Why do Maggies need a lot of power?


It has been genearally accepted that Maggies (i.e. 1.6s) needs a lot of power. Why?

Mathematically, any 86dB speaker should need only 64W of power to reach optimum listening level (104 dB). Why it's not the case for Maggies? One may say that b/c it has only 4 ohm, but there are tons of low sensibility 4 ohm speakers in the market and they do not seem to have any problems like Maggies. Again, one may say that they need current. I think most of the amp is cappable of 20 Amp and wonder if that 's still not enough? If so how much current are we talking about?

I have seen a few recommendation and review of low power amp to drive maggies (i.e. Cary Rocket amp (40W), or Bel 1001 (50W) and a few more class A amp with range around 50W) sucessfully.

For the one who recommend the high power amp (>200W), how lound do you listen to them? I can't imagine myself sitting next to the speakers that have 200W of power fed into them. It muust be awfully loud to me. On the other hand are we talking about reserve power (head room) that Maggie may need at a cirtain time, not the entire period?

Has anyone really been happy with the low power amp with Maggies, either SS or Tube?

Thanks a lot for the thoughts,

Ake
ake

Showing 2 responses by blw

Hmm... one of my issues with those maggies was the obviously lacking lower bass. It didn't really bother me because I knew that if I bought them they 'd have to double duty in HT, where I'd have a sub anyway. But for some reason I didn't figure in that the amp might not be supplying the juice, and of course with a 60wpc amp that's quite possible...
I dunno about this "needs a lot of power" thing. I seriously auditioned Magnepan 3.6s in this last round of speakers. They were poewred by a Conrad Johnson MV55 power amp and while the room was bright it was also huge (20,000 cubic feet, or around that). They played plenty loud enough for me, and they sounded excellent, too. The MV55 delivers 50-60 wpc, so it is NOT one of the earth-shattering ones.

I really ended up not going with them only because the center channels were terrible, and also that the setup (CJ LS16 + MV55 + 3.6s) is also VERY unforgiving of poor recordings, of which I have plenty. But power consumption wasn't one of the issues at all.