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REVIEW: Sanders Sound Systems Magtech Amplifier (SS)

Model:	Magtech
Category:	Amplifier (SS)
Suggested Retail Price:	$5,000
Description:	Two Channel Solid State Amplifier
Manufacturer URL:	Sanders Sound Systems

Review by jsm71 on April 30, 2012 at 15:21:46 IP Address: 216.82.182.34

Add Your Review for the Magtech

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I noticed no review for this amp here, but I wanted to wait until I had 6 months of use before reporting. I have a long and uninteresting story of how I settled in on selecting the Sanders Magtech, but I will begin by saying I am big on integrity and dealing with suppliers who are approchable, flexible, and very responsive to upfront inquiries and after the fact requests. Roger Sanders is one such individual.

He allows you to try his amp for 30 days on his shipping nickle, both ways, and in my case provided a simple modification at no cost as well. I had a need to raise the amp's input impedance to 100k ohms to mate with my Cary tube preamp. He agreed that it would help and simply did it for me. He further provides a lifetime transferable warranty. His amp is fairly priced for what you get and well built, but not to a visual jewelry level that has no bearing on the performance. It has a very clean look, albeit a bit plain. I will stick with the performance over cosmetics any day.

The amp is in fact very simple looking and without any controls, except the power switch and voltage selectors in the back. If you have electrostatic, planar magnetic, or other difficult to drive speakers, I highly recommend the Sanders Magtech. My Magnepan 1.7 speakers like all Maggies will drink all the power you give them and are rated as a 4 ohm load. Despite the debates over power needs that rage over in the planar asylum, I happen to believe that Maggies need lots of power. You can soften the sound of amp clipping with a tube amp running Maggies, but with less than hundreds of watts of power clipping will occur. It is just a matter of how much and how often.

The Magtech is rated at 900 watts per channel at 4 ohms, 500 with an 8 ohm speaker. Three times the headroom of a McIntosh amp it replaced. One selling point for me is the power management Sanders deploys. He has designed a regulated power supply that keeps the voltage stable across varying loads, which results in very efficient power output and cool running. As suggested I keep the amp turned on 24 x 7 to keep it at its optimal operating temperature, which maximizes the quality of the sound. Left on like this it is still barely warm. My Mac amp got hot despite the massive heat sinks it employed, and it also broke my back lifting it. The Magtech weighs 55 pounds, no featherweight but rack and back capable.

As to the sound I find it to be totally neutral while allowing the sonic charater of your preamp and source systems to simply flow through unaffected. This amp gets out of the way, but contributes mightily when the dynamic bursts are called for or when bass needs to be tightly controlled. My prior amp was a McIntosh which to my ears had a milder sound to it. Many other solid state amps in this price range, specifically Bryston, sound edgy or forward to me. The Magtech is right down the middle. I would say it has no sound charater to it at all except to open everything else up. Micro dynamics are awesome.

I use a Cary tube preamp and find the combination wonderful. I would think any good tube preamp would serve this role. The Cary cooks the sound and the Magtech exploits it. For me, full solid state is too sterile with Maggies.

The Magtech has no gain or balance controls. Luckily my Cary has separate left and right gain controls for balance adjustments as well a master gain control. I keep the balance levels fairly low so that I can use some swing with the master gain control to urge the best sound from the preamp. I turn the preamp on and off to save the tubes, but lower the master gain to zero when not in use. This removes any popping since the amp is already on.

I may upgrade to bigger Maggies some day, but I already have enough amp now to drive anything they make with a quality level I can count on.

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Product Weakness:	The power switch is hard to reach and somewhat cramped by the power cord, won't win any beauty awards.
Product Strengths:	Power, cool operation, staggered speaker binding posts for easy connections, neutral sound, totally silent background.

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Associated Equipment for this Review:

Amplifier:	Sanders Magtech
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	Cary SLP-98P
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	Marantz reference TT with Clearaudio Virtuoso Cartridge
Speakers:	Magnepan 1.7
Cables/Interconnects:	Anti-cable speaker and interconnects. Pangea AC9 and Shunyata Venom 3 power cords.
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	Jazz, Classical, vocals, lighter popular
Room Size (LxWxH):	13 x 12 x 8
Room Comments/Treatments:	A quilt on the back wall keeps the room tame. Maybe too much, but the room is dead quiet.
Time Period/Length of Audition:	6 months
Other (Power Conditioner etc.):	PS Audio Quintet power conditioner
Type of Audition/Review:	Product Owner

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