Tubes for Magnepan’s.

@jjss49 

Opinions vary.

Cheers!

My world famous factory X-overs from Magnepan. Notice how the inductor is inline to ground, and so most of the mid and none of the treble came through in the beginning.


I posted the image on my FB page so you can see it for yourself. 

Wonder if this forum will ever support pics?

https://www.facebook.com/william.pietrzak.56

not to be argumentative here, let’s put this issue in perspective

maggies are a flat panel speaker, low impedance, resistive load (not highly reactive) - different models run big and small, they differ in how they need to be driven... in the bass frequencies they need significant current drive to move the panels, move air, develop even a modest sense of drive and ’slam’

no doubt up the frequency range, they are exceptionally pure, and not hard to drive - thus if not asked to play loud and develop a convincing bottom end, tubes can sound utterly wonderful

the critical issue here what is needed to get the bass drive and slam out of maggies (make the speaker move alot of air in a hurry) this is the key weakness of the maggies and needs to be dealt with ... so, typically very good systems with large maggies owned by tube amp lovers use serious upper end tube amps (pricey and run very hot, burns through tubes - think vt200’s or big vtls, that league of tube amp)

the issue here in this post is the OP posted he is ’getting into tube amps’ and has a budget of $3-4 grand... so given that, i say, stick with good solid state at that price level -- for example a $3000 hegel h190 or h360 will properly drive a set of m 1.7’s top to bottom much better than a $3000 tube amp imo -- at proper listening levels and with proper bass response

maybe a higher powered primaluna tube amp with 8 power tubes can be had used for $3000 (eg dialogue premium hp, for instance), but of course, that amp has tube-i-ness in spades but not the best resolution/transparency.... perhaps an older vt100-2 at 3 grand would be better top to bottom, but even with its 4 ohm taps, the bass response will not as solid, deep, controlled and taut as if driven by a hegel

my 2 cents

Eminently reasonable opinions like these ^ will just never catch on.

@jjss49 

We have already settled on a tube pre into a SS amp, I think. 

But thanks so much for you detailed response. I want to buy a used A23 just to gauge the difference between the Parasound Halo line and my Benchmark AHB2. I can always use that in my studio, since my Adcom 555 is dying.

I was thinking a Parasound A21 or a Hegel 20 or 390 used for a high current amp.

Let there be Peace in this valley.... 😉