Amplifier recommendation for Legacy Focus 20/20

The Mac I am looking at is a valve , the 275, @ 75 watts do you think it will have enough to push these babies or should I look toward the Solid state Macs?

I would agree with the others who recommend a powerful SS amp. Don't let the higher sensitivity of the Focus fool you into thinking a low powered amp will do. Those (3) 12 inch woofers create quite the back EMF and sound best with a powerful high current SS amp, IMHO. I'd also recommend something like the Krell KSA-250, Classe CA-400, Jeff Rowland 8, or a pair of Threshold SA-10e's. These old beasts will slap those 12 inch woofers into place and keep them under tight control. My Clayton M100 monoblocks would do it too, but you probably won't find a pair of them.

If you like the Mac sound look for a MC-402, MC-500 or a pair of MC-501's.

Happy hunting,
John

How difficult is it going to be for me to find one of these amps ?
It seems that the owners just hang on to them

How difficult it is depends on how flexible you are between models/prices/condition.

There's always something out there that would do the job nicely. Here are just a few.

Krell KSA300s

Classe CA-300

Plinius SA-250 mk IV

McIntosh MC402

Any of these should control those woofers well. See how easy shopping is?
If you don't like these, place a wanted ad. I've found stuff I was looking for this way too.

My best advice would to just be patient and do your homework. Search the archives here and at AA. The best deal may not be there right now. Be ready when one appears.

Happy hunting,
John

A Sunfire Signature is a worthy amp to consider for these speakers. It is very high in current capacity, can drive any load that you throw at it and offers the versatility of two slightly different sounds via the voltage and current taps. One can use the voltage taps to feed the woofers and the current to feed the tweeters. This approach maintains excellent woofer control and at the same time, slightly softens the top end of these somewhat bright sounding speakers. The fact that these amps are still in production by a company that isn't in any type of financial woes, along with the fact that they can be found on the used market, should help ease your conscience. The fact that they can be run in single ended ( RCA ) or balanced ( XLR ) mode also adds to their versatility. As a side note, i think that they work much better in balanced mode and would recommend using them in that manner.

Depending on what you want to do, you could go with a Sunfire Signature, which is a two channel amp. It is rated at 600 @ 8, 1200 @ 4 and 2400 @ 2. Another option would be to go with the Sunfire Cinema Grand Signature, which is a five channel amp. Power ratings for this amp is 400 x 5 @ 8 ohms, 800 x 5 @ 4 ohms, etc... Using this amp, you could bi-amp with four of the five channels. This would give you 1600 wpc @ the nominal 4 ohm impedance of these speakers, which they can really use. On top of that, the sound should be even better as you've separated the demands of the woofer channels from the demands of the mids and treble. With the multitude of drivers that these speakers have, this is sure to be of benefit. You would also only be running four of the five channels of the amp, which would result in a stiffer power supply under even the worst of conditions.

As a side note, we've tried quite a few amps with my Dad's Legacy's and found the Sunfire's to work very well with them. Combined with Goertz MI-2 Veracity speaker cabling, he told me that he's never had a system that sounded this good before.

One word of advice regarding this and the other amps mentioned. You will need AT LEAST a good 20 amp AC feed just for the amplifier IF you want to obtain good results. You can't expect to produce high power with gobs of current if the amp isn't fed what it needs to do the job. The fact that the Sunfire is capable of delivering as much if not more power than any of the aforementioned amps while generating a small percentage of the heat may also be of interest to you. Sean