Maggie .7 REALLY needs 400 wpc plus????

Ron Brenay at New Record Day makes superb vides. I don't know if he went to film school or what, but damn they are good.

In his new review of the Magnepan .7 (assuming it is the latest 'i" version) he says a tubed Rogue 100 and a solid state First Watt amp actually DISTORTED the .7's.

He had to brining in a vintage Carver amp rated at over 400 wpc before he heard distortion free sound.

His narrative is that they needs an ENORMOUS amount of power.

I'm puzzled. I heard these at my dealer with 75 watt tubed McItnosh amps in a fairly large room and I heard
NO clipping. I did see how far I could push them and with the volume on the preamp at 3 O'Clock...almost full on, yeh sure, they clipped. But not with any sane volume settings.

Anybody else have the same experience as Ron?

 

To people who have been using 1kW Macs with these Magnepans this is nothing new.

 

I don't understand your reply.

 

I agree on his video. Its like a mini movie. I planned on buying a Rogue Sphinx w/ a set of Maggies but have decided to scale back a bit. Part of that decision was based on his video. Would the Rogue handle the Maggies? I din't like the thought of spending $$$$ to be disappointed. I'm now looking at the new ELAC F6 and a Marantz integrated.

 

You should read the Stereophile review:

http://www.stereophile.com/content/gramophone-dreams-5#la8SVG0PzPZ3dOw3.97

Herb Reichert used a Rogue Sphinx and said it was an excellent pairing.

 

Yep. That and a few others had nothing but good things to say about the combo. The video did sway my opinion but being in a unfinished basement full of boxes isn't the best environment for a $2500 stereo system.

 

See above. My apollogies for underestimating the Mac's power.

 

GeeZuss Kryst!

Well, the .7 are a lot smaller..but I am getting the drift.

 

I own .7's. They sound great on my Exposure 3010S2. I've owned a Sphinx in the past, I'm sure that would run them fine as well.

They also sound amazing on my Cambridge Audio CXR200 AVR.

Any decent 100+ wpc amp that's steady into a 4 ohm load will work fine with them. The Exposure is the king of stability into low impedance loads and is a perfect match for them. So is the Rogue.

I've owned an awful lot of really good 'around 2k$' integrateds and gotta tell you - this Exposure is the best of any of them.

The 1.6's need to run in much bigger rooms than .7's and consequently need quite a bit more power than the .7's.

 

In the name of variety, it would be nice if someone came forward and suggested using Audio Note Oto amp with the 0.7's.

 

Thanks for the info.

Taking into consideration what you said, how do you figure Ron got flat out distortion with the Rogue ST 100...a heck of an amp IMO?

 

I've had a ST 100 in the house. He had to have been playing that setup INSANELY LOUD to clip that amp into .7's.

In other words - user error. If his room was too big, yeah he could have problems.

FYI I've owned Maggies since 1979. The .7's are the best of their kind, ever, by a wide margin. Wonderful speakers.

 

My dad has been running a pair of MMG's with Quicksilver KT88 60 watt amps forever and they sound amazing and never lack in volume or dynamics. The .7's are a bit bigger but shouldn't need 400 wps to sound great.

 

I agree completely...he must have pushed those bastards to their limit..lol..from the video, his room looks of average size.

I am not sure of the wattage of the First Watt he used, but as you said, 100 real tube watts should be more than sufficient.

So you are saying the .7s are the best small maggie and the best value in the line?

 

While the .7s are bigger than the MMG, they should not need 400 wpc..hence my inquiry.

i would love to hear the MMG and .7s side by side.

 

I've owned MMG's, a couple of times. They are not remotely in the same league as the .7's.

 

Good to know. It would be a hell of a thing if they were..considering they are about 40% of the cost of the .7. And those are $1400. Less than a Shunyata power cord.

 

I will - But the SORO with its 18 watts per channel. And I didn't run the combination - Soundhounds in Victoria BC (perhaps the biggest Magnepan dealer in Canada) had the pairing going and it was the best sound I have heard from Magnepan - including when being run by top of the line Classe and Bryston Monoblocks. The SORO Single Ended Tube amp and its 18 watts sounded the best. Here in Hong Kong with their mega dollar SS and 1kw of power - what, instead do they prefer running? Triode and Co tube amplifiers (made by Line Magnetic) of moderate power.

The issue I suspect has less to do with power and the sense of clarity among amplifiers (often SS does poorly at low levels making you want to crank it to make things out properly - SE tube amplifiers don't have that problem). Magnepan doesn;t have a dramatically difficult load - indeed they operate similar to the likes of the LS-3/5a a low sensitive but gentle impedance speaker that is notoriously good with low powered tube amps. Magnepans are quite flat loads - desirable trait in fact for a SET amp. Indeed, using the SET's 4 ohm taps and planar/panel speakers underrated "real world" sensitivity it's an intriguing match - the only time I can say I have actually liked the sound of a Magnepan speaker was with the SORO. I'd love to get a 1.7 in here and slap it on my 219IA 24 watt SET...It has absolutely zero difficulty driving the KEF LS-50 (a much harder speaker to drive than any Magnepan).

As an aside - I found this true of the Quad ESL (which Soundhounds also sells and ran a lower powered tube amp for better sound). I mean they're wasting more electricity and tube life - when they could have run one of their many SS amps.

But as always it is simply best to try before you buy. I think the issue is that once something on forums gets repeated 20 times it is taken as the only truth. So go hear a good SE tube amplifier on a Magnepan - might surprise you. If the dealer hadn't done it - I confess I would never have tried it because all I read is that you need 1000 watt monoblocks.

 

Hello Richard:

Interesting post.

First, the .7 reviews published in Stereophile, by Herb Reichert, and in TAS, by Julie Mullens, totally disagree with you on how hard it is to drive the speaker. That goes for Ron Brenay too. They were very explicit about it. As a matter of fact, Herb DIRECTLY compared the KEF LS50 to the .7 and said the LS50 was worlds easier to drive. (He also said it was not in the same league as far as sophistication and overall presentation.) Herb also used the Vinni Rossi 30wpc amp and said it just petered out way too soon.

So I am wondering what makes you come to that conclusion. ( I have not compared the two, but I found the KEF very easy to drive.)

Second, you said the Maggies really only got your attention with the Audio Note amp. What is your take on the OVERALL presentation?

Lastly, as mentioned above, I heard the .7 with McIntosh 75 wpc monos. No problem there. When I pushed the volume to close to the top of the range, there
was audible clipping. But the room was 60% then mine, and the listening position was further. They also had the speakers further apart then I would..any speaker..a good 12 feet.

 

This, from the TAS review:
"The .7s Versus Amplifiers
But before you start thinking we’re entering some sort of hi-fi utopia, know that while this design eliminates some variables from the equation, it also brings with it other demands and considerations.

For one, the .7s are a bit power-hungry: They require an amplifier capable of driving a low-sensitivity 4-ohm load. I listened first with a tube amp, but definitely heard better results with a solid-state one. Why? The tube amp gave almost too much leeway to the bass, making it less clearly defined. This also left the upper midrange more exposed (i.e., a shade bright). Some might like the more forward projection (not unlike what you’d hear from horn loudspeakers) of tubes, but I liked the more blended, balanced feel of the solid-state amp, so I stuck with that for most of my listening."

Ultimately, this review is useless. There is no mention of what partnering amps were used. I don't know why they bothered publishing it.

 

There are tube amps and there are tube amps - just like you could run a 100 watt receiver and a 100 watt Bryston and would not conclude that by any stretch that both were equal. The power supply matters.

The KEF is not an easy speaker to drive - it is 82-83dB sensitive and impedance all over the place dropping to low 3 ohms. I have not seen the 1.7 measurements because Magnepan doesn't apparently like having their measurements published (they don't look pretty). To be fair Panels and corner loaded speakers do badly in free field measurement situations in Stereophile so I don't blame them.

Note, I was not listening at head banger levels - there is no question that the tube amps I mention absolutely won't do the job in a larger room and at louder levels that a SS with lots of watts will do. I make the trade for sound quality over sound quantity - but I respect others absolutely won't want to do that. Hong Kong - the listening room is fairly small as are apartments here. So you can get away with a lack of watts.

In North America - the SORO would not do at all. Sorry for not writing that in the above post.

It should be pointed out that I am not particularly a Magnepan fan (or a fan of ribbons) - I generally find the whole presentation rather artificial often lean with an electrical kind of sound, a lack of tone, body and bass dynamics. The Soro amp added bass depth and body and tone back to the proceedings that the likes of the Bryston 28B lacked.

Of course there are some bigger power tube amps available - but it's difficult to find the bigger power being run in Single Ended rather than Push Pull (at least not for affordable prices).

One solution might be to run the SE tube preamp with a big power solid state or tube power amp thus "possibly" giving both sound quantity and sound quality to the table. But I have simply not tried that to know.

 

Interesting Steve.

I can tell you for certain Magenpan is not only aware of the historical strengths of their speakers, but they have been VERY well aware of the weaknesses. The last batch..the .7 models..1.7, 3.7, and 20.7 are leaps and bounds ahead of past models. They solved a lot of problems, including that "electrical" kind of sound, which Jon Valin called a "scrim", like brushes lightly scraping across a snare drum. Of course, they are still not perfect, no speaker is, but the improvement is startling.

 

I agree with the video, I have the MMG’s with a pair of Bel Canto Ref 500M mono amps …
400 watts per channel into 4 ohms. I’ve never heard the maggies sound so good..

 

On the other forum...one of the posters really brought up a very good point. It's not actually the amount of power that is really needed, it is the ability of the amp to deliver current that is important with the Maggies.
Andre, like you say, I think the smaller models are actually good in a small room with the understanding that dynamics and
bass response will be AWOL. In Dan's video, I see he utilizes (at the end of the video) a large pair of subs, which IF you can get a decent blend with the Maggies ( a BIG if) would be a very interesting combo. I would suspect the subs Dan is using aren't ideal, a smaller-more agile sub, like a REL, would be more what I would like to hear.