Auditioned Magico A3 - VERY DARK...
Regardless of brand and model of speaker, you can't just slap a rig together and expect fantastic results. Speakers can exhibit a wide range of sound characteristics based on component selection and wiring. In addition, listeners will vary widely on perception of what is "dark" vs. not. I have heard Magico sound meh, and pretty good at other times. |
Having heard the A3’s on two different occasions, and with two different amps, one ss...one tube, I concur with the OP. These speakers sound dark and somewhat ‘colored’ to my ears. I suspect that the reason is the usual suspect...the beryllium dome that so many manufacturers insist on using. This driver, to my ears, always sounds bright and hard...sometimes resulting in a dark and ‘colored’ presentation...depending on the design of the speaker and the ancillary gear. Why so many manufacturers insist in using this type of driver is beyond me? There are so many great ribbon/ silk dome/ electro drivers out there, why bother with this design?? Since most if not all of the Magico drivers are sourced from Morel, perhaps it makes sense?? |
As I mentioned in my thread where I reported on listening to various speakers: I listened to the A3s in a very large basement area that, at least on looks, should have provided very little issues in bass, and the proprietor said his room measures really well for bass (he demos Magico there all the time). Yet I found the A3's bass on the tubby, uncontrolled side for quite a number of cuts that are not that way on my system, or many other systems I've demoed. Just another anecdotal data point, there.... |
I think in general the consensus is that Magico may need careful pairing. They seem to recommend Hegel 360 as low end Amp that works well with it, and that’s a lot of power out of integrated amp and solid state with high damping factor. Pairing with Tubes maybe not ideal, but one may have to check various tubes and see which might work. |
Most Magico's I've heard, including A3, sounded very damped in the mids, which can be perceived as transparency. I find myself looking at the speaker instead of the soundstage, and hear a slight woodiness. But maybe that comes from sitting close. The S5 Mkii sounded very good at Axpona, but it was a huge room and I was sitting 20 ft away. |
"IMHO the speaker is only reproducing what they are being fed." This may be true when switching sources but it completely rejects the results of all the A/B testing done when switching speakers in the same system. And we all know different speakers sound different in the same system and in the same room. |
I listened to the Magico S5's and after about 2 minutes, I asked the salesperson "where's the bass?" So, everybody hears things differently. I also listened to the Audio Physic Avantera + and they were even more lacking in bass, in spite of their terrific imaging. Ultimately, I listened to the Rockport Avior's and the EgglestonWorks Viginti. I ended up buying the Eggleston's because I felt that they sounded better across the spectrum. I made the right decision for me and could not be happier. After a 100 hour burn in they sound amazing-- using tube amps, of course. |
@alexb76 , I don’t think anyone is suggesting your impression of the A3’s from your audition was not candid. And FWIW I for one would not claim Magico are the best speakers ever made. At this level “best” is a subjective term as we all have different ears and personal preferences. Scott Walker is an expert in room setup & usually gets very good sound out of the Magico’s under notoriously difficult show conditions, so I’d rule out room issues. The bottom line is the jury is out as there was insufficient time in your audition to a-b compared a good ss amp. |
Thanks for the feedback guys. I heard what I heard. Some may claim Magico is the best speaker ever made, etc and it maybe true. However, in that setup, it didn’t at all meet my taste. It was 100% lacking on the top end as I played some familiar music that I’ve heard many many times in systems worth $100K+ or with best headphones. It very well maybe the setup in that room as even the rep admitted that. So, I reserve final judgement until I listen to them once more with solid state. Wiring was top notch, can’t quite remember the brand though so that’s not it. Re size: It has a smaller footprint that my B&W 805D with a stand. |
chandybe2 posts07-08-2018 2:44amHi guys, I am considering buying the A3s but I believe they do not support biwiring/biamping - is that a disadvantage? I thought most speakers in this price bracket would have that capability. Could that be why the OP had that impression? ThanksCorrect. The A3’s like most Magico speakers are single wired. That is mainly to avoid potential impedance issues with customers mixing different brands or models of cables for the low & high terminals. Bi-wiring has the potential to slightly improve the sound (providing the crossover is properly setup for bi-wiring). That said, when I sold my Marten Coltrane Alto’s & bought Magico S5 Mk1’s, I sold my Jorma Origo biwire cables & used the funds to buy single wired Jorma Prime sc’s. So you can use the savings to invest in better cables which imho can result in a bigger improvement (than bi-wiring). |
Magico's current line of speakers are so transparent, linear and resolving of micro and macro details, that your ears need time to adjust to what they’re hearing. That also means they honestly reflect what’s fed to them via upstream electronics. Rubbish in, rubbish out as they say. In my experience, generally speaking Magico is best paired with warm, tube-like ss amplification or tubed amps with good power & low impedance drive. The best combinations i’ve heard in ss amps are Vitus Signature & Masterpiece series, the new Vitus RI-101 integrated, Boulder 1100 series, Audio Analogue & Audia Flight. In tube or tube hybrid amps, Absolare, CAT & Conrad Johnson ART have known synergy. |
To add to my and Erik's previous comments, I suspect that an Audio Research amp would have presented the speaker in a better light than the VAC amp that was used. ARC amps have significantly lower output impedances than most other high quality tube amps. I say that as a happy owner of a VAC amp, used in conjunction with speakers having a particularly flat impedance curve. Regards, -- Al |
erik, Having auditioned the A3s I agree they have at least the potential from what I heard to be class leading in their price and something of a giant killer. Though it feels a bit odd to see myself write that insofar as they didn’t actually turn my crank at all. I much prefer, for instance, the Joseph Audio or Devore O series speakers I’ve just been auditioning. For instance, all the same drum tracks on the Devore speakers sounded significantly more "like drums" in terms of tone and character than through the A3s. And the Joseph speakers had a similar sense of clarity, lack of grain (actually better than the A3s in that regard) and transient precision (though smaller sound), yet voices had an incredibly authentic sounding warmth of timbre, making voices sound "real" in a way that I never heard once through the A3s.(I'm always comparing real to reproduced. For instance a recording I often play for evaluating male voice is The Beast In Me from Johnny Cash's american recordings. It's an amazing, bare recording of his voice with super soft guitar, that can sound startlingly real and in the room on the right system. When I play it auditioning speakers it's often with someone else in the room, usually a salesman who I might talk with. And when the recording is playing I listen carefully to the qualities of the "real" male voice vs the reproduce male voice - does the voice coming through the speaker have that same warm, damped, organic human quality and timbre I'm hearing from the real voice? Johnny cash through the JA speakers were seemingly bang on. About as close as I've ever heard. As I said, I never got that from the A3s for whatever reason. Also, whenever I audition speakers I investigate the sound from many angles and distances, to see where they integrate, sound most lively, or most rich, to move in or out of room nodes, etc. I did find the A3s (driven by a solid state amp I can no longer remember) could sound a tad "dark" from a number of positions, not quite having the sense of "air" of some other speakers (which could just be in their frequency variations of course). Though in some other positions the tone sounded less dark and more natural to me (actually moving further or closer did this, in my audition). |
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I can’t find any impedance curves for the A3’s, by the way.
It could be:
I do kind of agree with the statement that power doesn’t matter, but output (amplifier) impedance does. Often these go hand in hand. Really hard to find a 30 W amplifier with low output impedance. I have said this elsewhere, that for the price, I expect the A3s to kill a lot of other speakers in the market, especially the Focals. They are also going to be much, much better value than the S1 Mk II. |
Impedance curves I've seen in Stereophile's measurements of several other Magico speakers all show a peak of 9 to 12 ohms or so in the area of 2.5 kHz, followed by a rapid descent to 3 to 5 ohms throughout almost all of the treble region. Currently produced VAC amps provide three output taps, designated as either 2, 4, and 8 ohms, or 1-2, 2-4, and 4-8 ohms. Given the 4 ohm nominal impedance of the speaker my guess is that the dealer was not using the lowest of those three taps. And, assuming the A3 has an impedance variation that is similar to the other models I referred to, if he had been using the lowest of those three taps the darkness would have been significantly reduced. Regards, -- Al |
ozzy 574 post Yes, i make my statement , such amount power is not important to make sound bright . The same thing if you using some amplifier and crank volume control from low to big, the frequency response shoud be on same , but the human ears get different tone sensitivity . this is why old fashion amps get tone compensate volume control. |
Alex, I think you answered your own question. As the salesman had to crank the volume up on the tube amp to get decent output, that tells me the A3’s were underpowered. The rolled off top end would be due to dynamic compression. I’m auditioning the A3’s early next week paired with the new Vitus RI-101 which I recently auditioned with the Magico S3 Mk2’s. That was an excellent match, so the Vitus should also pair well with the A3’s. I’ll let you know my thoughts after my audition. |
