Back in my Maggie days I used a pair of slightly modded Adcom GFA 555s in mono. Maggies love power. If you could find a pair of 555s I would highly recommend them. If not, Parasound would be a good option. Too much power isn’t enough.
Solid state amp recommendations for Maggies?
I am looking for another amp to drive my magnepan LRS, looking for a solid state amp to deliver more detail than my current tube amp, but don't want to give up (much) of the soundstage and depth.
I have a small listening room with a near field set up, so I don't need a ton of power for ear piercing volume. I listen mostly to acoustic rock, acoustic jazz and female vocalists. I want more the guitar on Keith don't go and hotel canifornia intro from hell freezes over to to sound... better...
at the risk of sounding stupid, I am driving these $650 speakers with many thousands of dollars of electronics. The amp is a Primaluna HP (80wpc using 4 EL34s per channel), CJ ET7 preamp, PS Audio Direct stream DAC and a Naim digital source. All with MG audio silver interconnects and speaker wire. Even the interconnects cost more than the LRS.
I am very happy with my current set up, but would like to grab another amp to a change of pace.
My budget is $5-8K, used or new. My room is such that mono blocks set up well, but that is not necessary.
thoughts/recommendations?
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- 81 posts total
@meiatflask Yes, class A amps do tend to give off some heat. That's why most of them have significant heat sinking as part of the design. My Krell FBP300 gets warm, but not too hot to touch. Nonetheless I'd think twice if I had toddlers around. If it were my money, for SS amp, the older Krells designed by Dan D'Agostino or the Pass XA series would be at the top of my list. Bryston and Coda are also solid choices. Honestly, with your Maggies, I'd stick with the tube amp and move up to Maggie 1.7is or consider a different tube design like Atma-Sphere M60s, a BAT 6C33C-based amp, or an 845 or GM70-based SET. You could alternatively upgrade your DAC, but that won't make as signifcant a change as amp or speakers, given what you have now. You haven't specifically defined what "sound better" means to you...IMHE, EL34s can rock really well, but many of the other tube topologies can provide more nuance, transparency and delicacy that for me, bring small scale acoustic music and other stuff you described to life. Cheers, Spencer
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Unless you move up to the most powerful XAs I don't think they have enough juice for the 86db Magnepans. As I wrote, Pass recommends the X-series (ab) for Maggies. For speakers with higher sensitivity I would choose the XAs. |
- 81 posts total