I have Maggie MG 1.6's - need amp advice


I have Magnepan MG 1.6QR's and an Audio Research LS-8 PreAmp but only an Acurus A-200 power amp. I need to upgrade my amp to something twice as powerful I have been told (400 -500 watts) in order to really hear what the Maggies will do.
Since I have a tube preamp what would be a good SS Amp and should I go with MonoBloc's or . . .?
Tube? SS? Need help. I have heard that Classe amps are great with Maggie's. Any help would be appreciated.
Also of note - I have a Velodyne 18" powered sub (1250) watts for the sub.
johnrad
Atmasphere...OK: if you drive a ss amp hard enough it will clip. But (at least some that I have seen) the shape of the distortion vs power graph is characteristically different from tube amps. (However, I just checked the Hypex UcD digital amp module, and it does exhibit a sharp break like a tube amp, but then it is starting from way below 0.1 percent, so maybe it just looks dramatic. Perhaps it takes clipping to get distortion that high). As for the 1% distortion level occuring before clipping in a tube amp I think that this simply reflects the generally higher distortion levels of quite well regarded tube amps.

My ss amps have clip limiting. I doubt that I would approach their 600 watt rating, but if I did a gain reduction would prevent cliping, and its tweeter-damaging distortion. At lower power level the clip detection circuitry does nothing except listen to the signal so I don't think there is any adverse effect on the sound. Cheap tweeter insurance.
No Doubt!! Clipping any large amp will eat tweeters pretty fast.

Although tube amps do have more THD in general, the idea is to generate less of the distortions the ear *objects* to, and tubes are quite good at that. This goes back to that 'tube power' 'transistor power' debate (personally to me watts is watts so I use the idea of 'usable power' instead of tube/transistor power- the idea conveys easier).
That's one nice advantage of bi-amping. You can have a nice sweet tube amp (like an AtmaSphere M60/w. Zero's) on the tweeter panel, and use a big honking high current solid state amp on the bass panel.

Check out this article from TNT-Audio that discusses the issues around crossovers that can be addressed by actively amplifying your speaker:

http://www.tnt-audio.com/casse/active_speakers_intro1_e.html
http://www.tnt-audio.com/casse/active_speakers_intro2_e.html

Hope this helps!
One person mentions them above, but a 2nd plug for Pass Labs. If you can find a used Aleph what you get per dollar spent is very hard to beat. Stereophile showed that these perform super well into amazingly low ohm loads. They provide serious current and the Aleph line purchased used may be cheap enough to run bi-amped at the high wattage levels. For real fun, get 4 monoblocks bi-wired. Price would keep most from doing that with new amps of similar quality... 4 Aleph 1's into 1.6s would put power issues to rest quite quickly!! Right now there are indeed 4 Aleph 0's for sale here - not nearly as powerful, but with 4 amps at those prices, would be awesome.