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I was just wandering if anyone had any thoughts about what these maggies and if my Proton D1200 amp is enough for them?
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However, many older solid-state amps sound "transistory" even in good condition. The treble is artificial and airless.It wasn't until Motorola came up with some good bipolar transistors for audio service that amps like the InnerSound ESL-300 started to overcome the sonic issues of solid-state.
Your amp should drive the MG1-c's OK, since it has 100 watts per channel and some dynamic headroom above that. The MG1-c manual says to use at least 14 gauge (12 is better) speaker cable since the speaker impedance is only 5 ohms. With a smaller diameter wire a significant fraction of the amplifier's power will go into heating the wire instead of producing sound.I found all of the above information in a few seconds with Google!
The optimum wire gauge has to do with sonic performance, not DC resistance. Even 20-gauge wire will have about 0.1 ohms resistance for a piece 10 feet long. A pair of these made into a speaker cable would have a resistance of 0.2 ohms. This is small compared to the 5-ohm speaker load. For a power of 100 watts in the speaker, there would be about 4 watts dissipated in such a cable.Adding this 0.2 ohms of resistance will decrease the damping factor of most amps, and this might affect the bass performance. IMO, it would also make the system sound lean, but very clear. My experience confirms what I've been told about the gauge effect: 14-gauge is optimal for tonal balance, with larger wire sounding bass-heavy and smaller wire sounding too lean and bright.
A 10-foot cable made of 14-gauge wire would have a DC resistance of 0.05 ohms, and have negligible effect on power loss or damping factor for most amps.
Well, this is from the MG1-C manual:"Since the MGI-c is a 5 Ohm loudspeaker, some power losses are possible when wire of too small a diameter is used for a given length. For instance, 20 feet of two-conductor #22 gauge speaker wire will yield only 75-85 watts from a 100-watt amplifier (150-170 watts from a 200-watt amplifier). This can result in as much as a 25% power loss! We recommend a minimum of #14 gauge (the smaller the number, the larger the wire) for runs up to 20 feet. #12 gauge or larger is recommended for wire length of 20 feet or longer."
It does seem that they got their calculation wrong, though.
resistance of #22 gauge copper wire, per foot: 0.016 Ohm
resistance of 20 feet of #22 two-conductor wire: 40 x 0.016 = 0.64 Ohmfraction of power lost in wire = .64/5.64 = 11.35%
With 12 gauge wire, I calculate a 1.2% loss in the wires.
And with 14 gauge wire, the loss is 1.9%.
I'm not worried about my Speaker wire I running the audioquest CV-8 Cables. I just wanted to know about the amp thank you. I'm still kinda new to the magnepans so just wanted to make sure.
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