Magico A3 vs. Joseph Audio Perspective vs. Spendor D9

Any reason the ProAc D48's didn't make your list?  They are often listed as the D9's close rival.

Thank being said, I auditioned the D7's (not the 9's) against Spendor Classic 100 (effectively, mk III of the SP100) this summer, and preferred the 100's by a significant margin...

At the end of the day, the most repeated advice is also the best: only your ears will tell you.  You can try and reduce your list of possible candidates based on reviews or forum posts, but you might be knocking your ideal speaker off your list in the process.

For example, as I said before, the D7 and the D9 have got lots of good press, but when I heard the D7 against the Spendor Classic 100, I much preferred the latter.  You might prefer the D7.  No one can tell you.

I also auditioned the ProAc D30R.  Didn't like it, despite having owned and loved an older ProAc product for many years.  Several people whose opinion I respect highly praise the D48R highly.  Go figure.

Right now, I'm focusing on Harbeth.  Ultimately, instead of wondering about dozens of makes and models that you read about but have no chance of auditioning in person, you have to narrow down to what is practicable (stores within reasonable striking distance, audio shows), and then do the leg work, unless you're willing to gamble that a speaker you'd have liked even more is round the next corner.

@donquichotte  Hmmm, this is always difficult, but to me the Classic 100 gave a more full-bodied sound, right across the spectrum from treble to bass.  There was more there there.  The illusion of being in the same hall with a large group of instruments.  Something that I've started referring to, in my own shorthand, as wave-launch.  The sound hitting you.  I imagine good planars have it too.  In comparison, to my ears on that afternoon in that room and setup, the D7 sounded rather thin and rather tipped up to the treble, more Twiggy than Gina Lollobrigida.

This likely does not help, but the closest sound I've heard to the Classic 100 is the Harbeth 40.2.  As their design and provenance suggests, they are not that far apart--not surprising.  With the major caveat of different systems and different rooms, I'd say the Spendor was a touch more "technicolor", a touch more meaty, and the Harbeth a touch clearer, a touch better at delineating musical lines.  But all that may be down to other factors, and my impossible dream is to hear them side by side, to do a proper comparison.  The place where I heard the Harbeths, I also heard ProAc D30, and my reaction to them was very similar to my reaction to the D7.

I realize that this is not a "majority opinion", but I still think it's a valid one.

There are very few absolutes in audiophilia beyond it's playing music//there is no sound coming from it.

So, the majority always knows best?

Or, to look at it another way, so many factors feed into sales of a particular product, how can you take sale figures as an indicator of pretty much anything (other than we should all be buying shares in Magico).

By producing lots of very high-priced speakers reviewed deliriously in Absolute Sound, they created a mystique around the brand.  There are other factors too.  So when they come out with a good-sounded, highly competent 10K speaker it's hailed as something really special.

It *is* really special to the people who hear it and really like it.  It *isn't* to those that don't.  Both judgments are equally valid.