Basic question about power/watts


Hi everyone - I have a question that I can't seem to wrap my head around.  

I purchased a pair of Magnepans a few months back. Honestly, I do not like them. They have their moments but overall, pffft.

So, related to this, I keep reading from various Maggie owners you need TONS of power to make these things sing rather than squawk. I bought a new amp that is rated at 80 wpc at 4ohms. This, I realize, is low power when I see these guys saying they are running some crazy amount like 600 watts per channel. Here is my actual question:

When you are listening to your speakers at a normal volume, the wattage you are using is not near the POSSIBLE output, correct? My 80 wpc is unbearable with the volume at the 11 o'clock position. Why does a person need or want 600 watts? I suspect I am missing something here. Maybe this has to do with why I dislike my Magnepans. Somebody take a moment to set me straight?

Thanks! 

timintexas

As a former Maggie owner, a couple of comments:

1) Dipole speakers interact differently with rooms than box speakers. Positioning is critical and, sadly, some rooms are just not a good fit for Maggies. That's why I sold mine -- I moved and the room in the new house just didn't work for them.

2) The position of the volume knob on the amp tells you almost nothing about the amount of power being used.  That is dependent on the voltage output of the source and the input sensitivity of the amp. My volume knob is generally at 2 or 3 o'clock for a listening volume of around 85 dB. That's my "loud" while others prefer to list at 95 dB or even over 100.  With a different source/pre/amp I might being hitting the same actual volume with a much different setting on the volume knob.

3) Maggies are a low-impedance load at 4 ohms.  A typical solid state amp puts out the same voltage at 4 ohms or 8, but the amperage (current) doubles at 4 ohms.  The simplest test to see if an amp is good with Maggies is to check to see if the amp's wattage rating doubles when going from 8 ohms to 4.  Many amps don't do this.  You didn't say which make/model of new amp you bought. You also didn't give any indication of your preferred listening volume.  As noted above, one person's "loud" is another's "moderate."

More INFO needed.

Which Maggies?

What  amp are you using?

What size room? 

What is it that you don't like about your Maggies?

ditto @mesch

details matter

high current at low impedence

for some speakers it requires a lot of power to run seriously deep base

Power doubling from 8 to 4 ohms means very little. The simple fact is that low impedance speakers or speakers with a really spastic impedance curve give most amplifiers a really hard load for them to drive. Sometimes this cant be avoided, but when it can and the designer still chooses to make the speaker low impedance it is really a design flaw and shows a lack of amplifier understanding or shows that this designer is catering to the false belief, created by this industry, that double the power trumps all other considerations. I dont think that the weird impedance of Maggies can be avoided.