What amp are you using with your Gallo 3.1's?

Musical Fidelity Nu Vista M3...great results

SET monoblocks designed and built by a friend, 12 wpc, single 845 output tubes with EL-34 (KT77) driver tubes and 6N7 (ECC31) input tubes, huge Magnequset transformers. Easily fill 18x40' room. I Use Gallo subwoofer amp on 2nd woofer voice coils. Extraordinary sound. These are the original Reference 3 (not 3.1) bought in 2004.

Spectron MKII with v-cap and bybee upgrades. I am very happy indeed.

I am surprised that you had such bad results with the Mac. I auditioned the 3.1s with a full set of Mac 402, and C2300 pre. Absolutely inspirational superlative sound, in a so-so room with minimal treatments. Easily much better than many other auditions I've had with more expensive speakers. Complete bass authority and dynamic control, incredibly musical.

Could it be that their seperates are that much better than the integrateds?

I bought the 3.1s, and tried with my Cary sixpac amps. Too rolled off in the bass, and missing the control and authority of the Mac setup by a landslide. Great amps - just not with these speakers for me. I know others have had other results (d pogue, hello from the audioasylum thread (: ) but I would hesitate to use tubes on these. They dip down in the impedance with that bass driver. 2 Gallo dealers that I've spoken with, along with Gallo themselves, have recommended to use either SS or class D amps with high levels or current for these. Anthony himself demonstrated the new 3.5s at CES with a huge Spectron amp, for what that's worth.

I'm awaiting a Wyred 4 Sound class D 250 WPC in 8, 550 in 4 amp to be delivered. We'll see how that works out!

"Could it be that their seperates are that much better than the integrateds?"

I suspect at least some of the Mc integrateds are not as high current and less able to handle complex loads well.

I remember looking at several Mc integrated models for my OHMs and vetoing them for this reason.