Magnepan 20.1

Hello Pops,

My experience with the Maggies 3.6r and amps is that the listening satisfaction increases with watts. I tried the 3.6r at my local dealer with a Mac integrated amp (I don't remember, but it was <300 watts). From the mid-range up, it was simply magical, but the little Mac didn't have enough juice to have control over the bass driver. Then my dealer set the Maggies with more power, this time with a Classe amp. The Mac magic was gone, but the bass had more control. I also tried the Maggies with a Krell 400 watts @ 4ohms, and still no much control over the bass driver.

I then went for a single Musician III SE (800watts @ 4 ohms) and the sound was much more coherent from top to bottom. A few months after that, I went for the Spectron mono-blocks by adding another amp and bridging them. This is 2400 watts @ 4 ohms for the Maggies 3.6. This made a huge improvement over a single amp. The bass driver is now driven with absolute authority. My listening room is 14' x 23'. In this room, the Maggies can fill the room with powerful sound that shakes the floors and walls. Strange enough, the shaking aspect of the listening experience started after I added the Joule Electra preamp.

The Maggies can virtually be driven with a few hundred watts, but they really sing with a lot of power and current. I would try to audition them with a similar amp than what you have, if you can.

Best,

iSanchez

Thanks guys!

My take would be that you'd be initially left impressed with them (a change can be refreshing in many ways..), but which soon wears off after a long while and be missing back those energy behind snaps and plucks of string, as well real heft/power behind bass drives you used to be getting from your dynamic speakers (with maggies you get big full bass but generally lesser impact). And although the soundstage and imaging larger--lifelike in size, scale and presentation, in comparison, they are also slightly vague and diffused--not as pin-point or defined.

Therefore, as it is quite a dramatic change in musical presentation from what you are accustomed to, it is advisable to spend longer hours with them at dealer or friend's first (with your favorite records) to get a better grasp of their sound, and make sure they are right 'for you and your music' prior to taking the plunge.

Bvdiman,

I have to respectfully disagree. Maggies are capable of pinpoint imaging and producing layered and realistic soundstage. I had done extensive audition while I was shopping for speakers a few years ago. If not because of placement limitation of my room and my love of tube amp, I would have bought a pair of 3.6 instead of the Vandy 5; it was that good. But they need high power amp with a lot of current to shine. The more current the better. If you hear diffused soundstage or softness, it usually mean power amp mismatch or placement problem. Due to bass cancellation nature in panel speaker, Maggies don't have very deep bass so you won't get room shocking pipe organ but it should produce very realistic rim shot and kick drum.

I was just listening to a pair of Maggie 20.1s last night at a local high end open house. They were powered by an all Ayre signal chain, including the Ayre 300w monoblock amps. They sounded really good--very engaging--on a wide variety of music, including jazz and classic rock. They played Bowie's "Ch-ch-ch-changes" from an EMI LP anniversary pressing and it sounded pretty spectacular, as did jazz and pretty much anything else. The 20.1s were augmented by a pair of 2x12 JL powered subwoofers, but it was a fairly large room.

The amps certainly weren't struggling to power the 20.1s. They had excellent dynamics. They didn't sound quite as dynamic and transparent as the Wilson MAXX 3's, but those are over twice the price. I liked the Maggies.