Eldartford, 96db peaks is LOUD to me, certainly not a volume I'd listen to for more than one song at best.
Also, I assumed that Maggies need power and used the Parasound JC1's for most of the 3 years I owned them. After committing to buy a more efficient 8ohm speaker, I bought Atma-Sphere MA1 MkII.3 OTL amps. I received the amps before I sold the MG3.6r's so decided to see how they sound.
The Atma-Sphere amps drove the maggies SO incredibly well that I seriously questioned if selling them was the right thing. They were incredibly transparent, RELAXED (no strain evident), tonally beautiful, the bass was so much more REAL and subjectively went deeper, and detailed as can be...that ribbon tweeter can be glorious with the right amplifiers. I didn't listen at louder than 90db peaks for the most part during the 3 weeks I had them setup with the Maggies, but that is as loud as I ever listened with the JC1's and the JC1's sounded seriously strained in comparison.
In short, if I were using Magnepans today, there is no way I would use anything but an Atma-Sphere amp. I would have laughed at someone saying that before I tried it myself.
Which brings up an important question. At what point do the Magnepan panels start to break up and "compress", requiring significantly higher ratio of power for each db increase? Your measurements suggest 96db may be in that region?
Jordan
Also, I assumed that Maggies need power and used the Parasound JC1's for most of the 3 years I owned them. After committing to buy a more efficient 8ohm speaker, I bought Atma-Sphere MA1 MkII.3 OTL amps. I received the amps before I sold the MG3.6r's so decided to see how they sound.
The Atma-Sphere amps drove the maggies SO incredibly well that I seriously questioned if selling them was the right thing. They were incredibly transparent, RELAXED (no strain evident), tonally beautiful, the bass was so much more REAL and subjectively went deeper, and detailed as can be...that ribbon tweeter can be glorious with the right amplifiers. I didn't listen at louder than 90db peaks for the most part during the 3 weeks I had them setup with the Maggies, but that is as loud as I ever listened with the JC1's and the JC1's sounded seriously strained in comparison.
In short, if I were using Magnepans today, there is no way I would use anything but an Atma-Sphere amp. I would have laughed at someone saying that before I tried it myself.
Which brings up an important question. At what point do the Magnepan panels start to break up and "compress", requiring significantly higher ratio of power for each db increase? Your measurements suggest 96db may be in that region?
Jordan