Will 60 watts work with Maggies?

glynnw · « **on:** 15 Jul 2022, 05:45 pm »

I am trying to help a non-audiophile buddy put together a system. Power will be from a 60 watt Emotiva receiver - can he use a small pair of Maggies in a 10 x 12 room?

AudioDwebe · « **Reply #1 on:** 15 Jul 2022, 05:55 pm »

Yes.

IMO, folks who talk about needing a ga-billion watts to drive Maggie’s properly are talking nonsense. In a small room like that 60 watts should be more than enough.

Of course some of this will be determined by the volume your friend listens at. In my 12x16 room listening at 70-85 dbs, 50 watts was more than enough to drive my 1.7s.

Cheers,

Mamoru

Saturn94 · « **Reply #2 on:** 15 Jul 2022, 06:15 pm »

It really depends on listening habits. For me, 60 watts would not be enough (I’m running 385 wpc with my LRS crossed over at 80hz to a powered sub).

Will a powered sub be used to relieve the Maggies of bass duties? That makes a significant difference.

So, will 60 watts work? Yes. Will it be satisfactory to the user? It depends. 😉

SteveFord · « **Reply #3 on:** 15 Jul 2022, 06:33 pm »

That's a small room.
I'm using a 75 WPC VTL tube amp with LRS' in that size room, it works fine with a small REL sub.
I don't know how an Emotiva would work. Is that rated for 4 Ohms?

sunnydaze · « **Reply #4 on:** 15 Jul 2022, 06:42 pm »

According to Frank Van Alstine, his 60wpc amp works great on the LRS. Probably because it doubles down into 4 ohms?

https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=180924.msg1901638#msg1901638

No idea how the Emotiva will fare. As others have said, it likely depends on how loud you listen.

I.Greyhound Fan · « **Reply #5 on:** 15 Jul 2022, 08:19 pm »

I will be honest that I am in the camp that Maggies sound best with high current, high capacitance and high power amps. The amp also needs to be able to handle dips down to 2 ohms. Sure a 60 wpc receiver should be able to drive a pair of MMG's or LRS's but not very loud without clipping and with loss of dynamics and depth. I had an Adcom GFR 700 AVR that was 225 wpc 2ch driven and 150 wpc x 5. I could easliy clip that receiver with my MMG's with loud dynamic music.

An AVA SET 120 at 60wpc which doubles at 4 ohms will do better than an Emotiva 60 wpc receiver. I reviewed the SET 120 with my Magnepan 1.6's and while it sounded very good at low levels, it paled in comparison to my Pass X250 with 500wpc at 4 ohms with medium to loud levels.

Just my experience for what its worth.

mick wolfe · « **Reply #6 on:** 15 Jul 2022, 09:27 pm »

My experience with Maggies over the years pretty much mirrors what you've said. This especially true if you want them to scale at all on classical, big band, etc. In regard to Maggies and power, the more the merrier.

Elizabeth · « **Reply #7 on:** 15 Jul 2022, 09:29 pm »

IT really all depends on what the person listens to and how loud they want to listen to it. Plus can the amp do 4 ohms?
Bass is the big problem. Playing music with a lot of bass, Heavy Metal. thrash, loud will kill the maggies using 60 watts. I mean ruin them. dead. The amp will be overrun producing square waves and break the speakers.
On the other hand of all they ever play are string quartets at moderate volume. No problem.
It is usually best to be on the safe side. and 60 watts ? Like I wrote all depends on what they play... and how loud.
Personally giving advice to friends is fraught with danger. So the OP here is caught in the middle.
So when he says go ahead and the guys friends come over want to play the latest heavy metal album at max volume.... then it ruins the amp the speakers etc, Glynnw will get the blame. trust me 100% he will be blamed.

Letitroll98 · « **Reply #8 on:** 15 Jul 2022, 09:59 pm »

I ran my modified MMGs with everything from a 20 watt high current NAD to a 400 watt amp. The 400 watt amp really opened up the speakers. For most of the time I ran a 200 watt amp and it was sufficient, but I wouldn't have minded the extra power.

Jeff_From_Michigan · « **Reply #9 on:** 16 Jul 2022, 01:34 pm »

Quote from: Elizabeth on 15 Jul 2022, 09:29 pm

IT really all depends on what the person listens to and how loud they want to listen to it. Plus can the amp do 4 ohms?
Bass is the big problem. Playing music with a lot of bass, Heavy Metal. thrash, loud will kill the maggies using 60 watts. I mean ruin them. dead. The amp will be overrun producing square waves and break the speakers.
On the other hand of all they ever play are string quartets at moderate volume. No problem.
It is usually best to be on the safe side. and 60 watts ? Like I wrote all depends on what they play... and how loud.
Personally giving advice to friends is fraught with danger. So the OP here is caught in the middle.
So when he says go ahead and the guys friends come over want to play the latest heavy metal album at max volume.... then it ruins the amp the speakers etc, Glynnw will get the blame. trust me 100% he will be blamed.

LOL - Elizabeth is right on the money!

That said, I used to run MMG's, and for a while 3.6r's, with a 45 watts per channel conrad-johnson CAV-50 control amp with spectacular results.

No idea how the Emotiva would work with Maggies, though....

jjss49 · « **Reply #10 on:** 16 Jul 2022, 09:54 pm »

'elizabeth' may be right, but 'she' sure talks like a beer drinkin skeet shootin' guy... just sayin...

Stercom · « **Reply #11 on:** 16 Jul 2022, 11:27 pm »

Magnepan speakers are 86db into 4 ohms (dipping lower in certain frequencies) so it all depends on how well the output transformers are built in that Emotiva receiver. At 10 feet a 86db speaker can put out 97db SPL with 60 watts so the 60 watts is much less important than how the transformers handle low impedances. I’m guessing the Emotiva wouldn't sound too good even though it would get plenty loud.

SET Man · « **Reply #12 on:** 17 Jul 2022, 02:33 am »

Quote from: glynnw on 15 Jul 2022, 05:45 pm

I am trying to help a non-audiophile buddy put together a system. Power will be from a 60 watt Emotiva receiver - can he use a small pair of Maggies in a 10 x 12 room?

Hey!

Believe it or not I used to drive my Maggie 1.5QR with 18wpc SET tubes amps in a room a bit smaller than yours. And the combo sounded great! Better than when I was using 250wpc SS amp. Yeah, those 1.5QR were too big for my room back then

Since I don't really listen to music very loud anyway, most of the time I rarely go above 85-88dB peak. Well, until I got into Single Driver speaker... that's another story.

Anyway, first make sure your receiver/amp can handle 4 ohm load. Well, I hope I'm not I'm opening a can of worm here... but not watts are created equal though. My experience was with tube amp which won't blow out tweet if is running out of steam and clipped. If you don't listen to music very loud I think you should be fine with that receiver to start with.

Buddy

jjss49 · « **Reply #13 on:** 17 Jul 2022, 04:02 am »

one a more serious note

if this is the receiver.... https://www.soundstageaccess.com/index.php/equipment-reviews/1164-emotiva-basx-ta1-stereo-receiver

then i think at reasonable volumes in that small room it should be fine... class ab amp section stage 60 into 8, 100 into 4 are the published ratings, pics show a decent sized power supply transformer...

glynnw · « **Reply #14 on:** 17 Jul 2022, 04:42 am »

Thanks. He is wavering at the thought of spending over $500 for a pair of speakers, so the Maggies are out. Since he lives in Portland there are plenty of local speakers he can consider. Thanks again for all the comments. I feel sure the Emotiva receiver thingie will work well for him.

Audiofossil · « **Reply #15 on:** 17 Jul 2022, 06:58 am »

Good idea. The Maggie’s wouldn’t be able to do what they’re capable of doing without more power.

tglove · « **Reply #16 on:** 30 Nov 2022, 03:47 am »

I have Magnepan LRS and powering with Naim Uniti Atom at times (40wpc) and pretty happy with it. I also have a much beefier McCormack DNA HT3 (150wpc into 8 ohms) so I can compare and you definitely hear a grander stange with more details being revealed and more depth but in a small room at lower volumes the Naim performs very admirably.

mcgsxr · « **Reply #17 on:** 30 Nov 2022, 04:28 pm »

In my "larger" room (20x25x7) I never ran Maggies (either MMG or 1.6QR with less than 175wpc, and loved them on 525wpc) but this integrated comparison might be worth a read for the prospective owner - https://6moons.com/audioreviews/magnepan2/1.html

I.Greyhound Fan · « **Reply #18 on:** 30 Nov 2022, 10:26 pm »

Quote from: mcgsxr on 30 Nov 2022, 04:28 pm

In my "larger" room (20x25x7) I never ran Maggies (either MMG or 1.6QR with less than 175wpc, and loved them on 525wpc) but this integrated comparison might be worth a read for the prospective owner - https://6moons.com/audioreviews/magnepan2/1.html

Those aren't exactly budget integrated amps at around $1500 when pairing with a $700 speaker. A lot of people run the Outlaw RR2160 with Maggies with good results.

A_shah · « **Reply #19 on:** 30 Nov 2022, 10:50 pm »

Klaus at Oddessy made a special amp for me to run with my Maggie's sold both the amp and the Maggies I believe it had huge capacitors and 160 watts each channel maggies love quality power

Asghar