Magnepan & Manley

I have had some form of Magnepans in my home for over thirty years. I have run them with everything from 500 watts to 60 watts. I have had CJ, Bat, Cary{both tube and soldi-stae}, Mark Levinson, etc., etc. I play mainly classical music, jazz, and broadway shows. I like Maggies better with tubes and, for what I listen to, I don't need alot of power. Some of the less powerful amps have sounded best, actually. I now have the 3.5's. I tried the Manley snappers and they worked well for me. You should try them. I would bet the 250's would give you more oomph, but the snappers could work fine for you denpending on your listening needs.

Back to Manley. Still wondering if the Snappers will work great or if I'll need to go for the 250s. I don't blast the speakers, pretty much ever, but I do want something un-sterile.

I have a dealer recommending a Wyred pre (STP SE) and the "baby" Modwright amp, which puts out 200wpc into 4ohms.

Torn ...

The price on that combo is just north of 5k or so, but the Manleys are ... well ... more. Don't want to buy more and get less though ....

I was looking at the Magnepan 3.6R speakers.

This is mainly as the room is odd: a basement shaped like a capital letter "T", with the listening setup in the top left "arm". Dimensions are 13' x 35' x 7.75', with the speakers to fire across the long part of the room.

As for the driving gear, I was leaning toward Wyred4Sound for inexpensive and refined power. That said, I have a soft spot for tube gear, and Manley is just cool. ;-)

I thought there would be some responses to this. I have been using the 250s with my 20.1s. I auditioned Bryston 7B monos (not the 28s)and the AYre MX-R. Given what I wanted out of a system, the Manleys made the grade. The Brystons were very good, but ultimately uninspiring, and the Ayre was way to cool for me, almost cold.

I don't have any of the stock tubes in the amps. As I have an all tube system, and all Manley (300B pre and Steelhead), I have been able to exactly tailor the sound to what I want. And that's fiddling with all of the tubes in all of the equipment. I would never have been able to do that with solid state (well possibly with enough auditioning, which is really hard to do).

The 250s handle the 20.1s very well. I listen to all types of music, though mainly jazz, some opera, classical, ok a lot of rock too. I have never felt them deficient because they only output 250 watts.

I know there are people on the forum that say "only use solid state and make sure it is over 500-600 watts to get the best out of them. I don't completely understand this, though I assume it is what you are looking for in sound. I did not hear much of, if any dynamic difference between the 7Bs and the Manley that were important to me.

Check out the Manleys. You may like the sound. And remenber you can tweek the sound in many directions with Tube changes.

Which Maggies? Maggies and tubes can be a special setup but a lot will depend on your listening taste and volume you play. The 250s are pretty stout but a Maggie can suck up 250 watts without even trying. I'd need to know more about the system.

Thanx, Russ