Amps and preamps for Magnepan 1.6QR

i had 1.6 now have 3.6...i would use the reciever as a pre-amp...and get a seperate amp to drive the maggies....amp choices from personal experience on the 1.6's if you have a large room or the speakers are far apart...100 watts and more...they love power and current...to get them to really sing......but if you get a naim nait intergrated like a nait -3 or nait-5..i used the 5 with them it was fine it put out about 55-57 watts into 4 ohm..and that was just fine and later get another amp...and have the 5 run the top end and the other on the bottem.....this is the safest way to go...there was a review on this combo in audio-musings...and other mags.

I use an Adcom GFA-5802 amp that has a lot of clean power. Wattage rating at 450 per channel. My Maggies sing,sing,sing. One of these can be gotten used here on the Gon for 800/850. I also use the matching GFP-750 preamp. It's a real nice piece and mates very,very well. These I've seen for 675/775. This works really well for me and my Maggies!!!! Good Luck and happy listening too !!!

You might consider a Classe CAP - 151 Integrated Amp. 150 wpc into 8 ohms and 225 wpc into 4 ohms. Used you can find one for around $1,500. The amp and pre-amp can be separated allowing you to add a more powerful power amp in the future and use just the pre-amp portion of the CAP - 151. This flexibility will allow one to follow an upgrade path without jumping into separate amp and pre-amp all at once. I use Classe separates (CA 201 & CP 47.5) with my MG 1.6 QR and am quite pleased with the results. As has been stated on Audiogon many times in the past, Maggies need lots of power and maybe more importantly lots of current to get the most out of them. I suspect the Classe CAP - 151 offers a lot more of both than your Yamaha can deliver.

Good luck.

Thank you all for the advise. I just received the speakers and still using my yamaha receiver for right now. To my surprise, my receiver seems to work pretty well. I am very happy with the speakers. I will consider to buy the amp later on.

Bryston + Maggies=audio nirvana