[ajzepp]

Yeah I’d say definitely upgrade..  high current amps for magnepan

  Thats one thing that was easily proved true when I got this amp - that Maggies love current. Ive always felt the rep that Maggies arent dynamic was overblown, and once I gave them 600w to play with, it was even more clear. These little .7s are filling up a very open room with massive sound. So I can imagine a better quality high current amp will take things into the next level. Even my housemate, who really isnt into audio at all, loves to listen to them. What a great hobby this is.

[rollo]

  From our experience I could not agree more. Bring the juice.


charles

[I.Greyhound Fan]

Maggies are very dynamic.  They need proper wpc and high current to make them sing.  They don't play well with cheap amps for the most part.  I feel that subs are needed to fill in the bottom end.  Preferably, dual subs.

[I.Greyhound Fan]

Those PS Audio monos look great!

My son bought a pair of them to replace his A21.  They sounded great but he had a ground loop issue with them that we could not resolve so he returned them. 

[ajzepp]

Maggies are very dynamic.  They need proper wpc and high current to make them sing.  They don't play well with cheap amps for the most part.  I feel that subs are needed to fill in the bottom end.  Preferably, dual subs.

I decided to go with a pair of Gold Note PA-10 monoblocks, 500wpc into 4ohm, class A/B (proprietary circuit). They should be here by the end of the week, so I'm pretty excited to give them a go. Reviews seem very solid, and I've always wanted to pair Maggie with some monoblocks.

Thanks for all the feedback, everyone.

[Samac]

I decided to go with a pair of Gold Note PA-10 monoblocks, 500wpc into 4ohm, class A/B (proprietary circuit). They should be here by the end of the week, so I'm pretty excited to give them a go. Reviews seem very solid, and I've always wanted to pair Maggie with some monoblocks.

Thanks for all the feedback, everyone.

Wow, seems like an excellent choice. Been reading good things about the PA-10 for a few years now. I believe you’ll be very satisfied with them. Looking forward to your impressions.

Cheers,

Scott

[ajzepp]

Wow, seems like an excellent choice. Been reading good things about the PA-10 for a few years now. I believe you’ll be very satisfied with them. Looking forward to your impressions.

Cheers,

Scott

Thanks Scott. A friend of mine is a high end audio dealer,and he knew of a demo pair that was for sale. By all accounts, they should be a great match for the Maggies. Fingers crossed.

[SteveFord]

WHAT?
You didn't want to go with tube monoblocks that will shut your house down?
For shame...

Yeah, let us know what you think, please.

[ajzepp]

WHAT?
You didn't want to go with tube monoblocks that will shut your house down?
For shame...

Yeah, let us know what you think, please.

lol, your email was very persuasive, but...

Definitely will

[opnly bafld]

I decided to go with a pair of Gold Note PA-10 monoblocks, 500wpc into 4ohm, class A/B (proprietary circuit).

Class A/D according to the Darko review.

[ajzepp]

Class A/D according to the Darko review.

Yes indeed, thank you.

[ajzepp]

So I just spent the last week trying to diagnose the strangest thing I've seen with my system to date: I took delivery on these really nice, built like a tank, Gold Note PA-10 monoblocks. This was a demo pair, so supposedly they were broken in already. I excitedly connected them to my preamp, started going through my usual demo material to get a feel for baseline performance, and...it sounded like absolute ass. Vocals sounded wonky, and there was a fair bit of distortion at certain parts of tracks. Not exactly a great start.

So I spent hours and hours not only giving them plenty of run time to break in further, just to say that I did it, and I also went through a methodical effort to isolate each and every point in the signal path just to make sure it wasn't something else. Part of that process involved running each monoblock individually in stereo mode, since they still have plenty of power to drive the Maggies. Oddly enough, they both sounded exactly the same, with the same weird sound and same distortion in the same parts of various tracks. I was truly perplexed. What are the chances that both of these amps developed the same issue from the time they were shipped until I hooked them up in my system? Probably pretty small, obviously.

So, to make a long story less long, for whatever reason, these amps just don't seem to pair well with Magnepans. I even made two recordings - one with the new amps, and one with the budget Class D amp I've been using for the past year or two. My regular amp sounded dynamic and clean, with zero audible distortion. This confirmed that it had to be the amps. The dealer had no idea, and I had no option other to return them. So they're in the process of being shipped back for a refund.

Next up will be my next choice - the Bel Canto 600m monoblocks. I know stereophile loves the pairing with the .7 Maggies, and there are several owners here on AC that suggested the Bel Cantos to me, as well. So I'm hoping this ends up being the right match.

[S Clark]

What about fixing the Butler?  It's reputedly a decent amp with the power to drive your speakers.

[ajzepp]

What about fixing the Butler?  It's reputedly a decent amp with the power to drive your speakers.

Yes, I love that amp. Unfortunately it's now 15 years old, and it's been back to the mother ship 3x. That gets really expensive, and I've sort of lost faith in their ability to get the repair right. I think BK Butler is in semi-retirement (?), and so I'm often dealing with his assistant...just got to the point where it really felt like time to retire it. Also, when I hooked up the cheaper class D amp, which has double the wattage, it did seem like the Maggies responded to that. So I kind of want to stick with something higher current than the Butler, even though the Butler drives them well. I figured 15 years was a pretty good run.

[ajzepp]

The 600m monos have arrived. Will have time this weekend to fire them up (prob tomorrow morning).

I give up trying to get it right side up.

[Craig B]

For what it's worth, I've been using a pair of PS Audio's M700 monoblocks with my .7s since September, and I love them. Superb detail without any etchiness in the highs, great tonal/timbral accuracy, and with 700 wpc into the Maggie's 4 ohm loads, tons of headroom that translates into a real ease in their sound. They're the most "real" sounding amps I've ever had. For reference, my history is GAS Son of Ampzilla with MG-1s, then a B&K ST-140 with MG-1s, then the B&K with .7s, then an Emo BasX A-300 with the .7s, and now the M700s. If that sounds like a lot, that process took from 1978 to 2020.

[ajzepp]

For what it's worth, I've been using a pair of PS Audio's M700 monoblocks with my .7s since September, and I love them. Superb detail without any etchiness in the highs, great tonal/timbral accuracy, and with 700 wpc into the Maggie's 4 ohm loads, tons of headroom that translates into a real ease in their sound. They're the most "real" sounding amps I've ever had. For reference, my history is GAS Son of Ampzilla with MG-1s, then a B&K ST-140 with MG-1s, then the B&K with .7s, then an Emo BasX A-300 with the .7s, and now the M700s. If that sounds like a lot, that process took from 1978 to 2020.

That's funny, the B&K ST-140 was my very first "real" amp. I picked one up used back in the early 90s. One of Bobby Palkovich's (Merlin Audio) associates had started his own speaker company called Sterling Acoustics, and that was the amp I paired them with. Good times! I had several people recommend the PS Audio monoblocks, so I have no doubt those are fantastic, and that you're getting some killer sound from the .7s. These .7 Maggies are just magical. I mainly bought a pair because my housemate (and me to a degree) were kidn of tired of the 3.6s dominating the living room. I ended up actually liking the cohesive nature of the .7 better than the 3.6, even though I do miss that ribbon tweeter at times. Happy listening!