2. amps-preamps
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Maggie 3.6 amplification concern

I realize there has been several threads about amps for 3.6's but most everyone insists that you need high power solid state. I am curious if anyone has tried less power? I am thinking of using 120 watt tubed mono's and others feel that you need 500 watts minimum to make them come to life. I would really prefer to stick with tubes, and I don't paricularlly care for some of the high wattage solid state amps that are out there. I just can't imagine that the BAT vk-60 mono's won't drive them well, I could be wrong though. Would it be better to get a slightly less quality amp with more power(i.e. bryston 14b-sst)? Any thoughts would be great, but please only if you have experience with more then just the amp you own. Thanks in advance for any help.
tireguy
maggieq
5 posts
 
I tend to agree with the fact that Maggies need juice. I'm running my 3.6's with a pair of Bryston 7B-ST's which put out around 850W each. Prior to adding a pair of Vandersteen 2Wq subs, I could get the Bryston clip indicator LED's to flicker during bass-heavy passages. So yes, they need a lot of power.
ebonyvette
18 posts
 
Just curious, has anyone used the Bel Canto or PS Audio amps with Maggies?
mrderrick
291 posts
 
I run my 3.6's with an active x-over. Cary SLA 70 Sig (35 watts class A tube) for the top and a Classe CA-400 (800 watts @ 4 ohms SS) for the bottom. You do need power (current?) to really get good bass. The Cary could drive the entire speaker, but the bass did suffer. There are a lot of posts on this topic on the Asylum Planar forum.
plato
1,543 posts
 
aj,

You may be missing the point of the tube line buffers. Think of these units as running the signal through a high quality tube preamp (that lacks a volume control) and provides a better impedance match with the amp. If you really think about this it is very easy to see how the sonics would be affected.

Maybe people don't use these units because they don't realize how much improvement they can make. But look at it this way, you can buy a good used muscle amp for well under $1000 then combine it with one of these inexpensive tube line buffers for $100 and have a combination that will perform as well as many much more expensive audiophile amplifiers. I can demonstrate and back this up very easily.
rayd
69 posts
 
I've been using a solid state bi-amp system with 8 year old MG3.5's for over a year and I have volume, bass, attack, smoothness, etc. A Brytson 10B crossover feeds an Ayre
V-3 on top and a Levinson 332 on the bottom with a TacT RCS 2.0 providing preamp and room correction. I've tried using less power from both solid state and tubes (70 watts and down) and I have also tried each amp separately, but I feel the Ayre/Levinson combo (100 watts/200 watts respectively) gives me great sound. Both amps have enough current and I don't run out of power. There is no clipping, distortion, etc. I should mention that music sounds real good at 60 db or at 85 db. I am not the type of listener who cranks tunes at 100+ db. There is no need to! Remember, more power/more volume does not mean better sound.

I know some people think Levinson products aren't worth the price (or the sound) and Ayre is one of those "unknown" companies, but I am happy. As always, listener discretion advised. Your ears will tell you.

Rayd
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