All New Magico A5 Loudspeakers // Biggest "BANG" For Your BUCK On The Market ?!

“Not connected with Magico in any way”

Riiiiiiight.  But your friend of a friend of a friend who happens to be a dealer....

you could buy some kefs for a fraction of the cost of the magico.

https://www.soundvisionreview.com/hi-fi-home-theater/speakers/kef-q550-review/

Magico are overpriced for what you get. Why pay $100K when you can buy a speaker for 500 bucks? 

Can't think of a reason except the need to disburse excess cash.

"you could buy some kefs for a fraction of the cost of the magico."

You could buy some Magicos for a fraction of the cost of the KEF.


https://us.kef.com/speaker/flagship-hi-fi-speakers/muon.html

I wasnt talking about the MUON. I was talking about the cheaper kef Q550. Can you prove to me that the Magico are better? I challenge you to prove it to me glupson

kenjit,

"I challenge you to prove it to me glupson"

OK Corral at noon.

You bring KEFs, I bring Magicos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIpVWTZYWr8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfgQWvhu8s4

Maybe they made these new A5's a little too good ! 
 
https://www.audioshark.org/magico-61/magico-a5-s-arrive-18065.html?s=26bb840fef524534c6aaebe428519c04

They are just metal boxes with drivers in 'em instead of the usual wooden boxes! 

"They are just metal boxes with drivers in ’em instead of the usual wooden boxes!"

Koenigsegg Agera RSs are just carbon fibre boxes with drivers in ’em instead of the usual Amish buggy fiberglass boxes!

glupson I dare you to prove to me right now that the Magico has better measurements than a cheap speaker. I dont care how much effort went into making the Magicos. It all comes down to whether the Magico is superior or not. 
Mr Magico. If you are reading this post, I hereby challenge you!
Even superior measurements are worthless if they are inaudible! I dare you to show me the proof!!

kenjit,

I have never heard these particular Magico speakers, but have heard one more expensive Magico model. I have no idea how it measured, but it did sound better than many cheaper ones and some more expensive ones.

troll thread alert

It all comes down to whether the Magico is superior or not. 

Go enjoy your cheap speakers and your measurement charts. No one is forcing you to listen to, or even consider Magicos, or any other speaker. You seem to have found your personal holy grail, so just enjoy it. 

The Esoteric 30 watt Class A amp makes these A5's sing !
 
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0yNqu83yXY

+1 jjss49

glupson I dare you to prove to me right now that the Magico has better measurements than a cheap speaker. I dont care how much effort went into making the Magicos. It all comes down to whether the Magico is superior or not.
Mr Magico. If you are reading this post, I hereby challenge you!
Even superior measurements are worthless if they are inaudible! I dare you to show me the proof!!

So you ask for measurements to prove that Magico is better than a cheap speaker. Then in the same breath you say  "Even superior measurements are worthless"......

Are you a politician by day, and a high end speaker basher by night?


Oz

I am extremely impressed with the sound produced by the Magico A5 speakers. The midrange is excellent and an improvement over the A3, the bass is tight, clean, and sounds effortless like a well-integrated high-quality subwoofer, and the soundstage was wonderful.

At ~$20k the A5s are a very, very attractive value proposition.

As for measurements, anyone can refer to the SoundStage! Network and Stereophile data to compare against other speakers. What I (and others) hear backs up the superior quality implied by those measurements.

Nothing against Magico’s...I  would not consider any speaker with 88db efficiency. 
A high efficiency speaker >95db is godsend, they are so easy to drive with tube or pure class A amplification. 

I sense such anger in these posts about the A5, why?

As for measurements, anyone can refer to the SoundStage! Network and Stereophile data to compare against other speakers. What I (and others) hear backs up the superior quality implied by those measurements.

If they are so superior why wont Magico publish it themselves? 

I auditioned the A5 last week, it is mind-blowing good. The dealer had a very well-known ~50K€ speakers on demo he was trying to sell me at a “loss”. He eventually had to agree that the A5 blows it away, at half the price. I now have to figure out how to upgrade from my A3.  

"I sense such anger in these posts about the A5, why?"

It is cool to be against the cool boy in your school.

The problem is that, despite all the hype it gets, Magico makes some good speakers. I am not a fanboy by any means, but what I have heard sounds fine.

Curious when instrument builders will start implementing aluminum, concrete and granite to their designs...

Wig 🤭

A loudspeaker is not a musical instrument 😒

kenjit1,065 posts
09-15-2020 7:33pm
I wasnt talking about the MUON. I was talking about the cheaper kef Q550. Can you prove to me that the Magico are better? I challenge you to prove it to me glupson


How about, for something different, you prove that you are right?
Prove that they are not better than the Q550.

"Curious when instrument builders will start implementing aluminum, concrete and granite to their designs... "

Instruments? You mean computers and other sound synthesizers? Piano stores are going the way of Hi-Fi stores.

"Giant killer"? $21800 is a ridiculous, decadent, sum for any speakers. 

Yes, but have you seen that giant?

Glupson, kenjit has a condition that he can only hear yoko ono. I don’t care how good the speaker is, how can you prove one is better than the other with that? It’s a suckers bet, lol

I know Alon personally and I have an engineering R&D background. We have worked on some techniques for his speakers and I can tell you this. The materials he is using are very expensive and the techniques cost a lot to implement. I prototyped a honeycomb stressed skin design 20 years ago and it was like listening to an electrostatic. 

@jkf011 has it right. A $22k speaker represents good value?

I paid ~2300 for a pair of Harbeth 30.1, and while I am quite sure that there are better, more expensive speakers, the returns diminish so sharply above a certain point, that I would never consider paying anything like 10x the cost.

The materials he is using are very expensive and the techniques cost a lot to implement.

But you could just use concrete which isnt expensive so its still overpriced

Discussants, may I ask if anyone has compared the Magico's, the Rockport Avior 11's, the B&W 802d3's, and Revel studio 11 in particular consideration of features contributing to the cost of each.  Specifically:  1. Do the Magico's and Rockports employ costlier drivers and crossovers, and if so does this make a sonic difference ?  2.  Does the 802d3's' enclosure technology....tubed tweeter, 'turbine head' midrange, semi-ovate base enclosure....allow cabinet inert-ness and other advantage equivalent to or superior to that inherent in the Magico aluminum design or the ultra-thick MDF, backward-raked Rockport design ?  3. Does the technological prowess and volume-related production efficiency putatively attributed to B&W and Revel translate into either the B&W 802d3 or Revel 'Studio 11' offering sonic quality equivalent to the just-cited Magico and Rockport models ?
Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

" But you could just use concrete which isnt expensive so its still overpriced" 

Concrete is actually a lousy material from a time domain perspective. The goal of lightweight critically damped materials is clean rapid decay with low coloration. There are some implementations of using synthetic casting materials that can be cast with reinforcements to gain strength without excessive mass but the implementation of those and even concrete for that matter is a very expensive process. high precision moulds and formers are expensive to manufacture and many have only a few useable mold / de-mold cycles before they break down.

Not connected with Magico...but maybe soundstage??? Irresponsible journalism at best.

Not connected with soundstage in any way

Concrete is actually a lousy material from a time domain perspective. The goal of lightweight critically damped materials is clean rapid decay with low coloration.

Concrete is used by high end speaker companies. 
https://www.concrete-audio.com/en/

A lightweight material is not good as it will ring. If you damp it, it will just ring at a lower frequency. 

Aluminium is cheap anyway so there is no good reason for magico to charge such high prices. Magico do not publish evidence that their speakers are superior. Do not buy Magico.

You do not understand the physics behind electrodynamic modeling and excitation. The higher the fundamental frequency of natural resonance that is designed for creates a point where there will never be enough input stimuli to excite it in the amount of mass that a speaker will have.  There is not as much high frequency energy injected into the case as LF energy and there simply is not enough to excite a cabinet at high frequency especially being that the HF drivers have surrounds that basically isolate the cabinet from the dome. Aluminum is about 15x more expensive than MDF so I do not see where you could possibly state such a fallacy. 3/4" MDF 4x8 sheet is $45 where 3/4" 6061 is $745 and the same thickness honeycomb core aluminum is over $1,000. 

@dht4me 

you could use marble or concrete like the Thiel Audio CS5i. There is nothing special about aluminium. The trouble is Magico wont publish their measurements so it is impossible to verify any claims. 

It's impossible to compare how other speakers compare without measurements. Its impossible to know whether you couldnt achieve the same performance at a fraction of the cost without measurements. Its impossible to know if all the trouble and expense they go to is even audible is it? I dare you to prove it to me.

@kenjit 

I happen to own Apogee Divas and CS5i's  although extremely modded which have a cast marble baffle. These speakers were $10k in 1999 and would easily be 40K today. There is nothing inexpensive about the way the CS5i is made nor they way Alon is making his. Machining everything is extremely expensive and nobody should refute that. Is it the most cost effective way to produce a speaker? NO WAY!  But it costs what it costs to make it that way. His older designs are insanely expensive to manufacture.  B&W has gone the lighter weight stiffer way and have a very cost effective way to manufacture however for the clients Alon is going after nothing less would do as they want statement bespoke items.

not really. A quick search shows that a few years ago the CS5i were going for only under 4k bucks which would also be negotiable.

https://forum.polkaudio.com/discussion/169027/fs-thiel-cs5i-speakers

There are plenty of big heavy objects you can buy that cost very little. Bricks, concrete, cast marble etc. Aluminium has a nice finish so that is another reason it is used. There is no proof that the Magico method works or that it cant be done more cheaply. 
You could mount your drivers in the wall at a fraction of the cost and it would be far more inert.

We are talking new price which was 10k in 1999 vs the cost to make them today. You are off your rocker if you think they could produce that speaker for 4k today.  There is at least 6K in wholesale raw drivers and caps alone. They are only cheap on the used market and mainly because everyone knows you need a seriously expensive amp to drive them and a HUGE room. Much like the IRS Betas are cheap today vs the cost to manufacture them in 2020. Speakers that are power hungry and need big ass rooms are not in fashion now with the WAF.

+1 Whipsaw

kenijit  what do you have that is better than MAGICO nothing I'm sure.

@ebm 
nothing more than a hatchet to bury and gears to grind.  That one has a serious lack of business understanding and a real conspiracy theory bot.  

Once speakers become concrete barriers, or vice versa, the price will go up. If for no other reason then because of the delivery charge.

Kenjit and DHT4.me...and others.
Your comments are of great interest.
One implication is that driver cost does contribute significantly to high end speaker cost....I wonder again if the drivers used by Magico and Rockport are costlier and better than those used by Revel and B&W.
Another is that woofer enclosure inertness is very important....recall comments elsewhere that the B&W's ultra-rigid semi-ovate design is 'wasted' in comparison to standard rectilinear (or near so) configuration.
And I again ask if the greater R&D and volume-related production efficiency sometimes attributed to Revel and B&W (neither 'boutique manufacturers as perhaps viewed by high end and ? lower end users) translates into better value (approximately 50% lower cost of full range models)....or equivalent performance....in comparison to the Magico and Rockport offerings.

The A5 looks like a solid contender at its price when compared to the competition .