CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

Analog Marty

I bought the maggies after searching for a while for an affordable pair of ESL's with no luck.

Currently I am using a MC10L Yaquin 52 watts per channel valve amp. On my home made Vifa box speakers the amp was more than capable of driving them to insane levels.

On the maggies I find myself constantly cranking it to half way to reach a decent listening level, I know the maggies are DAMN power hungry Twisted Evil

!

I gotta admit, they sound AWESOME !!!

Now: Has anyone had any experience with a similar setup and whether I should invest in a Perreaux 8000c or similar to give it a decent power supply ? As in 300+ Watts ?

Will it really improve the sound ? Will headroom make THAT much difference ? Currently I do feel that the music does seem a bit flat and lack a bit of dynamics, however I don't want to waste another couple of weeks pay only to find out it does not add another dimension Mr. Green

jask · Joined: 17 Mar 2006 Posts: 10165 Location: kamloops BC

I have read a few reviews with the owners suggesting 100+100 watts or better to open up these speakers. I have also read that the crossovers can stand some upgrades even though they are great speakers. With a good sub and a large room they should be spectacular.

Very nice, congratulations.

grogthegreat · Joined: 16 May 2007 Posts: 166 Location: San Diego, CA

I have a pair of MG-IIIs that sounded much better after upgrading to a yamaha M-80. It is 250 Watts 20-20kHz @ 8 Ohms w/ .003 THD and 330 Watts 20-20kHz @ 4 Ohms w/ .02 THD.
The M-80 has wattage gauges on the front, so after playing mine I would suggest something at about 200 watts per channel at 4 ohms. This should give you enough headroom as long as you aren't sending it lots of bass or crank it really load.
With maggies, additional headroom will improve bass a huge amount and the upper frequencies a small but noticable amount. You have the smaller two way maggies so you might find that yours act differently to additional headroom.

With maggies it is almost impossible to use too much power. It is too little power that will damage your tweeters. You don't have the true ribbon tweeter like I do but it is still a concern.
Congrats on getting the maggies!
-Greg

**kal** · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 1:55 am Post subject:

Analog Marty · Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 3:56 am Post subject:

Cool, tx guys !

You have convinced me, (that and the voices in the dark) that I MUST spend more money Smile

I have pre-ordered the Emotiva XPA-2, will report back once I have it hooked up and broken in...

M.

grogthegreat · Joined: 16 May 2007 Posts: 166 Location: San Diego, CA

That is a great amp with plenty of overhead. I have read the audioholics review of it multiples times in the past.

Maggies really like having lots of overhead, but with your smaller maggies combined with such a beast of an amp, you could pop a fuse on the back of your maggies if you crank them up too loud. Unless you really like hearing damaging volume levels then you shouldn't have a problem. Of course if you really liked insane volume levels, then you wouldn't have bought maggies in the first place!

Definitely let us know how the maggies sound with the new amp. I've been curious for a while how the Emotiva sounds on maggies.

-Greg D.

P.S.: Is the 92kg sony a 1292? I'm in the middle of setting my 1292 up for the first time. I've found that setting astig correctly by your self is really hard!

Analog Marty · Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 5:42 am Post subject:

Yeah Greg, it's a SONY...

The astig did drive me a little insane, I got Graham to come down and do it right...

Haven't looked back since, once it's done right it looks awesome at 1080p !!!

grogthegreat · Joined: 16 May 2007 Posts: 166 Location: San Diego, CA

You are lucky that you have Graham on you side of the world! I have his DVD which helped a lot. Never got the astig perfect but close enough. Does a razer sharp 720p. I can't get my computer to output a proper 1080p but my xbox 360 does!

Do you have an ETA on the amp? Emotiva's website that they start shipping late June.
120,000uf of capacitance is a lot. Beats my M-80 which I thought had a lot at 100,000uf. With such power however, I can't think of a situation where you would ever start to use it!

-Greg

Analog Marty · Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 3:52 am Post subject:

Amp ordered and paid for today, now comes the wait... and the argument with the wife about the valve amp, she reckons I replace stuff and never sell the old ones... I reckon you just never know when I may need the tubes on again Smile

I might use it with those ESL headphones that sit in the cupboard...

grogthegreat · Joined: 16 May 2007 Posts: 166 Location: San Diego, CA

Let us know when it arrives! As I mention before, I am curious as to how this amp sounds on maggies.

As for the tube amp, I'd keep it unless it isn't getting any use. What happaned with the speakers that the maggies replaced? You could use the amp on them.

BTW: I found out that my 1292 has the green phosphere delamination problem. A nice big blob in the middle of the screen that has a greenish hue to it as the fuzzy green overlaps nearby colors.....

-Greg

Analog Marty · Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 3:56 am Post subject:

Got the amp couple of days ago.

Where do I start ? Apart from having a sore back from lifting the monster in and out of my car and lugging it inside...

My current CD player is the Shanling CD T-100, it has a volume control built into the player via a remote.
I do not have a pre-amp (although have ordered the ST-ML7 Class A Valve pre-amp).

First impressions: It is BIG !!! And HEAVY !!!

It's nice to see the multitude of caps through the top grill Smile

Pity the toroidal is hidden.

Hooked it up directly to the Cd player, turned the volume to 00, switched on the amp and slowly increased the vol up to about 40, at this volume nothing fantastic was happening so up to reference volume levels we go (about 55 vol).

I sat there going through my cd's listening...

Here's the sad part:

I tried to find something that made me think: "This is so much better than a 52 watt Chinese made valve amp" - it just did not happen...

Sure the attack was faster, the sound was much more cleaner - almost too clean and clinical (a touch of sibilance ?) so I swapped the output on the Shanling to tube output, that improved the overall tone of the sound... But after listening for about an hour and a half I started to have listeners fatigue ?

My only thoughts are that the internal volume control on the player is sacrificing a lot of depth/tonality at anything less than full output, so I await my pre-amp to arrive and give it another shot...

I have pushed the vol up to 80 and I seriously thought the maggies are about to tear themselves apart when the drum kicks in... 500 Watts into the little buggers Smile

Overall, at this time: Sorry to say, but I think I might be going back to the EL34's...

PS. Even my tonality challenged wife made a comment that the valves sounded much better...

grogthegreat · Joined: 16 May 2007 Posts: 166 Location: San Diego, CA

I'm suprised that things turned out that way and I'm wondering why. It could be that I've goten used to the tube amp sound.
I'd also suspect the volume control on your CD player. My experiences are with the three way maggies so maybe they respond differently than your two way maggies. The only other thing that I can think of is adding a resistor to the tweeter to attenuate the highs which might solve any liseners fatigue.

Let us know when the preamp arrives. It might be the solution you need.

-Greg

Analog Marty · Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 12:35 am Post subject:

What value resistor would you recommend ? Might give that a shot before the pre-amp arrives...

grogthegreat · Joined: 16 May 2007 Posts: 166 Location: San Diego, CA

Good question. I have several original Magnepan documents including the owners manual and I can't find a number in there. When I replaced the tweeters about two months ago, two resistors came with them but I can't find them as I didn't end up using them. Also, your speakers are two way with the quasi ribbon instead of my three way with the true ribbon so I don't know how much applies.

With all that said I believe that it is a 1 ohm or two ohm resistor. If you buy one, make sure that it can handle the proper amps.
-Greg

Analog Marty · Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 6:23 am Post subject:

Ok, pre-amp arrived about a week ago and I have been a bit too busy with work to have a decent chance at a listening test session, so I have been satisfied with a few "Before the wife gets home - let's crank it up" sessions

It was definately the volume control on the CD player, the speakers have really opened up in the lower octaves ! I almost don't need the subbie hooked up any more...

The overall sound has gotten much better as well, in comparison it seemed compressed previously ?

Much happier now Smile

It all sounds good (for now), until the little devil starts nagging again Twisted Evil

I can hear him...

He's still ranting about the Martin Logans...

This never ends... does it ??? Mr. Green

grogthegreat · Joined: 16 May 2007 Posts: 166 Location: San Diego, CA

No it doesn't. I'm glad to hear that it was the volume control on your CD player as I had mentioned above. I personally don't use a sub but I occasionally want one for some songs.

I just had my amp, the Yamaha M80, die on me. Luckily, unlike as its name would imply, it didn't go out with a BANG! Now I have to pay to have it fixed as much I originally bought it for.

I'm shipping my Maggies in a week to their new home in FL. Hope they don't get dropped! Then I'd be out my amp and speakers! Cheers,

-Greg