[johndsmistress]

Using 3 different pre-amps I tried to run the Magnepans with 5 different amps with no success. At 8 ohms for comparison, Rotel @ 370wpc, Bryston @ 250wpc, and Vincent, Outlaw and Soundcraftsmen. Weak, flat, cardboard sound. My Martin Logan Quests weren't this difficult. Talked to Frank and one of his people and ended up with a 'Super Pas Three' tube preamp made by Frank in 1988. Then a solid state 170 in a 120 chassis putting out 90wpc. They insisted this would out perform the more powerful amps in the refurbished list.
Voodoo. Nothing else explains the endless volume, clean and past the point of my hearing tolerance, on such a difficult speaker to drive. My search is over for speakers, pre and power amps. My Benchmark DAC and iMac round it off. Amazing.

[Tone Depth]

Frank is a wonderful resource, and his AVA equipment performs great!

[werd]

Hello

What Bryston amp was it ?

[Wayner]

I have a 170 in a Dynaco Stereo 120 chassis, everything old inside stripped away. This is one very musical, and powerful 90wpc amp, indeed. Glad you like it.

Wayner

[Minn Mark]

I'm using an AVA Insight system (Pre-EC, DAC and 440H amp) with Maggie 3.6R's with no problems. Way overkill as far as ampage using the AVA--sounds amazing !

Mark

[johndsmistress]

Hello

What Bryston amp was it ?

For the forum (I'm new at this) the Bryston amp was a 4B-ST. Bryston is currently hooked up parallel to stacked Large Advents.

[gjs_cds]

I called Frank about an amp once...  I was concerned if his amps would drive Acoustat 2+2's.  He was not concerned.  Ended up (at the time) with an Omega III 440HC.  He was very, very right.  His products brought out a level of the electrostatics that I didn't know was possible.

[TONEPUB]

I'm surprised you had a hard time driving magnepans with Bryston.  I'm not much of a Bryston fan, but everytime I've heard Bryston with Magnepan, the results were always very good.  System synergy is a bizarre and fleeting thing!

[johndsmistress]

No one was more surprised than me. I bought the amp on e-Bay in superb condition just for these speakers. Synergy is a good description for the flat sound. On the other hand my stacked Advents (top one upside down) never sounded so good, especially with movies.

[rollo]

Using 3 different pre-amps I tried to run the Magnepans with 5 different amps with no success. At 8 ohms for comparison, Rotel @ 370wpc, Bryston @ 250wpc, and Vincent, Outlaw and Soundcraftsmen. Weak, flat, cardboard sound. My Martin Logan Quests weren't this difficult. Talked to Frank and one of his people and ended up with a 'Super Pas Three' tube preamp made by Frank in 1988. Then a solid state 170 in a 120 chassis putting out 90wpc. They insisted this would out perform the more powerful amps in the refurbished list.
Voodoo. Nothing else explains the endless volume, clean and past the point of my hearing tolerance, on such a difficult speaker to drive. My search is over for speakers, pre and power amps. My Benchmark DAC and iMac round it off. Amazing.

  Hopefully you used the 4 Ohm taps of the amp. Secondly did you connect the jumper wires correctly. There is no way that Bryston could not properly drive 1.6s. Maybe out of phase? It is possible I have done it myself. The tonality and harmonic structure is another thing. I believe something might be connected incorrectly.


charles

[avahifi]

Of course one possibility is that the AVA amplifier was just a lot better sounding. 

I know, difficult to contemplate this.

Regards,

Frank Van Alstine

[johndsmistress]

I have to agree, these speakers wanted something special and AVA did the trick.