Description
Power (Stereo Version)
500 watts RMS per channel into an 8 ohm load
900 watts RMS per channel into a 4 ohm load
Bandwidth
DC through 100kHz
Class of Operation
Class AB
Input Impedance
100K unbalanced, 1K balanced
Input voltage required for full output
2.2 Volts
Noise
More than 110dB below rated output
Gain
26dB
THD
Less than 0.01%
Damping Factor
Greater than 600 into an 8 ohm load
Voltage
Voltage is user selectable for use world-wide.
Weight
55 pounds (25 Kgs)
Dimensions
17" wide x 6" (including feet tall) x 15" deep (including binding binding posts) 43cm x 15.2cm x 40.6cm
17" wide x 5.5" (NOT including feet) tall x 14" deep (NOT including binding binding posts) 43cm x 14cm x 35.5cm
HiFiPlus.com
"...an objectivist to the core (Roger Sanders) will make sure his designs spec to the best level he can manage. The result will be performance not only beyond what is likely necessary for any pair of speakers but at a constant throughout the power demand that any speaker or music dynamic would require to maintain maximum unaltered signal quality...
So, what struck me the most when listening to music with the Magtech? It was the groove. I was playing Led Zeppelin’s signature hit ‘Stairway to Heaven’ [Led Zep IV, Atlantic, 1971] John Bonham and John Paul Jones were backstopping the slow build from quiet folk styled beginning to driving rock and roll end with precise authority. Somewhere during the music, I began to understand Roger Sanders point about why a regulated power supply was so critical to the delivery of the music.
As the sound continued its crescendo with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant coming into the fore the naturalness and authority of the presentation never wavered. Nothing remotely brittle or edgy. It was this more life-like sonic consistency that makes the Magtech amplifier stand out from the crowd. The stated watts per channel are real with plenty of headroom for peaks and dynamics.
I had to remember that this was an amplifier designed to run electrostatic speakers effortlessly, so well does this amplifier drive dynamic loudspeakers; even loudspeakers with seemingly ‘punishing’ impedance loads. In fact, the load of a conventional speaker presents a much easier challenge to the Magtech. If you get the chance to demo the Sanders Sound Systems Magtech power amplifier you should take advantage of that opportunity. Like other products in the Sanders line, the Magtech amplifier is a remarkable piece of kit that deserves more attention from the press than it gets and comes very highly recommended."
" Read the entire three page review here.The Absolute Sound
by Robert E. Greene
This has to be short, so I'll get right to the point: If you paid $5000 US [$5,500 as at November 2014] or more for a presently available amplifier and did not check this one out first, you should have. There are, in some important ways, very few competitors for this design.
And some of these, like the Lightstar and its relatives, you cannot buy any more. This is not to take anything away from other power amplifiers, many of which work really well and sound all but perfect when they are not being stressed out too much. But when the going gets really tough, not just for loudness as such but for the complex and current demanding loads that speakers present in the real world, what one needs is a regulated power supply.
Hardly any contemporary amplifiers have this; this one does. This idea is not news to long-time TAS readers. Back in issue 25(!), Dave Wilson, then a TAS reviewer, wrote of some solid-state amplifier "The power supply is not regulated per se, but it is so stiff and so responsive that even on very deep, very loud material it is like unto a brick." Implied was the idea that regulated would be even better!
In practice, regulated power supplies are a true rarity in the output stages of power amplifiers of any substantial power, though they are almost universal in amplification devices at lower signal levels like preamps. They are almost universal there because they work better. And it seems they work better for large-signal purposes, too. They are just hard to arrange.
I do not have room to explain what is going on here or even what a regulated power supply is. You can get the basics at Wikipedia and there is further information on this amplifier specifically on the Sanders site (sanderssoundsystems.com).
The Magtech does not have a switched-mode power supply, the usual way to get power supply regulation in a practical form for power amps. The Magtech has a patented linear regulation system, and that makes it unique.
Does that matter? I have not run double-blind tests and so on, and of course there would be other variables since there is no way to un-regulate the regulated power supply for comparison. But in informal albeit concentrated listening, the Magtech not only drove the tricky Prince II electrostatic load very well, indeed, it also delivered truly superlative performance into dynamic speakers. The sound from my Harbeth M40s (original version) sounded precise, controlled, defined, dynamic, perfectly balanced, and extremely clean with unusually silent background and extreme solidity even in demanding passages.
Thundering piano music, for example, was as solid as a rock. The Sanders Magtech amp has power to spare, 500 watts per channel into 8 ohms, 900 into 4. But it sounds as if it had infinite power into anything with total stability. The Sanders Magtech joins (really only, in my experience) the Lightstar family and the DALI Gravity in extreme ability to handle anything and sound perfect while doing it. An instant classic in my book. Try it before you decide I am exaggerating. REG
Roger Sanders has been at this for 40 years. His first published article on Electrostatic Speakers was in 1974, followed by another on amplifiers to drive ESL's in 1976.
His contribution to audio include the invention of the curved, free-standing, electrostatic loudspeaker driver (click on image to right to view the published article); the development of extremely compact transmission line woofer systems; integration of electrostatic speakers and transmission line woofer systems; and, several "how to" construction articles in "The Audio Amateur" and "Speaker Builder" magazines.
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