CJ Old-Timer

[TonyK]

Hello everyone. I am the owner of a vintage MV 100 amp and PV 9a pre-amp, both bought new back in the 90s. I bet my equipment is older than many of you! Because of work demands, travel, and a succession of moves my equipment was left boxed and unused for too many years. Now I have my system working again and catching up on all the listening I have missed these past years, and I'm looking forward to catching up on changes in cj-world.

As long as I have your attention, I separately posted a question about pairing my amp with a pair of Magnepans. I'm looking at the 3.7i, but am uncertain whether my amp will drive those speakers. Spoke with someone at Magnepan and was told my amp should drive the 1.7i's with no problem, but that the 3.7i's might be a stretch. Does anyone have any insights into this issue? I would be interested in hearing about your experience driving Magnepans with your equipment.

Looking forward to many interesting conversations with all of you.

[admin]

I've used a pair of Magnepan 20.1's with a CJ Evolution 2000 and now CJ ART300's. Yes, these are higher power than the MV100, but the maggies should do fine with the MV100. I've always had the preamps on very low volume settins as the maggies played plenty loud. Unless you want to play the music at 120 db (which they would not sound good even if you did), the 90 watts of power should be fine. It really is more about quality watts than quantity of watts, especially with maggies played at reasonable volumes.

Yes, maggies are inefficient speakers so you may have to turn the volume knob a little higher than most conventional speakers, but that is a small price to pay for the great sound you are going to get out of that setup. And when it comes to price vs performance, it's really hard to beat magnepan.

I would not have any hesitation with that setup.

[TonyK]

Thanks for the information. This is useful.