Marantz mono's

[Andrew Pratt]

I was wondering what people thought about the marantz MA500 monoblocks. Im considering using one to power my Sonosub and or my Maggie 1.4's.

[Pat]

Andrew, I have heard good things about the Marantz monoblock amps.
The MA500 are 125w and the MA700 are 200w. I would go with the 700 if you can (headroom)
I think Mike Knapp uses 5 MA500's in his system, he might be able to tell you more about them.




Pat's Page

[Crimson]

Andrew,
If the 1.4's that you have are anything like the 1.6's in terms of efficeincy, freq response etc, then the 500's won't do it at all, IMO, and the 700's might. I once tried a pair of 700's in my HT system driving the front 1.6's. They were ok for movies but I didn't particularly like them for music, but your mileage may vary.




Q.

[Andrew Pratt]

thanks crimson thats the kind of feedback I wanted. in your oppinion what sort of (real) wattage should I be looking at?

[Crimson]

Andrew,
As far as wattage is concerned, 200W from the 700 series mono's SHOULD be enough, after all I'm driving my front 1.6's with 250W per side with the Bryston 4B-ST. Like I mentiomned in the post above, the 700's were fine for HT use but I felt they were a little too dry and lacked headroom for music, but that may be subjective on my part. If possible, see if you can demo them in your system.




Q.

[Wireless]

Isn't it amazing the differences in amplifiers. I would bet that the Marantz probably puts out maybe 300-350 watts into 4 ohms, the Bryston 500 watts into 4 ohms. What startede out as a difference of 50 watts has now blossomed into a 200 watt difference. I hear Maggies are a pretty difficult load, if so it's not surprising that the Brystons sound much better. In fact I would love to have a couple of them in my system to replace a multi channel Classe amp!




John
My HT Picts

[Andrew Pratt]

wireless the maggies aren't that difficult really. Yes they are 4 ohm but when you plot that resistance its ery nearly perfectly flat ie its always 4 ohms not fluctuating like normal cone speakers.

[Markj]

I replaced my multi channel Classe amp with stereo Classe amps. Driving my Apogee speakers it did make a difference.

[Wireless]

I must be getting my planars mixed up. At 4 ohms then the Marantz would put out 350 watts or so. I think you'll hear a pretty significant improvement over your Denon receiver if you were to go that route. I would definitely go with the 700s though rather than the 500s




John
My HT Picts

[Andrew Pratt]

wireless I'm not using my denon to power my maggies but a HK 5 channel amp. As good as the denon is its not up to the task of powering five 4 ohm speakers.

[Westly197]

I'm using the Marantz MA700 to drive my Magnepan 1.6QR's and I'm very happy with the results. There rated at 300 Watts when driving a 4 Ohm load.




- Wes

My Home Theater