Planar Speaker Asylum

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Planar Speaker Asylum

RE: Who Knew An AV Receiver Could Drive Magnepan's And Sound Good Too!

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In Reply to: RE: Who Knew An AV Receiver Could Drive Magnepan's And Sound Good Too! posted by Bigjimsguitars on July 22, 2015 at 15:03:06

You know you love this hobby when you can appreciate what lo, mid and hi-fi provides us, at any price range or era.

Congrats on your purchase.

Sounds like you are having fun!

Cheers!

Ed

"I know just enough to get into trouble. But not enough to get out of it."

Follow Ups:

RE: Who Knew An AV Receiver Could Drive Magnepan's And Sound Good Too! - Bigjimsguitars 17:11:55 07/22/15 (2)
Ed:

I was literally floored on how good it sounded. Both Yamaha and Pioneer over built and made decent stuff back then. No doubt, running it through a passive tube pre helps. Had to use the receiver as the master volume which wasn't hard to find the sweet spot. Understand, it is good, not great, but still puts a smile on my mug.

I think once you have dialed the room in regarding planars, that no matter what you have, it will sound decent.

Jim
ARS VS-110
Customized Bottlehead Foreplay II
Preamp
Magnepan 2.5R's
B&W ASW 300 Subs
Ah Tjoeb Tube CD Player
w/Siemens E288CC's
MaggieMate X/O's from subs to
2.5R's
- Luck may have played a part as well. - Jonesy 12:12:03 07/23/15 (0)
  You may have also stumbled on a good match by accident. (Good Karma!)
  
  Some vintage stuff I've tried with my Quad ESL 63's"
  
  In my case...
  
  Kenwood Model 600 Integrated (130 watts per side) - Bought new a looong time ago. Great amp with Jensen 15's, but not with the Quads, the purchase of the latter being the beginning of a whole new road.
  
  Yamaha CA-810 Integrated (65 watts per side) - wow, this one took me by surprise. Great little back-up amp. Cost me $75 used. Bought in 2010. I still have this and am pleasantly surprised anytime I put it in my system.
  
  Robertson 4010 power amp (65 watts per side) - good match with the Quads. Gave many products in it's price range and higher a run for the money. Ran this for 20 years. I still have it, but it's now crippled, sitting in a box.
  
  These next three I auditioned after my Robertson went down. I had all 3 on hand so it was really convenient to compare. My go to audio store has always been good to me. This was sometime in 2007.
  
  (1)
  PS Audio HCA2 - this should have worked great, but didn't sound right when I auditioned it. Supposed to work well with Quads, but perhaps was a mismatch for my pre-amp?
  
  (2)
  ARC VT60 - I had a tube pre-amp already. This was my first tube power amp. Sounded like a contender.
  
  (3) ARC D70 - Wow. I didn't expect such a difference in sound. This was a winner and is still in my system. Even my son who was listening from upstairs ran down to see which amp I was running. After I purchased it I found many had felt the same way about it's match with the 63's. Due to it's age it does require maintenance from time to time. I only run NOS tubes. But I love it.
  
  So it was luck for me to have found a good amp and back-up integrated.
  
  Goes to show you how much time one should really spend trying components in their own home when possible. Even then it's hard to know the potential. Perhaps biasing issues or switching out other pieces in my system would have overall produced a better system. Who knows? Reading of other's experiences here on the Asylum is a huge benefit.
  
  Sorry, I guess I kinda' ran off a bit on this topic. Flame away!
  
  Jonesy,
  
  P.S. I just remembered a couple others. Cambridge Audio A640 was pleasant. Also, the little Nuforce Icon integrated was a real surprise, especially given it's price/size. I believe I posted something on the Nuforce here at some point.
  
  "I know just enough to get into trouble. But not enough to get out of it."
- RE: Who Knew An AV Receiver Could Drive Magnepan's And Sound Good Too! - Norman M 06:55:29 07/23/15 (0)
  "No doubt, running it through a passive tube pre helps."
  Can there be such an animal? I'm perhaps under the false impression that "passive" implies no 'juice'. I have used what can be considered a passive pre-amp in a Adcom SLC 505 (Straight Line Controller). But there aint't no way anyone is ever going to be able to use tubes in that baby.
  
  It doesn't seem as if there's any middle ground here. Either (as most have indicated) you need a Magtech to fully exploit a Maggie, or OTOH a modest vintage receiver can do the job even more than well enough. Oh well, after all this place is an asylum.

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