I was at my local stereo shop in Madison, Wisconsin listening looking at all the goodies and the Magnepan rep happened to be there. He came in with a large box and opened up a solid state amp and mentioned that Magnepan was toying with the idea of having their own brand amp for their speakers.
He said the amp was 300 watts per channel. The amp did have name on it but I cannot remember it. It was not a familiar brand name. It looked like a small boutique manufacturer. It was made in the USA he said.
The amp needed a good warming up period. Well over 1/2 hour. Cold it sounded like crap but most amps are that way. He had a little technical difficulties in the beginning as it smelled like burning wiring. They tried another amp in its place, a 225 watt Anthem and it sounded good. Once they got their amp sorted out and warmed up, it sounded nice. It was hooked up to a set of Maggie 1.7's. They were using a Parasound P-5 as a pre for both tests. Not the best pre-amp, but ok.
Their amp might have been damaged as it sounded ok, but was outclassed by the Anthem.
The one thing I got out of this session was that you needed a pretty stout amp to drive the Maggies. The knob was twisting up to the 12 o'clock position to get them to sing. Now I see why they were trying out a 300 watt amp.
I do not know if they are going to go through with this or not. The Magnepan rep said he was asking all the dealers to comment on the idea. So if you see them come out with their own brand amp, you heard it here first.