Tubes for Magnepan’s.

tubes and maggies are NOT a great combination

of course you can make it work, but the impedance and efficiency characteristics of the maggies make it hard to most tube amps (save very high powered ones) to do their best

maybe in a smallish room at fairly low volumes with pretty simple music...

ps - tube watts seem more powerful than ss amp watts but that is more due to distortion characteristics of tubes vs ss clipping, and also, widely varying power ratings manufacturers put out there for marketing spec sheets

key point is that well built ss amps can double power output into 4 ohms versus their basic 8 ohm load rating... tube amps cannot do this and can struggle to deliver even the same power in 4 ohms versus 8...

good luck

@richopp

@jjss49 I am not sure where you are getting your information.

When I was a dealer in the 1970’s-80’s, Jim Winey and Bill Johnson had a marketing agreement and displayed, sold, and marketed their products in tandem.

i get my information from my own experiences, and when i share my opinions here that is the source

i have owned maggies and many arc tube amps over the years (currently own 6 of them, ranging from v70 vt60 vt100 and ref 75 and 110)

just because you sold maggies w arc as systems 40-50 years ago doesn’t mean they are a perfect combination

not to be argumentative here, let’s put this issue in perspective

maggies are a flat panel speaker, low impedance, resistive load (not highly reactive) - different models run big and small, they differ in how they need to be driven... in the bass frequencies they need significant current drive to move the panels, move air, develop even a modest sense of drive and ’slam’

no doubt up the frequency range, they are exceptionally pure, and not hard to drive - thus if not asked to play loud and develop a convincing bottom end, tubes can sound utterly wonderful

the critical issue here what is needed to get the bass drive and slam out of maggies (make the speaker move alot of air in a hurry) this is the key weakness of the maggies and needs to be dealt with ... so, typically very good systems with large maggies owned by tube amp lovers use serious upper end tube amps (pricey and run very hot, burns through tubes - think vt200’s or big vtls, that league of tube amp)

the issue here in this post is the OP posted he is ’getting into tube amps’ and has a budget of $3-4 grand... so given that, i say, stick with good solid state at that price level -- for example a $3000 hegel h190 or h360 will properly drive a set of m 1.7’s top to bottom much better than a $3000 tube amp imo -- at proper listening levels and with proper bass response

maybe a higher powered primaluna tube amp with 8 power tubes can be had used for $3000 (eg dialogue premium hp, for instance), but of course, that amp has tube-i-ness in spades but not the best resolution/transparency.... perhaps an older vt100-2 at 3 grand would be better top to bottom, but even with its 4 ohm taps, the bass response will not as solid, deep, controlled and taut as if driven by a hegel

my 2 cents

Expecting a tube pre / ss combo to emulate a tube power amp is a fools errand.

i agree with the gist of this comment, though calling it a ’fools errand’ is unnecessarily perjorative

a very clean extended tube pre (think upper echelon arc, cj, vac, herron...) mated with a very pure solid state amp (hegel h20/h30, pass, ayre, accuphase) can do wonders in a system where a tube power amp could be impractical due to cost, heat, weight, reliability, tube matching etc etc to drive demanding speakers - but know that a high performing tube pre is not cheap by any means

certainly a top level high tube power amp like the upper arc models will give a greater sense of dimensionality, depth of stage, air and nuanced tactility through the freq range 

all about managing tradeoffs and what the user's priorities are

just so you know, ralph, that link you gave in the last post does not work

good to give more exposure to paul s's autoformers which are useful tools to have for dealing with severe speaker impedance mismatch issues

i have a had a set since the mid 2000's... they are very helpful for lower power tube amps that lack multiple taps with insufficient electrical leverage... of course this comes at some cost of tranparency but of course we are dealing with tradeoffs again here

@secretguy

just so others here understand, what exactly is the misinformation you are referring to? 

the forum is an exchange of facts, opinions and experiences...