC-2 crossover.

That setup kicked some serious tush.

It would be quite a challenge to acquire these amps today in excellent condition.

there are various tiers of ss class a/ab amps that work well with maggies... all sound very good, drive them just fine, deliver the needed current reserve, some are sonically subtly better, more refined powerful better imaging and space

high value/low cost (below 2 grand) -- ava, odyssey, usher (pass design), unmodded older mccormacks, older primare class a/b

middle tier (2-4 grand) -- hegel, belles, modded smc/mccormack, naim, exposure, new bryston

upper (above 4 grand) -- many here... from pass, psa/bhk, para/jc’s, good krells/levinsons (gotta know which ones to avoid like plague), gryphon, vin rossi and so on

there are others for sure, the above is what i know of, have, have heard at length

Save your $$$  check out Ava HiFi in Minnesota  The Maggies need good power and Frank Van Alstine is located close to the Magnepan factory his gear will make those panels sing and it will not ruin your pocket book

McIntosh, the 600 watt per channel beast. I don’t remember the model number, but @g_nakamoto has one. MC2600 - killer!

I would take a look into Audionet,some of best solid state amps available

there are many many solid state amps that can deliver strong, ample current into low impedance loads - which is what is needed to drive maggies to appreciable volumes

maggies are also quite revealing so the input signal and power needs to be very pure, or else the maggies (like many very transparent speakers) will play the bad sound for you to hear, not smooth it over

so, the key is to get a powerful well built high current delivery amp (in all likelihood solid state) that sounds super clean super pure - there are still many out there that meet both criteria, but they are fairly expensive

I used the Parasound A23 Halo with my 1.7 Maggie’s And was blown away at how much power it had. More than enough power on tap. Bass sounded super clean, tight and controlled. I used an Aretha tube preamp. The newer A23+ has even more power than older one I used. (Revised post). Site still has no feature to edit. 

I used the Parasound A23 Halo with my 1.7 maggie’s And was blown away at how much power it it. More than enough power on tap. Bass sounded super clean, tight and controlled. I used an Aretha tube preamp. The newer A2+ has even more power than older one I used.

I was searching for 'Sander's and stumbled on this thread.

I own Magnepan 1.7i.  I don't own LRS, and I bet that they can benefit from $$$ upstream, too.

Amps I've used with the 1.7i - Pass Labs Aleph 30s, Crown K2, Integra Research RDA7, EVS 1200 by Ric Schultz, Sanders Magtech.  The Magtech seems to bring out more bass from Magnepans.  Depending on the size of your room, and listening level, you probably will not run into clipping with a Magtech. 

I believe Roger Sanders chose to use less speaker protection circuitry in the Magtech, which helps the sound quality.  It also has a fully regulated power supply, which helps the amp stay cooler than a class A solid state amp.  I found the Sanders sounded better plugged directly into a wall outlet vs. power supply conditioning.  (I own an Equi=Tech balanced power unit.)

Changing loudspeakers can be a big deal.  I upgraded my Maggie 1.7i with Mye stands, Cardas jumpers, and Cardas spade adapters.  Those 'tweaks' were less significant than trying tweeters inside vs. outside, and trying different speaker placement in the room.

I went back and forth reading about crossover mods, and Peter Gunn Magnestand models.  If I could audition 'gunned' Maggies locally, I would have given them a shot.

My opinion: See if you can wring out the best performance of your LRS before you move 'up' the Magnepan line.  A great amp for the LRS will still be a great amp for a different Magnepan model.

Following on a couple of postings here on class A and Classé (an intentional pun on an intentional pun by the original Canadian company), I'm using a vintage Classé DR-9 (David Reich's final design for the company) class-A amp with very few hours on it to drive my LRS. It delivers very good audio quality through those speakers and I'm pretty happy with the setup.

Well,….

what did you get?

sanders Magtech!

all you need,.. will drive anything

there’s an article about two Sunfire 600’s driving,the,MBL Radiostrahler speakers, they worked fine he said, until he bought 2 Sanders Magtech o use in mono, those MBL snapped up and he said nothing has been able to drive those speakers the way the Magtechs did.

check it out, has the current you need for Maggie’s!

Many very well respected amps mentioned. Whichever you choose do yourself a favor and take a close look at Hegel; as others have recommended. I would suggest the H360 which is an excellent amp/DAC/streamer that you can acquire on the after market at very reasonable prices. Also a step up is the newer H390. This is an excellent amp that will match perfectly with your speakers. Either Hegel will drive them with ease and sound beautifully doing it. I have owned both and compared them with amps costing many times the price and believe it or not they always performed on par with the best at fraction of the cost. Your ears will thank you!

Hello, I have many years of experience in hifi audio.  There are some amplifiers I can easily recommend but a more important point to make is about quality.  I’ve never had good success matching tube amps with Magnepan speakers.  And also had to go through many Solid State amps till I found the one that sounded great on my Magnepans. If I were you, I’d first be heavily leaning toward a Class A design amp because I’ve always found them to sound the best. Class A designs are more transparent and “flesh” out the music better.   I would also go with a very well known and popular amp amongst audiophiles.  Newer or older designs won’t make much of a difference IMO as long as it’s a Class A amp and built with high quality.  You shouldn’t need much power as I have gotten great results using a 50 watt amp on the big Maggie’s. I think my main points are,  stick with quality, choose Class A design, and research what’s extremely popular and sought after amongst audiophiles and you will be happy with your purchase.  Some amps are very detailed and others are very musical but with tweaks like cables, you will be able to adjust the sound to your liking.  Good luck in your journey, I’ve been in it for 30yrs and have settled on what I believe sounds best to me. 

@meiatflask 

With the PrimaLuna HP, I believe you can roll in the Tung-Sol KT-120 tubes. Have you tried that? I think you would be surprised how good the LRS would sound using the PrimaLuna with the KT-120 tubes.

In my somewhat larger (14'x28') room, I'm having no trouble driving my 1.7 Maggies with either my 100W Rogue Cronus Mag. II  withe KT-120 tubes, or my old SS 200/350W ADCOM. Listening to the same music as you, at moderate levels, both amps do incredibly well. A little larger stage and presence with the Rouge and slightly more dynamics and punch with the ADCOM.

I think the idea that the smaller Maggies need massive amounts of power to sound good, particularly in a small space at moderate volumes, is quit overstated and a bit overblown. If considering a future move up to the larger 3.7i or the 20.7 then investing a Bryston 4BSST or Cubed would be a great match with any of the Maggies. JMO.......Jim

I have Maggie 3.7i and I am currently running them with them between a Bryston 4BST and BAT VK655SE.  I have also used Parasound (two thumbs down) and Upgraded Haflers DH600 (Good).  the Brystons win easily.  If you really want a mellow sound and really don't care about imaging and dynamic range then the BAT might be right for you.  They Brystons preserve the speed, impact and imaging potential of the Maggies.  On paper the BAT's should have been a great match with it's higher power, higher current and mammoth power supply, but I will be upgrading back to Bryston.    

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. 

Save your money, buy something like an Emotiva power amp. Why? The designer of Phase Linear amps Bob Carver did something controversial many years ago.  He modified his inexpensive Phase Linear Amp to sound as good in blind A-B testing as amps costing 10 or more times expensive. IMHO power amps vary very little in sound quality, such that a cheap amp may even sound better than an expensive one.

I would have to agree with Pass-Labs XA60.5 or better yet XA60.8 mono-blocs.  I had the XA30.8 stereo amp and it sounded terrific with 93db speakers.  I seldom moved the meter on it and I played some music pretty loudly !  Don't let the 60WPC fool you into thinking that's not enough power  . Pass designed these amplifiers with lots of power-supply.  They are 60WPC class A into 8 ohms and double into 4-ohms.  You should be able to find a pair of 60.8 mono's within your price-range.  Many times,  Maggies are demo'd with Pass-Labs amps which obviously sound great.  Good Luck on your amp-quest ! 

John

Benchmark AHB-2 - Get 2.  Amazing amps!

I own and have owned several Maggie's.  My current system is the 20.1 paired with Classe CAM350'S .I would look for an early Canadian model unit. CA200, something in that category.  There's an Stereophile article reviewing the CAM350'S with 3.6's. That told me all I needed to know.  Check out the article before you make a decision. 

The Eagles have some of the worst sound production in existence. They were penny rich and dollar dumb business people. They cut every corner they could out of greed for green and their record production took the biggest hit.

Most accurate thing I’ve read all week! I have MMGs and don’t have the HiFi budget you folks are playing with. I’ve driven them with four different amplifiers....Cambridge Audio 840 AZUR, Yamaha M45, VTA St120 Dynaco Tube clone and Sound Artist SA200ia.....As weird as it may sound, the $500 Sound Artist amplifier blows all the others away driving these speakers.......Just thought I’d throw this into this mix as many folks buying $650 (Recently now $750) speakers might find it impossible to spend upwards of $10,000 on an amplifier...You think?

Based on my experience Naim drive maggies really well. Tends to be good synergy. Others that have sufficient power to drive maggies are Hegel and more left field Gato. 

I have an Odyssey Audio Stratos (with their Candela tube preamp) driving my LRS’s with powered sub and it’s FANTASTIC. Will be below your budget, so getting a top-notch powered sub will be a great add.

+1 @boomerbillone ​​​​​​. Based on his recommendation I purchased and have been running the Starke Sound amp he mentions, bridged, into my 1.6QR Maggies & Legacy Signature 3s, in parallel (a 2 ohm load) since Feb. More details are posted on another amplifier thread and unnecessary to repeat here, easy enough to find.

This amp just sounds so right with everything it plays, I've lost interest in trying other amps anymore. Hoping you find the right amp for you!

@meiatflask - Late to the conversation here but I have owned my LRSs for almost two years now. The first 5 months were in a very small room (10 x 12 minus closets) at my old place.

Now in the new house, for about 4 months at a time, the LRSs lived first in a square (I know, very bad!) 15’ x 15’ room but diagonally placed, then in the 15’ x 19’ living room along the short wall, and now in my 12’ x 15’ office room (also diagonally placed).

SS gear I have rotated in each of the rooms at both houses:

Bryston BP26 pre -> Ampzilla 2000 2nd edition monoblocks (300 wpc - Best at any volume)

Bryston BP26 pre -> Forte 1A (sweet sounding class A but only 50 wpc)

Hegel H190 - (150 wpc - More than enough power for the small rooms I have).

All luckily (to my ears) sounded great. The Forte 1A seemed to run out of steam at higher volumes.

But very happy with the other two set up options. The LRS really does need current!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and best of luck in your search!

Man, I miss my Maggies, and after going through many, many amps once I found the Magtech amps from Sanders, there was no going back.  Everything that I liked before got bigger, wider, fuller, yet somehow sharper.  The last pair I had the Magtech amp on were 20.1's, and it was a stellar match, I would have moved to the mono-block set up if I'd kept those but I don't know how it could have gotten better.  That amp replaced Cary 500 MB's, which were a great match, and had replaced the Bryston 14, which I liked as well.  You can find the Magtech's used sometimes well under your price point, and a new one from Sanders would still be under your top price.  For the LCR, no way you need the mono blocks, in fact, if you find a used Magtech, if you have the room you could move up the Maggie ladder without needing to upgrade the amp.

I would not put any stock in Absolute Sound. Pure pay-o-la for reviews. 
 

Atkinson at Stereophile was very high on the Bel Canto Ref 600m to drive his Maggie's. 

For your reading I would skip company web sites all together and concentrate on The Absolute Sound and Stereophile reviews. There are a couple more... but you need as objective information as possible. 

I am very happy with my Sanders Magtech driving my 1.7i Maggies.

Sanders offers a free 30 day trial and this amp is within your budget.

@spacecadet65

According to Ric from EVS, the PS Audio M1200s are the exact same Icepower modules as he uses in my highly tweaked EVS 1200 (<$2400), but they use totally stock modules with a tube input said to be made in house. Oh, and they’re $5998 the pair. What are they smoking?

I never heard them, but can’t imagine them being any better than the EVS1200 and the Voyager 350 blew it away, confirmed by another who owned a EVS1200 then got a Voyager

The stock Voyager 350 Black Friday special is $2499 and the upgraded version is $2799, including a $150 wire upgrade and Diamond XLR interconnects (MSRP $900)

hth

Wow, lots of ideas here. Thanks to everyone for your input.  Hopefully I will have time over the holiday weekend to do some research, look at company websites for details, read some reviews, identify local (chicago-Milwaukee) dealers, and look at the various sites for used candidates.  

The Pass amps intrigue me as I recall loving the Threshold stuff in my youth. But the Hegel, Bryston (another brand from my youth), and parasound will be on the "look into" list, as well as the PS Audio (because I enjoy their DAC). There were several other brands that I have never heard of, so that is always fun to discover new stuff.  And while several mentioned lower cost stuff, I really plan to spend $5k+, so I will pass on them.

And perhaps the most interesting suggestion was upgrading fromLRS to the 1.7xx or larger Maggies.  Yep, this is on my radar, probably a couple years down the road when we move south, and I can have a larger listening room.

But for now THANKS for all your input.

Bill

The Pass X250.8 I'm using very really goes out of class A unless I'm cranking the volume on heavy organ or bass material. I don't think your ears can tell when it moves from A to A/B it's only by watching the front meter that you'll know.

You may want to consider the PS Audio M1200 monoblocks. I don't own them myself, but I have a close friend who has larger Maggies and pairs them with a tube pre and the result is a sense of immediacy and effortlessness dynamics that is very impressive. YMMV. 

G

@happyship

Prior to getting a Voyager 350 (GaN amp) I had a EVS 1200, based on dual IcePower 600/1200 modules, which I purchased because the other class D amps I tried (W4S, Emerald Physics 100.2SEs, PS Audio M700s) simply did not couple/energize my large room. I was skeptical that dropping back in wattage would be countrproductive, but it is far more potent than the ~ double the power class D and way better sounding to boot

hth

+1 Sanders Magtech. Will be the last amp you ever buy, power, headroom, clarity, massive sack!

Odyssey kismet mns. Great bs of current to keep the mags fed properly.

or themJC-1 monos will drive anything like the Sanders. Sanders will be revealing, bt that s what u want!

Odyssey audio orbSanders Magtech!

or search for a Carver Sunfire 300 or 600  both will drive ur mags to ear bleeding levels

I think a Ga class d amp with 500 watts per. I would modify the crossover too. Something with an impressive damping factor. I always wonder what the Technics feedback system would be like with Maggies.

Agree on Hegel with Maggies.  My LRS sound best driven by my H360.

Hello meiatflas  Right now (11-21-2021) the Stark Sound AD4-320 is on a "Black Friday" sale at just under $1100 with free shipping. I have LRS and use this amp to drive them with excellent results. This amp comes from a Pro Sound company is is not a gleaming piece of audio jewelry. It is getting excellent reviews and is even smoother than the Purifi Audio modules used in the best NAD and LKV amps. I know that because I own the Purifi amps as well. This amp will outperform just about anything out there at any price anyone would consider reasonable  (Three "any"s! That's a record for me.) . It is as big a bargain as the LRS. 

yes hegels are well known to work exceptionally well driving maggies, and their sound is uber pure and sweet, tremendous imaging

i don't own maggies anymore but am a big big hegel fan 

From the several people recommending the Pass Labs amps, is there a strong preference for their class A versus their class AB amps?

Unless you move up to the most powerful

XAs I don't think they have enough juice for

the 86db Magnepans. As I wrote, Pass

recommends the X-series (ab) for Maggies.

For speakers with higher sensitivity I

would choose the XAs.

Very happy with my LRS / Hegel combo.

I have a pair of Magnepan 3.7i speakers and landed on a pair of D-Sonic M3a-1500M Mono amps and I am very happy with the performance of the combo. 

@meiatflask Yes, class A amps do tend to give off some heat. That's why most of them have significant heat sinking as part of the design. My Krell FBP300 gets warm, but not too hot to touch. Nonetheless I'd think twice if I had toddlers around. 

If it were my money, for SS amp, the older Krells designed by Dan D'Agostino or the Pass XA series would be at the top of my list. Bryston and Coda are also solid choices. 

Honestly, with your Maggies, I'd stick with the tube amp and move up to Maggie 1.7is or consider a different tube design like Atma-Sphere M60s, a BAT 6C33C-based amp, or an 845 or GM70-based SET. You could alternatively upgrade your DAC, but that won't make as signifcant a change as amp or speakers, given what you have now. 

You haven't specifically defined what "sound better" means to you...IMHE, EL34s can rock really well, but many of the other tube topologies can provide more nuance, transparency and delicacy that for me, bring small scale acoustic music and other stuff you described to life. Cheers,

Spencer

Back in my Maggie days I used a pair of slightly modded Adcom GFA 555s in mono. Maggies love power. If you could find a pair of 555s I would highly recommend them. If not, Parasound would be a good option. Too much power isn’t enough.

Thge LSA Warp 1 just got a rave review and it's <$1200

If you can find an Audio Research DS225 or DS450 you'll be in good shape. So much of the Maggie sound was developed with ARC gear.

You can buy another amp just to buy another amp but don't be supprised when you don't hear what you discribed you want to hear better. In you intro what you are asking to hear is not there. A new or different amp will not change the way the recording was produced. Good equipment only makes bad recordings sound more bad. The Eagles have some of the worst sound production in existance. They were penny rich and dollar dumb business people. They cut every corner they could out of greed for green and their record production took the bigest hit.

From the several people recommending the Pass Labs amps, is there a strong preference for their class A versus their class AB amps?  Also- the pass amps are quite monstrous in size. Do they kick off a lot of heat? I recall hearing that class A amps tend to run hot.

I've enjoyed my LRS with a Luxman 505uXII ,added Magna Risers.